UK GAMES EXPO 2017

tabletop
GAMING

WERE YOU THERE? PICTURE SPECIAL INSIDE

#11 Aug/Sep ‘17 tabletopgaming.co.uk
STARFINDER | MIDDLE-EARTH | UK GAMES EXPO 2017

TOLKIEN ON SWORDS,
THE TABLE SEX AND
MIDDLE-EARTH’S
LASTING LEGACY
SCI-FI
AS THE HOBBIT HOW CYBERPUNK
TURNS 80 AND THE WITCHER
BROUGHT STYLE
TO ROLEPLAYING

WARHAMMER REDISCOVERING
40,000
DISCWORLD
CENTURY: STEP BACK INTO
SPICE ROAD TERRY PRATCHETT’S
SIDE-SPLITTING RPG
SECRETS

SAGRADA

SUB TERRA

ENERGY EMPIRE

THE CAPTAIN IS DEAD

STARFINDER
A FEAST FOR ODIN

THIS WAR OF MINE

WORD SLAM
PAIZO REVEALS ALL ABOUT ITS INTERSTELLAR
#11 AUG/SEP '17

DICE FORGE PATHFINDER SEQUEL + WE GIVE OUR VERDICT

Display until 04/10/17

ANALOGUE TO DIGITAL HAVE A GOOD WAR

£5.25

MEET THE TECHNOLOGY CHANGING THE INSIDE THE WELCOMING

FACE OF PHYSICAL GAMING FOREVER WARGAMING COMMUNITY

001_Cover_v2 MJ.indd 2 26/07/2017 09:54

 NEW WEBSI T
✓ FREE delivery on all orders ✓ Advanced plus level store for
over £40.00. Wizards of the Coast holding
✓ Same day dispatch on orders PPTQ’s plus more.
placed before 3pm. ✓ High street location with great
✓ Genuine LIVE stock levels. hotels and restaurants nearby.
✓ Huge tournament and gaming ✓ 1st class customer service.
halls, sitting from 60 40k players ✓ Loyalty rewards and gift
to 200 card players. vouchers available.

p02-03.indd 1 17/01/2017 14:20

 National Tournament Centre
holding the UK’s biggest
ITC event

SI TE NOW LIVE

www.WarGamesUK.co.uk
347-349 Lord Street, Southport, PR8 1NH • 01704 809090

p02-03.indd 2 17/01/2017 14:21

 IN THIS ISSUE
06 NEED TO KNOW 67 PLAY IT SMART
The latest news from Two academics reveal their
around the world of gaming. findings from games research.

10 FIRST TURN 68 UK GAMES EXPO 2017

WELCOME
Bruno Faidutti goes back to The unmissable games from
his bruising debut Baston.
this year’s Birmingham show.

12 MY FAVOURITE GAME
PLAYED
RPG author Jeff Tidball sets
Where did the summer go? We’re already fast approaching autumn – bad news for 76 STARFINDER
out on the Trail of Cthulhu.
fans of sunshine and tennis, but good news for us tabletop gamers as shows like 78 SUB TERRA
this month’s Gen Con and October’s Essen prepare to reveal the games we have 14 KICKSTARTING 80 CENTURY: SPICE ROAD
to look forwards to for the next year. In fact, Gen Con’s brightest star is our cover FROM SCRATCH 81 SECRETS
feature this week: Paizo’s sci-fi follow-up to legendary RPG Pathfinder, Starfinder. Art Deck takes the next 82 WARHAMMER 40,000:
To celebrate the massive launch, we’ve not only got an exclusive interview with step towards crowdfunding. DARK IMPERIUM
the game’s creative director on page 22, but you can also hear what we think in 84 UNFAIR
our review over on page 76. That’s far from all this issue, as we’re also taking the 16 TEN OF THE BEST 86 SAGRADA
time to celebrate the tabletop legacy of two of the greatest fantasy worlds ever to We’re not short of word games. 87 THE CAPTAIN IS DEAD
make the page: J.R.R. Tolkien’s land of Middle-earth, which turns 80 years old this
88 BÄRENPARK
year, and Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, which is being marked with a new 20th 18 ROLE CALL
anniversary edition of its classic 1990s RPG. Elsewhere, we 90 ENERGY EMPIRE
John Dodd rounds up the 91 SALTLANDS
speak with Cyberpunk creator Mike Pondsmith and his summer’s big RPG releases.
son Cody about their work on the influential ‘80s RPG 93 MTG: ARCHENEMY:
and the upcoming tabletop adaptation of the Witcher NICOL BOLAS
20 ALL THE JAHRES
video games. Plus, we’ve rounded up the best of this 94 WEREWORDS
James Wallis takes a look
year’s UK Games Expo – the biggest yet! Happy gaming! 95 ETHNOS
at Heimlich & Co.

Matt
96 DICE FORGE
ON THE22 A PATH TO 97 THE CHAMELEON
COVER
THE STARS 99 A FEAST FOR ODIN
We explore the galaxy of sci-fi 100 CHIMERE
Matt Jarvis RPG Starfinder with creative 101 THIS WAR OF MINE
director James Sutter. 102 OUTLIVE
Editor 103 ESCAPE FROM 100M B.C.
30 AWE OF THE RING 105 PACK O GAME
As The Hobbit turns 80, 106 WORD SLAM

Contact us... designers look back on the

tabletop legacy of Middle-earth.
107 ARCADIA QUEST: INFERNO
108 DOUGHNUT DRIVE-THRU
108 BRUTAL KINGDOM
@ tabletopgaming@warnersgroup.co.uk 36 AN INTRODUCTION TO...
109 ACCESSORIES
We get trapped on Matt
www.facebook.com/tabletopgamingmagazine Leacock’s Forbidden Island.
110 PAINTING GUIDE
twitter.com/TabletopMag Warhammer 40,000’s Space
38 THE MAKING OF...
Hunt a Killer with Owen Duffy. Marines and Death Guard.
EDITORIAL MARKETING
EDITOR Matt Jarvis MARKETING BRAND MANAGER
01778 392 400 Nicola Lumb 01778 395 007 44 SWORDS, SEX & SCI-FI 118 A DM’S GUIDE TO RPGS
matt.jarvis@warnersgroup.co.uk nicola.lumb@warnersgroup.co.uk Advice on creating your
Mike and Cody Pondsmith talk
HEAD OF DESIGN & PRODUCTION Cyberpunk and The Witcher. dungeons from scratch.
Lynn Wright PUBLISHED BY
ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER
DESIGNER Richard Hallam Claire Ingram 50 WHAT WAR IS GOOD FOR 121 EVENT REPORT
COVER IMAGE FROM The wargaming community Checking in with the Raiders
STARFINDER CORE RULEBOOK Warners Group Publications PLC embraces Tim Franklin.
Illustration by Lie Setiawan The Maltings, West Street, Bourne, of the Game Cupboard.
Lincolnshire PE10 9PH
01778 391 000 | www.warnersgroup.co.uk 54 PLAYING WITH YOURSELF
ADVERTISING 122 CLUB DIRECTORY
Ridin’ solo with games
TO ADVERTISE PLEASE CALL NEWSTRADE
GROUP ADVERTISING MANAGER for just one player.
Claire Ingram 01778 391 179 DISTRIBUTION 127 SHOP SPOTLIGHT
clairem@warnersgroup.co.uk Warners Group Publications PLC Play your Chaos Cards right.
01778 391 150 58 HOW ANALOGUE
GROUP TELESALES EXECUTIVE GAMING WENT DIGITAL
Ben Jackson 01778 391 129 PRINTING Tom Cassidy on gaming apps. 128 SHOP DIRECTORY
ben.jackson@warnersgroup.co.uk
This publication is
ADVERTISING DESIGN 62 REDISCOVERING THE DISC 130 TABLETOP TIME MACHINE
AND PRODUCTION printed by Warners
Danielle Tempest 01778 392 420 01778 395111 Richard Jansen-Parkes Phil Robinson gets caught
danielle.tempest@warnersgroup.co.uk visits the Discworld RPG. in Mouse Trap.. UK GAMES EXPO 2017
tabletop

WERE YOU THERE?

PICTURE SPECIAL INSIDE
#11 Aug/Sep ‘17
tabletopgaming.co.uk

The views expressed by contributors are not necessarily those of the publishers. Every care is taken to ensure that the content
of this magazine is accurate, but we assume no responsibility for any effect from errors or omissions. While every care is taken

SUBSCRIBE TODAY
STARFINDER | MIDDLE-EARTH

with unsolicited material submitted for publication, we cannot be responsible for loss or damage. While every care is taken when TOLKIEN ON
THE TABLE
MIDDLE-EARTH’S
SWORDS,

accepting advertisements, we are not responsible for the quality and/or the performance of goods and/or services advertised in
LASTING LEGACY SEX AND
AS THE HOBBIT
TURNS 80 SCI-FI
HOW CYBERPUNK
AND THE WITCHER

this magazine. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) exists to regulate the content of advertisements. Tel: 020 7429 2222
BROUGHT STYLE
TO ROLEPLAYING
| UK GAMES EXPO

Get an exclusive gift with your next issue

WARHAMMER
40,000
REDISCOVERING

© Warners Group Publications PLC, 2017

CENTURY:
SPICE ROAD DISCWORLD
2017

STEP BACK INTO

SECRETS TERRY PRATCHETT’S
SIDE-SPLITTING RPG
SAGRADA

SUB TERRA

SEE PAGE 66 FOR MORE DETAILS

ENERGY EMPIRE

THE CAPTAIN IS DEAD

A FEAST FOR ODIN

STARFINDER
THIS WAR OF MINE

WORD SLAM
#11 AUG/SEP '17

DICE FORGE PAIZO REVEALS ALL

ABOUT ITS INTERSTELLAR
PATHFINDER SEQUEL +
WE GIVE OUR VERDICT
ANALOGUE TO DIGITAL
MEET THE TECHNOLOGY
CHANGING THE
HAVE A GOOD WAR
FACE OF PHYSICAL
Display until 04/10/17

GAMING FOREVER INSIDE THE WELCOMING

£5.25

WARGAMING COMMUNITY

005_WelcomeContents_v4 MJ.indd 5 26/07/2017 09:57

 WITH THIS ISSUE OF
TABLETOP GAMING

YOUR WORLD 46 Michonne

EXCLUSIVE THE
Wandering Nomad
POINTS
BRUISER

WALKING DEAD:
ALL OUT WAR
HIGH
CHARACTER CARD
Slash and slice your way through brain-hungry
walkers using deadly swordmaster Michonne
H T H E PR IN T E DITION
AILABLE WIT
M Y AV ming.co.uk
ichonne is one of The Walking Dead’s most iconic

FREE GIFT ONL v is it ta b le to p g a

characters, arriving in style in the comics and TV series

the print editio n

order a copy of
with her unforgettable samurai sword and shackled

To zombie companions (minus arms and teeth).

She’s just as badass as part of your team in Mantic’s miniatures
game The Walking Dead: All Out War War, with a steely high nerve, Follow-Up Attack: Once per turn, if Michonne
wins a melee
lethal melee attack – which gets an extra die when combined with she may move into base contact with anothe
r standing enemy
her razor-sharp katana item card – and two red dice for defence. within her Kill Zone. Resolve this new melee
immediately,
Michonne’s special rules include a follow-up attack that allows even if one or more combatants has already
fought.
you to move and attack another walker within her kill zone when
Disarm: If Michonne wins a melee and rolls
she wins a melee once per turn, plus the ability to disarm an any !, she may
force one opponent to discard an equipped
opponent and force them to discard a melee weapon card when Melee Weapon
card of their choice.
she rolls any ! results, making her a formidable opponent up close.
Free with this issue is an alternate character card for Michonne
featuring variant artwork, which can be used in place of her
standard card in The Walking Dead: All Out War. The card is
available nowhere else in the world, making this issue of
Tabletop Gaming the only place you can find it. ■ IN

Awesome games club

two nights a week - and weekends! R

We’re close to Junction 1 of the M6 & Junction 18 of the M1 £

006_walkingDeadPromo_v2 MJ.indd 6 26/07/2017 09:58

 CONTACT US...
www.facebook.com/tabletopgamingmagazine

NEED TO @ tabletopgaming@warnersgroup.co.uk

www.twitter.com/TabletopMag

KNOW...
SPIEL LOVE
Kingdomino has scooped this year's
Spiel des Jahres, the illustrious Game
of the Year award widely considered the
biggest prize in tabletop gaming.
The achievement marks the first
such win for Five Tribes, Mr. Jack and
Yamatai designer Bruno Cathala, who
was Recommended for last year's
Kennerspiel des Jahres (Expert Game of
the Year) award for 7 Wonders Duel.
Also in the running for this year's
accolade was Magic Maze, the fast-
paced co-op hit from first-time designer
Kasper Lapp, and Race to El Dorado by
prolific creator and three-time Spiel des
Jahres nominee Reiner Knizia.
Meanwhile, Inka and Markus
Brand picked up their second
Kennerspiel des Jahres win – after
2012's Village – for escape-the-room
trilogy Exit: The Game, seeing off
competition from Shem Phillips'
Viking-themed Raiders of the North
Sea and Jacob Fryxelius' ambitious
simulation title Terraforming Mars.
The Brands' success brought to an
end the consecutive Kennerspiel wins by
Andreas Pelikan and Alexander Pfister,
who collected the prize in both 2015 and
2016 for Broom Service and Isle of Skye.
The winner of the 2017 Kinderspiel
des Jahres, which recognises kid-
friendly games for players aged six
and up, was penguin-flicking game
Ice Cool, besting its fellow nominees:
piratical treasure hunt Captain Silver and
magical adventure memory game The
Mysterious Forest, based on the graphic
novel of the same name.
IT COULD BE ENNIE-BODY
If you’re looking for a list of the
best RPGs of the last year, there’s
few better places to look than
the latest nominations for the
ENnie Awards, the prestigious
roleplaying prizes handed out at
Gen Con in mid-August.
Kickstarter success story
Tales from the Loop leads this
year’s shortlist, picking up nods
for best interior art, best game,
best setting, best writing and
product of the year thanks to its
unique alternate ‘80s setting and
storytelling inspired by classic
movies such as E.T.
The second edition of
– a reboot of the 1999 award-
winning historical fantasy game –
has also fared very well, scoring
nominations for best cover art,
best free product, best game,
best rules and product of the
year for its core rulebook, with its
scenario Pirate Nations picking
up an extra recommendation
for best supplement and the
map of Théah voted among the
best cartography.
Lovecraftian classic Call
of Cthulhu continues to be
as popular as ever, with ten
nominations for its seventh
edition, Field Guide to
Lovecraftian Horrors, keeper’s
screen pack accessory and
even the game’s spin-off
colouring book.
The other RPGs set to
battle it out for the lauded best
game accolade are Timewatch,
Bubblegumshoe and Sins of
the Father, while Veins of the
Earth, Bubblegumshoe, Polaris
RPG, Rifts, Doors to Darkness,
Torment: Tides of Numenera,
Timewatch and Atlas of Earth-
Prime join Tales from the Loop
and 7th Sea in the product of the
year shortlist.

PLAY WITH YOUR ART

That settles it then: games are art. If you want
definitive proof, look no further than a new
exhibition set to take place on September 23rd
at the Gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow.
Organised by TTG contributor Owen Duffy, the
free event will showcase modern tabletop titles
that are ideal for getting newcomers involved in
analogue gaming.
“We’re trying to give people a snapshot of the
hobby and expose people to some of the most
interesting releases out there at the moment,
but also to give a bit of context about why
games have become so big and why there’s this
creative explosion in the industry,” Duffy said.
Alongside influential titles such as Magic: The
Gathering, X-Wing and Pandemic, the selection
will include smaller games that show off the
hobby’s diversity and innovation.
“It’s a great opportunity to put games in front of
lots of people and make the case that games are an
important and thriving form of art,” Duffy added. “It’s
really exciting to me that, rather than just looking
at these games, people will have the chance to
experience them as their designers intended.”

IN BRIEF D&D-THEMED BETRAYAL AT HOUSE ON THE HILL HEADING TO BALDUR’S GATE

Central location. Free parking.

Comfortable facilities.
We’re close to Junction 1 of the M6 & Junction 18 of the M1

007_009_news_v3 MJ.indd 7 21/07/2017 14:42

 NEED TO KNOW...

A NEW KIND OF MAGIC

Magic: The Gathering turns 25
years old next year, but hitting
the quarter-of-a-century mark
isn’t going to stop the collectible
card game from shaking things
up in a big way.
From next spring onwards,
the card game will drop its
current habit of releasing blocks
made up of multiple sets, in
favour of a fresh ‘three-and-one’
schedule that will consist of
three big standalone expansions
launched in spring, autumn and
winter. Each set will be legal for
Standard play and will feature
a unique theme, setting and
mechanics, although stories
may cross over from one pack
to the next.
Replacing the summer
release will be beginner-
friendly core sets, which are
making a return after being
discontinued in mid-2015.
The starter packs will be
split between new cards and
reprints, hopefully making it
easier for newcomers to draft
cards and create custom decks.
As a result of the change,
Gatewatch characters and the
Masterpiece Series won’t be
included in as many sets, being
held back for special occasions.
The final two-set block will
end in spring 2018 with the
release of the small second half
of Ixalan, codenamed ‘Eggs’.
The first standalone expansions
are secretly titled ‘Soup’ and
‘Spaghetti’, with ‘Meatballs’,
‘Milk’ and, erm, ‘Archery’ in
2019. And it was sounding so
delicious, too.

GENTLEMEN, YOU INVISIBLE TOUCH (AC)

CAN’T FIGHT IN HERE! its trek in the oils It’s been a bumper year for RPGs, RolePlaying System), meaning it can be
fields, iron mines so Fantasy Flight has decided to get used with any world or genre you can
and rubber tree in on the roleplaying action with a think up – the core rulebook includes
plantations of a world brand new title called Genesys. No, rules and advice for running fantasy,
at war,” he explained. not that Genesis. steampunk, ‘weird war’, modern-day
“A totally new combat Genesys is billed as a setting-neutral and sci-fi games as a start.
system that gives RPG reminiscent of Steve Jackson’s In a similar manner, player
you direct impact on flexible GURPS (Generic Universal characters can be used in any setting,
the outcome. and are created from four archetypes
You may not have simultaneously. Military “Now you will and a career – which can be setting-
heard of Larry Harris, units are represented have to walk the specific or more generalised – as well
but you’ve almost by stackable counters fine line between as a series of skills and talents.
certainly heard of the and can be assigned the need for Gameplay is powered by a similar
game he created: different stances guns and your narrative dice system to that seen in
Axis & Allies. Now, the for air, land and sea population’s need the publisher’s Star Wars RPG Edge
designer of the hugely combat, fighting their for butter. Failing of the Empire, which uses custom
influential and iconic way across the game’s to do so could lead dice based on each character’s
‘80s World War II title is enormous 42-inch to civil unrest, a abilities that are then mixed with
returning with a brand circular map. collapsed economy difficulty dice. This means outcomes
new strategy game Harris has been and even massive can be more granular than simple
set during the global working on War Room unit desertions from pass or fail results, leading to
battle, War Room. for four years, and your battlefields.” successful actions with negative side
In War Room, claims it is “chock full The collapse of effects or unsuccessful attempts that
players execute of totally new concepts civilisation AND have upsides.
secret movement and and game systems”. butter? Sounds like The core rulebook includes both
production orders “A fascinating a hoot. War Room player and GM rules, and will be out
each turn, all of economic and social will hit Kickstarter this winter.
which are performed simulation that begins this autumn.

IN BRIEF DARK SOULS MAKER STEAMFORGED WORKING ON RESIDENT EVIL GAME

Dedicated
war room
We’re close to Junction 1 of the M6 & Junction 18 of the M1

007_009_news_v3 MJ.indd 8 21/07/2017 14:42

 WARHAMMER TIME
After close to a decade away, Warhammer
is coming back into the world of roleplaying
with a bang.
Firstly, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay
is getting a fourth edition release later this
year, eight years after Fantasy Flight’s
substantially overhauled third edition
(pictured) of the ‘80s title came to an end.
This time, it’s Cubicle 7 taking the reins,
with the Doctor Who RPG and Adventures
in Middle-earth publisher hinting that the
revised release will take its cues from the
first and second editions of the game,
released decades apart in 1986 and 2004,
respectively. The second edition replaced
the original's magic system and brought
the lore in line with the miniatures wargame.
That’s not all: Cubicle 7 has also
announced that it will be publishing a brand
new RPG based on Warhammer’s latest
incarnation, Age of Sigmar, next year.
Entirely separate to Warhammer Fantasy
Roleplay, the Age of Sigmar RPG will be
set in the Mortal Realms and focus on the
battle between heroes, gods and monsters.
❯ 7 WONDERS MOBILE APP FINALLY COMING TO IOS AND ANDROID THIS YEAR
007_009_news_v3 MJ.indd 9
BLOCKBUSTERS ON BOARD
It seems that every month
there’s another big movie
making its way to the tabletop,
and the last few weeks have
been no exception. In fact, there
have been tabletop spin-offs
for no fewer than three major
film franchises teased – so we
decided to round them up in one
handy place for you to peruse.
PACIFIC RIM
Guillermo del Toro’s cult favourite
monster-punching robot action
flick seems an obvious choice
for a board game, so it’s actually
quite surprising that we haven’t
seen any hint of a tabletop
adaptation since it first appeared
in 2013.
Nevermind, as the film studios
behind the mechs-versus-kaiju
film are making up for this gross
oversight with a whole series of
roleplaying and board games set
in the universe.
Helming the games will be
River Horse, which has honed
its movie-to-game skills with Jim
Henson’s Labyrinth, Terminator
Genisys and Hunger Games, not
to mention its My Little Pony RPG.
There are few details on what
the games will include, but they’ll
be out in time for next year’s
sequel, Pacific Rim: Uprising.
PLANET OF THE APES
Whether you’re a fan of the
Charlton Heston classic or the
more recent prequel series that
began with 2011's Rise of the
Planet of the Apes and ends with
this year's War for the Planet of
the Apes (we won’t even bother
counting Tim Burton’s 2001
reboot), you’re in luck, as board
games are in the works based
on both.
Arkham Horror creator
(pictured), but Planet of the Apes:
Richard Launius is designing
The Miniatures Board Game will
the co-op game based on the
be swinging its way to Kickstarter
1968 original, in which players
next spring.
will intriguing take on the role
of different sides of Colonel
George Taylor’s personality. TOTAL RECALL
Meanwhile, the more recent
The latest Arnie flick to make
trilogy is being turned into a its way to the tabletop following
miniatures game from Z First The Terminator, Total Recall:
Impact designer Hervé Sagnier. The Official Tabletop Game
Yes, there will be ‘dozens’ of (below left) is taking a slightly
miniature monkeys included. different approach with a social
There’s no release date yet deduction card game based on
for Launius’ Planet of the Apes the iconic 1990 action movie.
Players start the game in a
Rekall dream, equipped with a
gun and bar of Turbinium, and
must attempt to assassinate
the leader of the rival faction
while keeping their own
identity secret.
Those who are killed wake up
and become Rekall scientists,
giving them a new set of actions
and a different way to win.
There’ll be a Kickstarter for
the game later this year, so you
can get your ass to Mars in the
near future.
Perfect venue
for large events
We’re close to Junction 1 of the M6 & Junction 18 of the M1
21/07/2017 14:42
 FIRST TURN
BRUNO FAIDUTTI
The master-builder of Citadels looks back to his bruising, mid-‘80s debut:
the crazy, cartoonish biker-gang barroom-brawling simulator Baston
Interview by Dan Jolin
“I’ve always BACKGROUND
“It was 1984, and I was just a gamer living in Montpellier
fantasised in the south of France, where I was studying law and
economics. And it was by sheer luck that I decided to
about writing design this game with a friend, Pierre Cléquin – who
died about five years ago – and we happened to know
novels. someone who wanted to start publishing board games
in France. Actually, we started two games at the same
But it’s too time, but Baston was published first. The second one was
Knightmare Chess, which is still selling.”
much work. COMPONENTS
Designing a “With my friends I played the classics of this time; nine
times out of ten it was Cosmic Encounter, but sometimes
game is so Civilization or Hare & Tortoise. We also played a lot
of roleplaying games, which explains why Baston is a
much faster.” simulation game and so complex, too. In fact, I think
it’s the most complex game I ever designed! Since then
I’ve always been going towards simplicity. My games get
simpler and lighter every time.”
OBJECT
“Why the pub fight theme? We just thought it was fun!
I think it was less problematic in those times to make
jokes about such things. But it was not based on a real
incident. I’ve never been involved in anything like a fight.
■ Players control three gang
members and can make use of
It’s strange, because I’m so non-violent in principle. We
bottles, chains and more to beat weren’t aiming for any particular audience. I never do
up their rivals. (David Mills) when I design a game. I just design the game I like to play
with my friends and hope that there are
other people who will like the game for
the same reasons.”
10
010_FirstTurn_v2 MJ.indd 10
SETUP
“The game was illustrated by Frank Margerin who was
a very well-known comics artist in those times, and
whose characters were always these young people
in gangs, drinking beer and fighting. But in a very
fun way. It was not something dark. Baston is a fight
simulation game, but the point was it was intended to
be fun. A fun fact is that it was produced in a prison.
The prisoners putting it together must have had fun
looking at the setting and the stories!”
HOW TO PLAY
“Each player controls three biker gang members, and
there are a few scenarios you can do: for example,
getting dope which has been hidden in the toilets.
The board is the tavern and there are small cardboard
pieces for tables and chairs and arcade games. You have
a small card with your guys on it, and you add their
equipment – maybe a knife, with boots and a helmet.
And then on a piece of paper you write down six orders
– ‘I push the table’, ‘I break a bottle of beer and throw
it in this direction,’ etc. – and they are revealed and
implemented on the board. A typical game takes about
two hours. Which is funny, because that covers a brawl
which is supposed to be five minutes!”
END OF THE GAME
“It was successful for a game sold in the mid-‘80s
by a very small company… which means we sold
around 5,000 copies in five years! It wouldn’t be
seen as successful now. Today I see all its flaws, all
this unnecessary complexity. We tried to make it a
relatively smooth game, and it definitely isn’t. There
are 30 pages of rules! Recently, a game came out which
reminds me a lot of Baston, except it’s much looser and
lighter, and that’s The Dragon & Flagon. I think it’s a
much better version of Baston.”
STRATEGY TIPS
“The main lesson I took from designing Baston was
just that it’s not that hard to design a game. I’ve always
fantasised about writing novels. But it’s too much work.
Designing a game is so much lighter, faster. I think I
was surprised, even for such a big game, at the small
amount of actual ‘work’ that went into it. If you count
gaming as work. Which I don’t!” ■
21/07/2017 14:43
 SHOP
Huge range of board games,
miniatures, card games & more!

PLaY
Gaming venue for events large & small

GO OnlIne
Check out our full product range,
events & forums

CALL 01327 702 001

VISIT We’re close to Junction 1 of the M6

& Junction 18 of the M1

GET SOCIAL @BFHobbies Battlefield

Hobbies

p011.indd 1 19/07/2017 10:43

 MY FAVOURITE GAME
JEFF TIDBALL
The seasoned roleplaying writer, Horus Heresy designer and Gameplaywright
co-founder explains why there’s nowhere he’d rather be than on the Trail of Cthulhu
“Board
I
came to contemporary tabletop games by way of
roleplaying. When I was 11, Dungeons & Dragons
games foster blew me away. Its revolutionary approach to what a
game could be literally changed my life. The idea that
creativity to the action of the game was mostly imagined, mediated
by talking and effectively without boundaries… wow.
an extent. While it’s a fine game, D&D is not my favourite. For
me, Trail of Cthulhu is the current pinnacle of modern
But they can’t roleplaying’s ongoing evolution.
As a favourite, why a tabletop RPG rather than a
touch the board or card game?
What originally attracted me to Dungeons &
wild open- Dragons and kept me hooked on its contemporaries
– Rolemaster, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, James
endedness Bond 007 – as a teenager was that they allow for,
and effectively structure, raw creativity inside the
of RPGs.” framework of a game.
Board games foster creativity to an extent. They
require inventive solutions to interesting challenges
within a concrete structure. Collectible and
customisable games open their game spaces to even
wider creative ideas. But they can’t touch the wild open-
endedness of RPGs. Roleplaying wraps its arms around
the chance to imagine almost any character, setting or
adventure. Making up a sixth resource for your copy of
Catan is a non-starter; adding a new character type to
Trail of Cthulhu (or even transplanting the entire setting
to a different century or world) is trivial.
■ Top: Game designer and RPG
author Jeff Tidball. (Josh Kohanek)
■ Right: Trail of Cthulhu is
more about solving mysteries
than fighting monsters.
(©2017 Pelgrane Press Ltd)
12
012_myFavouriteGame_v2 MJ.indd 12
The value I put on human creativity is, perhaps,
extreme. But given that, of course my favorite would
be an RPG.
Why Trail of Cthulhu instead of another RPG?
The first generation of roleplaying games were about
killing monsters, taking their treasure and getting better
at doing more of that. Narrative elaborations abounded,
and it’s possible to deviate from that premise in those
games’ current incarnations but, even today, D&D is
a game about killing monsters, stealing treasures and
levelling up. And that’s fine.
But as stories? Investigating mysteries and exploring
human drama are way more interesting than the tactics
of murder and theft. The problem was that for a long
time, RPG systems were just plain bad at investigative
scenarios because they relied on randomness to decide
whether any given heroic activity succeeded. And in an
investigation, if you happen not to find the next clue,
the story is over.
The Gumshoe system, designed by Robin D. Laws
and used in Trail of Cthulhu, solved previous systems’
reliance on chance for investigation. It assumed that
all pertinent clues would be found, and instead asks
dramatic variations on the question, ‘What now?’
If, for example, the heroes learn that the heinous
criminal they’re pursuing is their mentor, they must
then grapple with the dramatic question of what
justice looks like.
Among several RPGs that use Gumshoe, Trail of
Cthulhu’s setting is H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos,
based on horror stories written by Lovecraft and
others. It’s a near-ideal backdrop for drama because
the imbalance between its protagonists and their
enemies is so stark. Drama is about striving in the face
of difficulty, and the Mythos has that in spades.
Trail of Cthulhu has more virtues, of course. It
effectively supports two play styles – pulp and purist
– that allow customisation to its players’ tastes. It was
written by Kenneth Hite, one of the best RPG writers
working today. It’s supported by a publisher held in
almost universally high esteem. And so on.
Roleplaying games take work to play well. Not
to mention to prepare for and run well. RPGs
aren’t always fast, they can be expensive and they
require as much from your fellow players as they
do from you. But. But! Few worthwhile things are
easy, are they? ■
21/07/2017 14:44
 Free 24h shipping on orders over £75!

Brand new state of the art WE STOCK!

webstore with transparent
realtime stock levels
Same day dispatch available
24 Hour shipping on all orders
Amazing customer loyalty
rewards
Rated 9.8 out of 10 on TrustPilot
for excellent customer service

Ranked as number 1 Toys & Games online retailer for customer service in the UK*
*according to trustpilot.co.uk, correct at time of printing.

www.goblingaming.CO.uk
01606 210109 120-122 High Street, Winsford, Cheshire, CW7 2AP

p013.indd 1 17/05/2017 12:27

 KICKSTARTING
FROM SCRATCH
Holly Gramazio and her team prepare to bring their inventive drawing
game Art Deck to Kickstarter, and find it’s not as simple as it seems
“When the
S
o: we made this drawing game, Art Deck. We ran
it at a few events and it went pretty well. Then we
Kickstarter made ran it with friends and they refused to stop
playing. Then one night I found myself playing it on my
actually own, laying out cards and following the instructions
and drawing a not-very-good picture. And we thought:
starts, there’s well, yes, let’s do something else with this game.
And for a slightly weird card game which involves
a month sending people lots of art supplies, there’s an obvious
next step for that ‘something else’: Kickstarter.
spent on The best advice we got about running a games
Kickstarter, after talking to half a dozen people who’ve
tenterhooks.” done it successfully, was: just make a Kickstarter page
for the game straight away. Fill in details, write up
some reward levels, get something down in draft form
on the actual page to find out where your gaps are,
what needs to be done.
But that’s just the start. I’ve been involved in a
couple of Kickstarters in the past, and the thing is:
they’re SO MUCH work. More work than you expect.
More work than you expect even after you know that
there’s going to be more work than you expect.
The setup is bad enough: budgets, distribution,
production, rewards, a video of yourself saying perky
■ Kickstarter is ideal for a less and cheerful stuff about why the game’s great. It’s also
conventional game like Art Deck. important, we’ve been told over and over again, to get
14
014_kickstartingFromScratch_v2 MJ.indd 14
some graphic design work done in advance – people
won’t back your game if they don’t know what it looks
like – so that means involving a designer well before
the Kickstarter launches.
So there’s the prep. And then when the Kickstarter
actually starts, there’s a month spent on tenterhooks,
waking up each morning to find out if anyone’s backed
your project overnight, answering questions, writing
chirpily amusing tweets and linkable essays about the
design process so that more and more people find out
about your game – oh my god, it’s just so much.
What this means is that it’s important, as everyone
we’ve talked to has told us, to do as much as you can
well in advance. And that means that now, months
out from our extremely vaguely planned launch, we’re
starting to split our attention on the project in two.
It’s not just a matter of making the game better. It’s
also a matter of getting ready to tell people about it, to
work out how to ask for their attention and money, to
find a one-sentence summary that sells the core idea
of the game. “You build instructions collaboratively to
make a set of paintings”: kinda okay? “It’s a drawing
game where the things you draw might actually look
good”: probably better. “It’s a reflection on ideas of
authorship and creation where the final output is
both a record of communal gameplay and an artwork
in its own right”: y’know what, probably not.
So here we are, wobbling along with our legs
stretched out between these two parallel paths –
refining the game while also getting it ready to show
to the public. But at least there’s one thing that serves
both purposes: playtesting. Trying the game out,
gradually making it better, figuring out how to explain
it to players and making as many people as possible
aware of it so that when it launches, some of them
might want a copy of their own.
Which means that even as the menacing prospect
of a Kickstarter looms slightly closer, there’s an upside.
Scrawling with charcoal and messing around with paint
is always a good time, and if you can have a productive
day while smearing globs of blue acrylic across a piece of
paper with your foot, then so much the better. ■
This is the second instalment in this continuing series
following Art Deck from concept to Kickstarter. Find
the first entry in June’s TTG, and be sure to check in
next issue to find out what comes next.
21/07/2017 14:44
TTG New Guinea advert.qxp_Layout 1 05/07/2017 09:46 Page 1

the aussies get stuck in!

In 1942, Japanese forces invaded the island of New Guinea and started a
bitter, three-year campaign against allied Australian and American forces.
Fought in dense jungles and across rugged mountaintops, the grueling
fight pushed men to their very limits and forced commanders to adopt new
strategies and tactics for the harsh island terrain. Filled with new
rules, scenarios, unit types, and a full Australian army list this
supplement for Bolt Action provides players with all of the
information they need to set their games in this unforgiving
battlefield.

Bolt Action New Guinea campaign book: £19.99 / $30

Recieve this FREE exclusive figure of Corporal ‘Bull’ Allen
when you buy the New Guinea book directly from Warlord Games!

Australian Jungle Division Infantry Section: £15 / $24

Australian short 25-pdr light artillery: £13 / $20.75 Papuan Infantry Battalion Section (10 figures): £15 / $24

TM
Visit our HQ store at
The Howitt Building,
Lenton Boulevard,
Nottingham, NG7 2BD
p015.indd 1
Call our UK office on: +44 (0) 115 978 0386
For Trade enquiries: +44 (0) 115 978 4202
For North American Trade enquiries: (602) 445 6406 (Arizona time)
www.warlordgames.com
19/07/2017 10:57
 2
LETTER TYCOON
A slightly different spin on the ‘letters as money’ format, Letter
Tycoon sees players spelling words using a mixture of their personal
letters and shared cards to build up their cash before ‘patenting’ a
letter – meaning they earn extra dosh when other players use the
letters they own on future turns. Some of the letters also grant unique
abilities, raking in even
more moolah. It’s
wickedly fun thanks
to the interaction
between players and
features absolutely

1
beautiful artwork,
making it a choice
PAPERBACK pick for fans looking
In Paperback players are elevated to the status of to convince their
writers finishing their hit novels word by painful word. friends that spelling
Forming words using your hand of cards earns cash can be fun. Honest.
to buy and add better letters to your deck, increasing
your selection until you can spell words long or
complex enough to afford the pricey wild cards,
which also grant victory points. Some of the cards
also grant special skills to bump up your income as
you race to out-spell your opponents in a fantastic
mash-up of deckbuilding and word-making. Or why
not play the co-op variant and work together?

10
A
ren’t words great? After all, without
them you wouldn’t be able to read this
very magazine. It turns out that words
are also pretty fab when it comes to games,
with loads of tabletop designers opting to
OF THE BEST…
WORD GAMES
(THAT AREN’T SCRABBLE)
Of course, you can’t mention word games
without someone bringing up Scrabble, but
we’ve deliberately avoided including the
family favourite in this list for obvious reasons;
first off, everyone already knows about it and,
to create your words from letters, some that
involve using your knowledge of words to
score points and others that treat letters and
words as something else. Though they may be
quite different when it comes to words, they all
make the mastery of language and enjoyment secondly, there are so many lesser-known have something in common: they’re all loads
of spelling, puns, wordplay, storytelling and games out there that deserve your love just of fun. Oh, and they’re not Scrabble.
other linguistic hijinks part of the fun. as much. We’ve gone for games that ask you Chosen by Matt Jarvis

3 4
BANANAGRAMS
Often called ‘Scrabble without a board’,
Bananagrams boils down the letter-placing
classic to its spelling core by getting rid of the
bonus squares. Players start with a handful of
letter tiles and create their own personal lattice
of connected words, rather than sharing a grid. When one player BARBAROSSA
has used up all their letters, everyone grabs a new tile – this An earlier game by Catan
happens until there are none left and the quickest speller is creator Klaus Teuber, this Spiel
declared the winner. Because everyone spells at once des Jahres winner is a fun mix
and the only objective is to use letters rather of clue-guessing and model-
than making really long words, it’s a sculpting, as players try to
lot easier and faster to play than identify what their friends have
Scrabble. Plus, it comes in made out of clay, often letter by
a banana-shaped bag! letter or by asking simple yes/
no questions as they progress
around a game board by
rolling a die or spending gems.
Players score points based
on how quickly they guess
the object, which must be a
simple word, but the modeller
can lose points
if they make
the answer too
easy or hard to
work out.

16

016_017_tenOfTheBest_v3 MJ.indd 16 21/07/2017 14:45

 6 WIBBELL++
Wibbell++ is not just one game; it’s
a deck of two-letter cards decorated
with abstract patterns designed to be
used as the foundation for a variety
of different play styles. Five sets of
rules come in the box, each distinctly
different to the last; there’s a fast-
paced card-grabbing dexterity game,

5
ANOMIA
A brain-busting spin on Snap, Anomia hinges on your
ability to recall connections between words. When
symbols on two cards match, the pair of players must
race to shout out something related to the category on
their opponent’s card first. The topics are varied enough
to keep things fresh for a long time, ranging from famous ghosts and
radio stations to cowboy accessories and salad dressings, and the
gameplay can be explained in 20 seconds, making it an ideal party game
for families – or a real laugh once everyone’s had a couple of drinks.
a game about inventing phrases, a
more traditional word-building setup,
a game about forming sequences and
a co-op storytelling variant. The titular
mode involves shouting out words
using letters from your own personal
cards and a central card, which is then
added to your hand and must be used
in subsequent rounds.

7
WORDSY
Solving the
issue of never
having the
right letters,
Wordsy
allows you to form a word
using any of the cards
on the table and any
other letters you need –

8
whether they’re visible or
not. Of course, the idea
is to use as many of the CODENAMES
cards as possible to rake The recent Spiel des Jahres winner and party favourite
in the biggest score you might not involve spelling, but you still need to have a good
can (other letters score handle on words to triumph. Two spymasters compete to
nothing), with harder letters communicate the location of their spies, hidden in a grid
offering bonus points. It’s of words, to their teammates using only one word. The
a fun, smart twist on the trick is hinting at multiple spies with a single clue, without accidentally leading
formula – although you’ll your companion to an enemy spy or assassin. Think of it as a cross between
never be able to blame a Minesweeper and Taboo, odd as it sounds. It’s incredibly simple and easy, but
bad draw again. continues to be lots of fun time and time again – a modern classic in the making.

9WORD SLAM
Following in the wake of
Codenames’ success is Word
Slam, which takes the one-
word clue setup of the party hit
and switches things around so
players are describing just one
answer to their teammates but

10
can only use the single-word
cards provided in the box to UNSPEAKABLE WORDS
give clues without speaking or Here’s something a little different: a word game that is inspired
acting. So a banana becomes by, yes, H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos. The horror theme
‘eat, yellow, circle, divided’ – gives this a very different feel to many other word games, as
but ‘eat, yellow, circle’ could players spell words using letter cards in their hand to score
just as easily be a pancake points but must roll a die to keep their sanity after each word is
or an egg. It’s a duel against formed. Spelling longer words increases the chance of losing
the opposing team to solve your marbles and failing the test means losing one your five
each riddle first. If you liked lives, so sticking to shorter words can be safer – but taking the
Codenames, this should be risk can mean raking in many more of the 100 points needed
right up your street. to win. It’s a neat twist on the often dry word-building format.

17

016_017_tenOfTheBest_v3 MJ.indd 17 21/07/2017 14:46

 18

018_019_RoleCall_v3 MJ.indd 18 21/07/2017 14:46

 With Star Trek and Lord of the Rings releases hitting the tabletop,
plus Warhammer on the way, it’s a summer of RPGs to remember
Words by John Dodd
I
n the run up to Gen Con 50, many companies
are bringing out the big guns in preparation
for what is likely to be the biggest tabletop
games show the world has ever seen.
Leading the charge is Modiphius with Star
Trek Adventures. Using the 2d20 system, the
new corebook includes all you need to play the
game in a single book, including an extensive
exploration of the United Federation of Planets
and its galactic neighbours in the Alpha, Beta
and Gamma quadrants, guidelines on how to
run an adventure of exploration and discovery
for the crew of a Federation starship, and a full
catalogue of aliens and antagonists including
Klingons, Romulans, Cardassians, the Borg
and the Dominion.
Cubicle 7 is making a number of changes in
its lineup, with some of the publisher’s games
reverting back to the original owner and
others being released to allow it to concentrate
on its core products. For
us, it just means that before
we get to the new version
of Warhammer Fantasy
Roleplay, there’s going to be
a lot more coming out.
First is the Rhovanion
Region Guide for Adventures
in Middle-earth, further
describing the rolling Vales
of Anduin and the trackless
forest of Mirkwood. It
expands on the descriptions
given in the core guides,
offering new sanctuaries and
new perils for players’ heroes
19
018_019_RoleCall_v3 MJ.indd 19
to discover, as well as an expanded bestiary
and new cultural backgrounds for wayward
elves and wild hobbits.
Next up is the Bree sourcebook for The One
Ring RPG, giving all the details of Bree-hill,
Bree itself and the inn of The Prancing Pony.
Within are details of the Bree-land, Archet,
Combe and Staddle, maps and playable culture
details for the men of Bree as well as three new
adventures: Old Bones and Skin, Strange Men
and Strange Roads, and Holed up in Staddle.
From Monte Cook comes Predation, a
world book for the Cypher system. The players
have travelled in time to the Cretaceous
period, where they’ve managed to engineer
themselves a new home, using dinosaurs
to help them along the way but, somehow,
they’ve lost the ability to return to the future,
and they now have to find a way to deal with
the world, because history shows that there’s
an asteroid on the way sometime soon…
On the small press, Shades of Vengeance put
Era: Hitman through Kickstarter earlier this year,
which is now out in digital and print editions.
This game has you playing superpowered
assassins trying to eliminate targets who have
just as much power, if not more – but the reaper
comes for everyone, even the players.
Finally, from Fearlight games, there’s Hood:
Adventures in Sherwood. As you would
expect, it’s the game of playing outlaws in the
time of Robin Hood, but the creator has kept it
close to the original stories, rather than going
Prince of Thieves on it. That’s not to say you
can’t have a mullet when playing the game,
but it’s not required. ■
21/07/2017 14:47

James Wallis replays the winners of the Spiel des Jahres in order
Worthy winner? A nose ahead of some stiff competition | Worth playing now? Yes
Availability: The last English-language edition was 2012 | Price: Around £20 second-hand
T
here’s a lot of argument about what
‘Eurogame’ means, and what does and
doesn’t fall within its definitions. Like
pornography, it’s hard to define but you know
it when you see it. So it seems incredible that
it took the Spiel des Jahres jury eight years to
come up with a shortlist and winner that with
the benefit of 30 years of hindsight we can
point at and go: ‘Those. There. That is what
Eurogames look like.’
It’s a shame almost none of them are
well known today.
One of the 1986 shortlistees has stood the
test of time: Labyrinth, Max Kobbert’s brain-
twisting, tile-shifting delight. But the winner
has almost disappeared into undeserved
anonymity. It doesn’t get much recognition
for it today, but Heimlich & Co. introduced
a number of ideas that modern games
take completely for granted. It was also the
first Spiel des Jahres win for a man who
dominated global game design in the 1980s
and 1990s. Not Paul Lamond, no. Ladies and
gentlemen, I give you Wolfgang Kramer.
Oh, shut up at the back. If you haven’t
heard of him, that’s your flaw. Wolfgang ‘El
Grande, Tikal,
Tikal Torres’ Kramer. You may not
know his work first-hand, but you’ve felt its
020_021_allTheJahres_v3 MJ.indd 20
ALL THE JAHRES
Title: Heimlich & Co. | Year of win: 1986 | Designer: Wolfgang Kramer
Number of players: 2-7 | Playing time: 30 minutes
influence across hundreds of games. He’s a
legend. He’s won the Spiel des Jahres more
times than anyone else. He’s the man who
pioneered action-point systems and area-
control mechanics. Heimlich & Co. was the
first commercial game to use two Eurogame
staples: a scoring track around the edge of
the board, and meeple. Yes, meeple started
here. If you thought it was Carcassonne then
you are Carcass-wrong.
Opening its box today, Heimlich & Co.
doesn’t look like much. A board with 12
locations, seven wooden silhouettes of
people in hats, seven cards, a wooden safe,
some scoring tokens, a die, the rules and
some light theming about spies looking
for information hidden in ten houses. It’s
not really about spies; it’s a light, clever
game of guessing concealed identities and
moving pieces to maximise your score and
minimise everyone else’s.
Let’s talk about the meeple first, because
people get excited about that stuff. These are
not the short, wide, arms-out meeple that
Carcassonne made famous; they’re wooden
figures that look like silhouetted and
bowler-hatted people in heavy overcoats.
They’re tall and solid; these are chunky,
well-made bits of timber. It’s the mid-1980s
and German games are already making
the rest of the world’s injection-moulded
components look and feel like crap.
‘Heimlich & Co.’ translates roughly as
‘Clandestine & Co.’ and has nothing to do
with manoeuvres or choking. In fact it’s
a roll-and-move game, and if you’re still
reeling in shock after the revelation that
Railway Rivals (1984’s winner) was too,
please pick yourself off the floor. Heimlich
& Co. is clever with its dicing. On your turn
you divide your roll among any of the spies
you want: move one, move some, move
all, as long as you go clockwise and use all
your points.
Which agents should you move? There’s
the rub: this is also a hidden-role game, so
apart from yourself you don’t know who’s
playing which colour. But when one of the
pieces lands on the space that contains the
Big Wooden Safe then every agent scores
the number of the house they’re currently
in, meaning one to 10 points unless they’re
in the ruin (–3), or the church, which is
worthless. Then the player who hit the safe
moves it to a new location, and you carry
on. First to 42 points wins.
21/07/2017 14:48
 So you’re trying to move your piece into the
optimum scoring position and sabotage the
pieces you suspect belong to the other players,
without giving away what colour you are.
Unless you’re playing with seven people there
will always be more spies on the board than
players controlling them, and because nobody
knows who’s who all the pieces get moved and
score points. That means the eventual winner
may be a piece nobody is playing. If this
happens and you don’t find it hilarious then,
my friend, you take games too seriously.
Heimlich & Co. is a simple game. There’s
not a lot of depth or strategy, but the
hidden-role and split-roll mechanics are
enough to keep it an intriguing, involving
experience that makes you want to play
it again. It’s not a game you’d devote an
evening to – it’s more aperitif than main
course – but even though the mechanics
have been reused and remixed in a
hundred other titles, it still feels fresh and
clever – and fun. There’s no grind here.
Every decision is interesting, every player’s
move needs to be watched and considered, ■ Above: Heimlich & Co. was
and dropping the piece you suspect is your the first Spiel des Jahres win for
renowned designer Wolfgang
rival’s agent on the ruin is a delight that Kramer, who has collected the
never fades. It may not be a deep game, but award more times than anyone else.
it’s a masterclass in how to build a lot of
play with not a lot of pieces. ■ Left: A key part of the game are
the hidden identities: players can
It’s known in English as ‘Top Secret divide their roll between all seven
Spies’, or sometimes ‘Under Cover’ or of the pieces, trying not to reveal
‘Detective & Co.’, but has been out of print which meeple is theirs while also
for a while, which is a shame as it’s a lovely attempting to gain the most points.
introduction to the principles that make
Eurogames so involving. It may not be
Wolfgang Kramer’s finest hour, but it is an Next issue: 1987 winner Auf Achse, designed by Wolfgang Kramer. See, told you he was good.
enjoyable 30 minutes.
James Wallis is a games designer and director of the games consultancy Spaaace.
Also: meeple in bowler hats. Just saying. ■

020_021_allTheJahres_v3 MJ.indd 21 21/07/2017 14:48

 A PATH
TO THE
STARS
Fantasy RPG Pathfinder is headed
to a new world – actually, dozens of
them – with sci-fi sequel Starfinder.
Creative director James Sutter
shows us around the far reaches
of the roleplaying universe
Words by Matt Jarvis

I
n 2008, Paizo changed the roleplaying
scene forever with the announcement
of Pathfinder,, its fantasy RPG created
from the DNA of Dungeons & Dragons
3.5,, which initially divided the opinion of
fans then awaiting D&D’s ’s controversial
fourth edition that the ambitious
newcomer purposefully rebelled
against. Pathfinder went on to become
a roleplaying giant of its own, becoming
the first RPG to outsell D&D in more than 30
years and inspiring further adventures, tabletop
spin-offs, video games, tie-in novels and countless
other additions that expanded the universe.
Close to a decade on, Pathfinder’s ’s universe is about
to grow like never before as Paizo prepares to launch
Starfinder,, the first full sequel to the RPG that ditches
its fantasy trappings for the advanced technology and
interstellar travel of science fiction.
“The idea had been percolating for a long time,
honestly,” reveals creative director James Sutter. “I had
written a book called Distant Worlds that outlined a
solar system for Pathfinder – basically a bunch of little
mini-settings that neighbour Pathfinder’s core planet of
Golarion – and that did surprisingly well with the fans,
showing us there was an audience for mixing science-
fiction peanut butter with our fantasy chocolate. ▶

■ Starfinder takes place in the same universe as Pathfinder,

but is set a long time in the future. (Artist: Setiawan Lie)

22

022_026_starfinder_v3 MJ.indd 22 25/07/2017 08:33

 “In a galaxy of billions of stars, there’s always a new corner
you can carve out for whatever crazy idea you have.”

23

022_026_starfinder_v3 MJ.indd 23 25/07/2017 08:33

 STARFINDER
■ Right: The gas giant planet of
Liavara in the Golarion system.
(Artist: Leon Tukker)
■ Opposite: The towering
humanoid lizards of the Vesk are
just one of Starfinder’s new races.
(Artist: Tomasz Chistowski)
■ Below: Navasi is a human
envoy, a class suited to
supporting and leading allies .
(Artist: Remko Troost)
“At the same time, publisher Erik Mona is a huge
classic sword-and-planet buff and had wanted to do
something like this for a while, coining the name
‘Starfinder’ years before it was seriously considered.
And Pathfinder creative director James Jacobs had
done a really popular science-fantasy adventure path
called Iron Gods for Pathfinder. So when you took
everything together, we knew the interest was there.
“But it wasn’t until last year that Erik pulled us
all together and said, ‘‘Pathfinder’s in a good place,
it’s stable – I think we can do something new.’ The
feeling in the room was electric – after so long being
focused solely on Pathfinder, doing something
totally new was both appealing and terrifying.
We all left thinking, ‘We can do this!’ Which fairly
quickly turned into, ‘Holy god, how do we do this?’”
When Pathfinder was created, the D&D
3.5 rules at its core were already aging, having
debuted half a decade before in 2003. Pathfinder
made significant tweaks to the formula – it was
actually referred to as ‘3.75’ by its creators during
development – but still stuck close to many of
the concepts and mechanics established by
its fantasy forebear. Taking Starfinder players
further beyond these established boundaries
while retaining enough of the smooth roleplaying
gameplay that had made its predecessor such a
success required significantly more work.
Starfinder is the child of Pathfinder in many ways,”
“Starfinder
Sutter observes. “Rules-wise, it stands alone and has
many key differences – a lot of math has changed,
and some rules have been simplified or altered to
better accommodate a world with laser guns and
jetpacks. Yet at the same time, you still have classes
and feats and skills, you roll a d20 to hit, you gain
experience and level up, and so forth.”
24
022_026_starfinder_v3 MJ.indd 24
Despite the significant gameplay changes required,
Starfinder remains firmly rooted in Pathfinder’s foundation.
“I don’t think anything was really built from the ground
up – the whole thing is an evolution of the Pathfinder rules,
and the desire for backward compatibility always kept
us with one foot in Pathfinder,” Sutter insists. “That said,
some things are very different. Equipment, for instance, is
different in a lot of ways – your armour has item slots, you’re
regularly replacing and upgrading your weapons, crafting
works differently. But, for the most part, we were tweaking
and refining systems and representing information to make
it more accessible rather than completely rebuilding the
Pathfinder engine. Our from-the-ground-up efforts were
more focused on the new systems that didn’t exist at
all: things like starship combat, character themes or all
the new classes and races. And then, of course, there was a
ton of new content to generate on the setting side, seeing as
Pathfinder’s whole planet was removed from the picture!”
While the in-game inhabitants of Starfinder have had
thousands of years to adjust to the disappearance of the
fantasy world of Golarion, Pathfinder players may balk at
the idea of waving goodbye to a realm they have spent close
to a decade exploring. Sutter is keen to stress that making
the potentially jarring shift across as easy as possible was at
the forefront of the team’s minds, as they ensured elements
of Pathfinder would fit among the unfamiliar environment.
“While complete backward compatibility was always
going to be impossible, our guiding principle was that you
should be able to use a Pathfinder monster in Starfinder
on-the-fly and with minimal conversion fuss, and I think
we’ve pulled it off,” he says. “But the classes are all new
and the core races are different – except for humans.
My expectation is that while there are innumerable
differences, folks familiar with Pathfinder will be able
to pick it up and go, ‘Oh, I see how this works’ and
begin playing with fairly little learning curve.”
21/07/2017 14:57
 WORLDS AWAY
Starfinder may take place in Pathfinder’s universe, but it’s
a cosmos made anew by the drastic effects of time.
“Starfinder is set thousands of years in Pathfinder’s
future – exactly how far is unclear, due to a giant magical
gap in history called the ‘Gap’, a sort of deity-level amnesia
that affected the entire multiverse,” Sutter summarises.
“While most folks have been in the space age for a long
time, it’s only been a few hundred years since the discovery
of feasible interstellar travel via a mysterious hyperspace-like
dimension called the ‘Drift’. As a result, players are dropped
into the start of a new age of frontier exploration, with
individuals, corporations, and governments all headed out to
the stars to colonise new worlds, meet new cultures and bring
back lucrative new – or ancient – technology and magic.
“Another key difference is that Golarion itself has
mysteriously disappeared, with not even the gods able –
or willing – to tell people where it’s gone.”
Replacing Golarion is Absalom Station, a huge city
floating in space that serves as the heart of trade and
diplomacy for the galactic alliance known as the Pact
25
022_026_starfinder_v3 MJ.indd 25
Worlds. While Absalom and its surrounding planets are
packed full of strange and wonderful new creatures and
characters for players to meet, Pathfinder fans will find
plenty of nods to their now-absent former domain.
“One thing I hope people will really enjoy about the
game is how, in with all the new stuff, we’ve carried some
elements of Pathfinder forward and changed them to fit
the setting,” Sutter says. “So you’ve still got all the old core
races like dwarves and elves, but they’re no longer the
biggest movers and shakers in the system, having been
outpaced by races like androids and ysoki ratfolk and
the insectile shirren. There are still organizations like the
Hellknights, only now their citadels are enormous devil-
powered battleships floating through the darkness. Some
of the familiar gods are still prominent, while others have
fallen to obscurity and been replaced by new alien gods.
It’s all about finding fun ways to mix the new and the old!”
This melting pot of fantasy and sci-fi extends to the
player-created characters that will spend hours upon
hours embarking on the planet-hopping adventures
laid out by their game master. ▶
21/07/2017 15:17
 STARFINDER

26

022_026_starfinder_v3 MJ.indd 26 21/07/2017 14:58

 “Race-wise, we’ve still got all the core races from
Pathfinder – your classic Tolkien-esque elves, dwarves,
and so on – but the focus is more on new player races
that have risen in prominence,” Sutter details. “The
seven core races of Starfinder are humans, androids,
four-armed kasathas, telepathic lashuntas, insectile
shirrens, reptilian vesk and ysoki ratfolk.
“Class-wise, you’ve also got seven to choose from:
heavily armed soldiers, sneaky operatives, charismatic
envoys who boost their friends, mechanics who have either
a customised drone or an AI linked to their brain, mystics
who channel mysterious energies, technomancers who use
spellcoding to hack the laws of physics and solarians who
form weapons and armor out of stellar energy, and whose
abilities change from round to round based on whether
they attune themselves to the forces of energy or entropy.”
If the mention of spellcoding and technomancers
pricked up your ears, what you’re thinking is probably right:
players will be able to combine their technical prowess
with the ability to wield good old-fashioned enchantments.
“The technology of Starfinder is a blend of science and
magic,” Sutter explains. “You’ve got powered armour, but
it might be covered in magical runes. You’ve got an assault
rifle, but it might be blessed by a goddess to make you better
at killing demons. Your computer is subject to magical
hacking. Even starship travel is inherently magical, as the
discovery of the Drift was granted by an AI that achieved
godhood, and nobody else really understands how it works.”
It’s a potentially contentious decision, with some
sci-fi devotees condemning the use of magic to explain
abilities and events – no matter how fantastical – that
could instead be explained more ‘logically’ using far-
flung technology or science. Of course, the argument
also goes the other way: simply look at the oft-criticised
use of midichlorians to explain the magical Force in Star
Wars as a mystery that was better left unsolved.
“There’s a certain mystery that goes along with allowing
magic into your setting, a sense of unlimited possibility,”
Sutter enthuses. “But, more importantly, as soon as
we decided that we wanted this to be an evolution of
Pathfinder’s setting, we knew there was still going to be
fantasy, because I’ve never understood the trope that
technology replaces magic. To me, it seems inevitable that
magic and technology would blend, that they’d just be
two different ways of getting things done, and whichever
was cheaper or most effective in a given situation would
be the one that got used. But really, when you get right
down to it, the first thing I said when Erik proposed doing
Starfinder was, ‘Hell yes! Space wizards and laser ninjas!’
And I’ve tried to let that gut impulse be a guiding light.”
While leaping into sci-fi with a standalone RPG
would have provided the perfect reason to leave the
world and fantasy of Pathfinder behind, Sutter is
quick to insist that the ties between the games only
strengthen Starfinder’s underlying lore.
“There were several reasons,” he responds when
asked why remaining in the Pathfinder universe so was
important. “One was pure business – we know people
022_026_starfinder_v3 MJ.indd 27
love Pathfinder, but would they follow us to something ■ Opposite: The cover of
totally new? Another was that people had been asking Starfinder’s core rulebook.
for years for us to expand on the solar system presented (Artist: Remko Troost)
in Distant Worlds, and this was a chance to take that farther
than we’d ever be able to in Pathfinder. I think in the ■ Below: Keskodai, a mystic from
end what really sold folks was the chance to see how some the insect-like race of shirren.
of our favorite aspects of Pathfinder might evolve. What (Artist: Remko Troost)
gods will still be prominent in thousands of years? What
organisations are still around? What’s their distant, garbled
perspective on this present we’ve put so much work into? It
just seemed more fun than starting from scratch.”
ALL ABOARD
Strange lands, memorable characters and thrilling up-close
combat are staples of roleplaying whether players are
fighting with swords and bows or laser rifles
and robots. What will truly mark Starfinder
apart is the introduction of starships, which
crews of players will be able to launch into
space and pilot to new planets, fighting off
attacking vessels along the way. It’s the single
biggest addition to the solid gameplay and
narrative framework set by Pathfinder – to
the point where even Sutter was unsure
about making such a radical change.
“In the beginning, I actually wasn’t sold
on starship combat – it seemed like a really
difficult thing to get right, and I was more
interested in the on-the-ground exploration of
alien ruins and cities,” he admits.
“Fortunately, folks like Erik Mona and
Starfinder senior developer Rob McCreary told me
I was insane, and pointed out how crucial starships
are to a science fiction or science fantasy game.
What’s Star Wars without X-Wings and the Millennium
Falcon? What’s Firefly without the Serenity? It’s
not even just that starship dogfights are themselves
important to those stories – though they are – but
something Rob really pushed is the idea that great
starships become characters in their own right,
and help give your team a sense of cohesion. You’re not
just a random adventuring party; you’re the crew of a
shared starship, and that ship is both the mechanism and
in many ways the reason for going out and exploring
new worlds. So they pretty quickly convinced me I was
wrong. Thank goodness, because the starship combat
system turned out to be extremely fun!”
Engaging in spaceship dogfights is a mixture of hex-
based movement and the player-driven storytelling
that Paizo excels at, as players manoeuvre
and position their craft’s facing and fire
weapons while sticking to the role and
duties their characters have been assigned.
“Starship construction and combat
are primarily the children of the Jasons – Paizo
lead designer Jason Bulmahn and developer Jason
Keeley – and they really knocked it out of the park,”
Sutter elaborates. ▶
27
21/07/2017 15:18
 STARFINDER
■ Below: Android operative
and former assassin Iseph, one
of Starfinder’s main characters.
(Artist: Remko Troost)
28
022_026_starfinder_v3 MJ.indd 28
“While on the one hand it’s a straight-up tactical
miniatures engine, drawing inspiration from everything
from Fantasy Flight’s X-Wing to the BattleTech of our
childhoods, what I think makes it special is that they never
lost sight of the fact that this is a roleplaying game. Toward
that end, every character in starship combat chooses a role:
captain, pilot, gunner, science officer or engineer. In classic
sci-fi bridge crew fashion, every role is responsible for a
different aspect of the ship’s function – the pilot’s moving
you, the gunners are shooting, the science officer’s scanning
enemy vessels to learn more about their capabilities and so
on. While any character can take on any role, even switching
during combat if they run between battle stations, the
different statistics that govern each role mean that you can
build a character who’s specifically talented at one of them,
letting you make a character who’s legitimately a hotshot
pilot. Overall, it really makes you feel like a team, with
everyone engaged and supporting each other’s actions.”
If you’re itching to punch it into hyperspace right
away, good news: players start Starfinder
with a ship of their own and can head off
immediately. But if you’re hoping to call in
“Every planet
support from above to blast troublesome
foes every time you run into trouble,
is essentially its
you’re out of luck.
“We very deliberately kept the ship
own setting.
combat and regular combat rules
separate,” Sutter confirms. “There was a
If you want to
lot of internal turmoil over that decision
but, in the end, we had no choice.
ride dragons
“We wanted people to have
starships from first level, but letting
on an alien
you bring a starship to a gunfight
completely destroys the framework
world, you’ve
of an RPG like Starfinder – suddenly
the answer to every conflict is to
got that.”
drop rocks from orbit or strafe
the enemy castle without ever emerging from
the safety of your ship, and you lose any need for
fireball spells and laser swords. So while we
may find some novel ways to integrate the
two in the future, for now the answer is that
the two simply don’t mix. While I could give various
in-world reasons for it, the truth is that sometimes
you need to put the fun of a game above realism.”
FINDING YOUR STAR
Starfinder is the biggest step for Paizo since the
publisher announced Pathfinder nine years ago. The
game’s launch may also prove to be the start of another
monumental era for the roleplaying genre, as Sutter
and his team aim to bring the wide-reaching appeal and
mainstream recognition of its fantasy magnum opus to
not just science-fiction, but countless different settings.
Pathfinder we specifically set out to create
“With Pathfinder,
a world and rules system that would accommodate
a wide array of different campaign settings and
fantasy flavors,” the creative director says. “You
28
want Vikings? We’ve got that. Gothic horror? Yup. Middle
Eastern fantasy? You know it. I sometimes joke that a
proposed name for our setting was ‘Generica’, because we
wanted to be all things to all people, but the patchwork
approach of different flavors for different nations let us
appeal to a really wide swath of the audience.
“Now, with Starfinder, we’re trying to do the same thing,
but it’s inherently easier, as every planet is essentially its
own setting. So if you want a gritty cyberpunk adventure,
you can have that. If you want to ride dragons on an alien
world, you’ve got that. If you want to fight Lovecraftian
horrors, battle an evil star empire, delve into the ancient
temple of some extinct alien race – it’s all on the table.”
This flexibility means that the game’s many systems
could even be used to supplant other sci-fi staples.
“While that wide scope can make it harder to do a
Hollywood pitch for the game, the versatility is really useful,
because people can use this one system to play a million
different games,” Sutter continues. “I’m hoping it can still
stand out in the category by hitting a very
specific blend of science-fiction and fantasy
– it’s got more magic than Star Wars or Star
Trek, more space opera than Shadowrun,
more variation in tone than Warhammer
40,000 and so on. But at the same time, I
like to think that you could play any of those
games within Starfinder as well.”
Pathfinder may have given players
a vast fantasy world to shape to their
whim, but Starfinder aims to hand them a
potentially boundless universe.
“In Pathfinder, there are some stories you
can’t do because so much of the map has been
drawn in already,” Sutter says. “But Starfinder is
all about exploration and, in a galaxy of billions
of stars, there’s always a new corner you can
carve out for whatever crazy idea you have.”
Sutter and his team already have plans to offer those
needing guidance a helping hand, with the launch of
Starfinder Society organised play and the serialised
Starfinder Adventure Path scenarios that connect to form
ongoing campaigns. It’s a format that propelled Pathfinder
to roleplaying renown – but will lightning strike twice?
“Honestly, if this game has even a fraction of the success
that Pathfinder had, I’ll be over the moon,” Sutter says. “I’m
very cognisant of how lucky we got with Pathfinder and,
while the early response from fans has been overwhelmingly
positive, this is a true experiment for us. We’re coming up
on ten years of Pathfinder, and I’d love to see Starfinder
get so successful that people are still talking about it in ten
years, with hundreds of adventures, setting books, comics,
novels… But there’s also something to be said for keeping
a tight focus and, at least for a while, the plan is to have far
fewer supplement releases for Starfinder, to make it easier
for folks to get in on the ground floor and stay up to date.
“We’re trying not to get too far ahead of ourselves. The
first step is to release the game, see what folks like best,
and go from there.” ■
21/07/2017 14:58
 On-line In Store Mobile

email: sales@krmulticase.co.uk

Follow us on Facebook and

Twitter or sign up for the
newsletter for more info.
/DerbyWorlds

@DerbyWorlds
Open Saturday 10am - 5pm, Sunday 10am - 4pm
Excellent new venue at Bruntingthorpe Airfield! LE17 5QS
10 minutes from the M1, excellent access
Bar and Restaurant during Show opening hours
Brand new refurbished facilities, extensive Free Car Park too!
Over 90 top manufacturers and traders with their great products
Huge range of tournaments too! Bolt Action UK Nationals, Saga,
Warmachine, X-Wing, Impetus, FoG and much more!
Demonstration Games, Participation Games, Display Games
Bring & Buy and Trade from Table too !
0800-6126-430 / 01206-869467 Email: info@derbyworlds.com

p041.indd 1 17/05/2017 14:46

 As The Hobbit turns 80, we look back on the tabletop legacy of J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy tour de force
alongside some of the designers and creators who have brought the world of Middle-earth to life
O
Words by Matt Jarvis n September 21st 1937, Bilbo Baggins left his hole
in the Shire and set out to make the world a better
place. It was on that day, almost exactly 80 years
ago, that J.R.R. Tolkien published The Hobbit, the book that
established the realm of Middle-earth, invented orcs and
hobbits, and cemented fairytale and mythological races and
creatures such as elves, goblins, dwarves and dragons in the
fantasy genre lexicon – as well as the public consciousness.
Never out of print since it debuted eight decades ago,
The Hobbit served as the forerunner to Tolkien’s grand
masterwork The Lord of the Rings, which massively
expanded the world and history of Middle-earth. Tolkien’s
revolutionary writing style went on to influence and inspire
everything from books and films to games and music (as
any Led Zeppelin fan will tell you) both inside and outside
of fantasy. The trilogy has sold more than 150 million
copies since The Fellowship of the Ring first hit shelves
1954, making it one of the most popular novels of all time.
Of course, the tabletop is no exception, with major
roleplaying games such as Dungeons & Dragons owing
much of their universes to Tolkien’s creations (although
D&D co-creator Gary Gyax insisted Lord of the Rings was
never a direct influence) and countless board, card and
miniature games laying out their fantasy artwork, writing
and worlds using the templates formed decades before.
“For so many fans of hobby gaming – myself included –
Tolkien’s work is incredibly foundational,” observes Nate
30
030_035_middleEarth_v4 MJ.indd 30
French, lead designer for The Lord of the Rings: The Card
Game. “I read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings at a
young age, and imagined some of the earliest challenges
of my life by thinking about them through the lens of
Middle-earth, which helped me to overcome them.
“Even for people who haven’t experienced Tolkien
directly, so many aspects of the fantasy genre can be
traced back to his influence, so it’s very familiar to people.
Gaming is about getting people into a shared communal
space, where they are operating from a similar mindset
with an implicit agreement about the experience they
want to share, and having a familiar context like the
Middle-earth setting really connects people in that shared
mental space.”
More explicitly, there have been dozens of official
adaptations of both Tolkien’s original novels and Peter
Jackson’s cinematic adaptations, ranging from Games
Workshop’s miniature wargames based on both movie
trilogies to Reiner Knizia’s Spiel des Jahres Literary
Award-winning co-op take on the novels from 2000
(which later influenced Pandemic), Fantasy Flight’s
living card game, Cubicle 7’s Adventures in Middle-earth
and The One Ring RPGs, and Ares Games’ strategy epic
War of the Ring, which remains one of the most widely-
revered board games ever released. Yet, the fervour
surrounding Tolkien on the tabletop hasn’t always
burned quite as hot as the fires of Mount Doom.
21/07/2017 15:12
 “In the ‘80s and ‘90s, The Lord of the Rings was a
popular license in the ‘geek universe’, but far from what
it later became,” recalls Roberto Di Meglio, director
of R&D at Ares and co-author of War of the Ring and
its Hobbit-inspired spin-off The Battle of Five Armies.
“SPI’s War of the Ring at the end of the ‘70s had tried
to leverage the animated movie, and was the first
important product I know of to be based on the novel.
It was a good game by the standards of the time, even
if it had some issues and became a classic of sorts. It’s
one of the few out-of-print board games to have some
value in auctions to these days.
030_035_middleEarth_v4 MJ.indd 31
■ Above: The cover artwork from
Fantasy Flight’s The Lord of the
Rings: The Card Game.
■ Below: The Lord of the Rings:
The Card Game is a living card
game, and has been continually
expanded with new stories
and characters – both from the
original material and brand new
creations – since its release.
31
“Then, Iron Crown Enterprises started to work on
the licence, and we had sort of the first ‘golden age’ of
licensing: the role-playing game [1982’s A Campaign
and Adventure Guidebook for Middle-earth], some
board games – I remember fondly both their Battle
of Five Armies and The Fellowship of the Ring – and,
finally, the collectible card game [Middle-earth
Collectible Card Game from 1995], which was very
popular at the time.
“The turning point, of course, came when the
movie trilogy was announced. Then, for a few years,
the value of the licence boomed, and the first new
game to exploit it – Knizia’s co-operative The Lord
of the Rings – was a huge worldwide success. A new
renaissance of Lord of the Rings tabletop games arrived
but, unfortunately, many of them were either ‘typical’
movie-based fare, with little depth of gameplay, or
good games – such as The Confrontation – which did
not really try to recreate the story. I guess these games
were interesting for the broader audience, which got to
know the story through the movies, but were not really
what ‘true’ fans were looking for.
“With the release of War of the Ring in 2004, we had
the opening of a new period, I think. Once again, Lord of
the Rings games were designed with the fans of the books
in mind; and these games were developed with attention
both to the quality of the gameplay and mechanics.” ▶
21/07/2017 15:18
 TOLKIEN ON THE TABLETOP
BY THE BOOK
River Horse founder Alessio Cavatore headed up
development of Games Workshop’s Lord of the Rings
Strategy Battle Game, a miniatures title that launched
alongside Peter Jackson’s first film in 2001 and
followed a set of figures based on the novels produced
by the Warhammer firm in the 1980s. The game was
a hit, attracting thousands of players and resulting
in Cavatore and three of the game’s other designers
receiving an on-screen cameo in 2003’s The Return of
the King. The wargame evolved into The Hobbit Strategy
“You can Battle Game when Jackson returned with his trilogy of
movies based on the earlier book, beginning with An
strive to Unexpected Journey in 2012.
“Peter Jackson’s movies are the breakwater, really,”
‘simulate’ Cavatore says. “The change from mostly book-based
licensing to film-based licensing has somewhat
events in restricted the creative space of games and figure
designers. On the other hand, it has made the franchise
Middle-earth more mainstream, modern and accessible, thus
increasing the audience and as a consequence the ROI
just as you for the game companies investing in the IP.”
While there have been dozens of games branded
can create using the movies, one prominent Lord of the Rings
adaptation to stick close to the novels is Fantasy Flight’s
a real-world living card game, which launched in 2011 and has
received dozens of story expansions in the years since.
simulation.” “It’s not a slight to the films, but I’m glad our game is
based on the books because there’s a lot more content
available for us to use that way,” reveals lead developer
Caleb Grace. “There’s an abundance of characters and
moments in the books that did not make it into the
movies that we can include in our game. The appendix
of The Return of the King by itself is a treasure trove of
great potential that we would have missed out on if our
game was based on the films.
“As with most movie adaptations, the films ended up
being quite different from the source material. In the
case of The Lord of the Rings, this means that two fans can
have two very different understandings of what happens
in the story and what to expect from a game adaptation.
However, that isn’t really an issue for us since our licence
is based on the novels. It just means that some of our fans
are occasionally unfamiliar with a character or event that
was different in, or omitted from, the films.”
Adapting the text of the original novels presents the
opportunity for extra freedom using the greater scope
“The change and detail of Tolkien’s writing, but it can throw up extra
considerations that the movies’ visual nature overcomes.
to film-based “The films were great for recognition and awareness of
the IP, but they also brought with them new challenges,”
licensing has French explains. “Our game was based on the novels,
not the films, and we really had to be careful that the
restricted the artistic interpretations we were presenting looked
different than the way things were portrayed in the
creative space films, while still remaining true to the source material.”
Although strict adherence to the gospel of Tolkien
of designers.” is the most straightforward way to approach adapting
32
030_035_middleEarth_v4 MJ.indd 32
Middle-earth, Reiner Knizia admits that he “didn’t
read the books and go through every detail” during
the creation of his influential co-operative title. Before
enraged purists prepare to light their own cardboard
beacons of Gondor, the designer explains that he
spoke to fans to discover “what really excites them
about it”, asserting that this was “more relevant than
the text itself”. Knizia says that the readers’ enthusiasm
ultimately led him to invest himself in the novels’
story and themes more, which led to his revolutionary
decision to make his Lord of the Rings game co-op.
“It wasn’t my choice,” he asserts. “It was just by
necessity to stay true to the spirit of the book and what the
people expected. All the people I talked to said: ‘We are
the Fellowship, we are up against the bad guys, the evil. So
you need to reflect exactly that point of view in the game.’”
Capturing the spirit of Middle-earth is especially
important when designers decide to create original
characters, locations or story elements not featured
in Tolkien’s work, as in The Lord of the Rings: The
Card Game’s decision to feature scenes set during
the 17 years from Bilbo’s 111th birthday until Frodo’s
departure from the Shire, or when combining the
books and films together, as Games Workshop
did by introducing aspects from Tolkien’s novels
and posthumous world-expanding collection The
Silmarillion to its film-based Strategy Battle Games.
“Whenever you start work with a licensor that
you have not worked with before, things start quite
cautiously,” reveals Cavatore. “Approval from the
licensor is very strict and you are not normally allowed
to add to the IP at all. If you manage to prove to the
licensor that you are serious, and you ‘get’ the IP, then
you might be allowed to push the boundaries and add
to the fringes of the IP, as long as your creations remain
‘in the spirit’ and limited in space, time and importance.
For example, creating a new hobbit character and
assigning him or her a minor role in the Scouring of the
Shire, which could have well happened during the main
facts described in the book, is fine as long as nothing you
write influences directly or indeed changes the events in
the book. So, fighting and repulsing a band of half-orcs
in a small hamlet near to where Merry and Pippin are
leading the hobbits’ revolt could be okay. Having your
new hobbit kill Saruman: not okay!”
French agrees that staying aware of how a new
creation fits into the lore, history and world beloved by
millions is crucial, but offers a more flexible approach
to telling fresh stories set in Middle-earth.
“It’s important to remember that, if people want a
direct experience of The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings,
the best way to get that experience would be to read or
re-read the novels,” he suggests. “But that’s usually not
what people are after when they turn to a game that is
set in a setting they love. They want a new experience in
that setting; one that reminds them of their initial love
of the source material, but also takes them somewhere
different and unexpected. Keeping this in mind, and
21/07/2017 15:12
 finding ways to surprise people and challenge their
expectations, is important. It’s a delicate but extremely
important balancing act to maintain.
“You can use the existing material to ground
everything, and the new creations are there to take people
somewhere unexpected and show them something new.
As for the process: it’s a matter of looking carefully at the
source material and asking a lot of ‘What if?’ questions.”
Knizia instead believes that trying to improve on a
series considered by many to beyond improvement is
needless – not to mention that the breadth of Tolkien’s
creation provides more than enough for designers to
sink their teeth into.
“Third-party licensors are quite sensitive to me or
you trying to change their story and introduce things,”
he explains. “And, of course, the end players would be a
bit puzzled why it is there. I think there would be more
complaints than appreciation: ‘Oh, Mr Knizia has also
tried to add a bit to Tolkien’s masterpiece!’ No, no, I’m
staying with what he has given us, it’s rich enough.”
ANOTHER WORLD
There have been thousands of fantasy worlds created
since Tolkien first wrote, “In a hole in the ground there
lived a hobbit.” Some have gone on to be massively
complex and sprawling universes in their own right,
whether more conventional fantasy settings, such as
030_035_middleEarth_v4 MJ.indd 33
■ Above: War of the Ring and its Dungeons & Dragons’ Forgotten Realms and Pathfinder’s
expansions recreate the entire Golarion, or genre hybrids, as seen in the sci-fi
story of The Lord of the Rings. inventions of Numenera and Shadowrun. Yet, no matter
how thought-out and meticulously detailed, very few
have come close to the lasting impact of Middle-earth.
“Tolkien created a world – with a lifetime of work –
which has an amazing quality of realism,” Di Meglio
proposes. “Unlike most other fictional settings, stories
set in Middle-earth feel to the reader as real as any. This
quality makes this universe unique as a game setting,
because you can strive to ‘simulate’ events in Middle-
earth just as you can create a real-world simulation.”
Grace echoes the sentiment that it is Middle-earth’s
extraordinary level of detail and believability that
continues to draw designers and creators back to
Tolkien’s enduring masterpiece almost 100 years later.
“We can’t “I think it’s because the world is developed so
completely,” he explains. “Tolkien describes everything
book a flight with such depth and detail that Middle-earth feels like a
real place that we want to visit. We can’t book a flight to
to Eriador, Eriador, but games can take us there. Therefore games
become another way to explore Tolkien’s world.”
but games While Tolkien invented countless elements of Middle-
earth – orcs, hobbits and entire languages, including
can take multiple dialects for elves and men, plus Sauron’s Black
Speech (most famously inscribed on the One Ring) – the
us there.” author drew on his interest in history, mythology, ▶
33
21/07/2017 15:19
 TOLKIEN ON THE TABLETOP
linguistics and more while writing, using existing words,
creatures and beliefs to shape his original creations. What
made Tolkien so groundbreaking was his ability to bring
together so many seemingly unconnected ingredients to
form a coherent universe that felt real – something all great
creators aspire to, regardless of if that’s between the pages
of a book or on a board on the tabletop, in 1937 or 2017.
“The big innovation that keeps drawing people back
is the concept and execution of world-building,” affirms
French. “Middle-earth was an immense imaginative
feat, and it really changed the fantasy genre for the better.
World-building is everywhere in the genre these days
and, having set the standard for success in the way it did,
“It was
people will always look to Middle-earth for guidance.” necessary
TOLKIEN IT IN
Across The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings there are
to stay true
moments of joy and sorrow, peace and war, intimate
discussions and epic battles, and songs: lots and lots
to the spirit
of songs. Tolkien’s writing is as varied as his world and
its inhabitants, and the games inspired by his novels
of the book
are just as diverse, spanning almost every genre and
medium imaginable.
and what
“There are good examples in every game category
of beautiful games set in Middle-earth, so I would not
the people
say that there is a specific genre which is more suitable
than another,” Di Meglio suggests. “Character-based
expected.”
games such as The One Ring; strategy games such as
War of the Ring; more abstract games such as Knizia’s
Lord of the Rings and The Confrontation.”
Given the number of memorable battles that occur
across the series – from the War of the Last Alliance that
leads to Sauron’s original downfall to The Hobbit’s climactic
Battle of Five Armies and The Lord of the Rings’ clashes
at Helm’s Deep and Pelennor Fields – it may seem that a
wargame with vast miniature armies is an obvious choice,
but the co-creator of War of the Ring isn’t convinced.
“I have never been especially fond of any wargame set
in Middle-earth,” Di Meglio continues. “But I don’t think
it’s because the type of game is not suitable. Games
Workshop created very good games set in Middle-earth,
34
030_035_middleEarth_v4 MJ.indd 34
I just think that they were a little too generic to feel
like a great use of the setting. As it happens with any
thematic game, mechanics and setting must support
each other for the game to be really successful. If you
use good mechanics but they do not fit particularly well
with the setting, then it just does not feel right.”
Knizia concurs it’s sometimes more effective to go
beyond trying to match up to the scale of the books
and instead focus closely on one of the many elements
within the sprawling world.
“I don’t think that a Lord of the Rings game necessarily
has to be a wargame,” he states. “I could certainly not
consider my original co-operative game as a wargame.
It’s a, if you want, resource management game. But it’s
after all co-operative and about trying to make the best
decisions: a decision-making game. If you have a rich
world, and the richer the world is – Tolkien’s world is
probably one of the richest we have – you can take so
many aspects of it that you can actually lead it in many
different directions.”
Knizia’s own The Lord of the Rings aimed to embody
Tolkien’s wider messages of alliance and the triumph of
good over evil by casting players as the Fellowship and
allowing Sauron to be represented by the game itself;
French similarly sees Middle-earth’s outings on the
tabletop as the ideal place for friends to come together.
“I feel it’s a perfect fit for co-operative games,” he says.
“The themes of friendship, fellowship and sacrifice are
central to the story, and when people want to participate
in the story, those are often the experiences they desire.”
His Lord of the Rings: The Card Game collaborator
Grace weighs up the ability of a tabletop title to
fully contain Tolkien’s handiwork, but insists that
the ever-expanding nature of their game – which is
expanded monthly by new scenarios, heroes and
cards – provides one of the more effective ways of
approaching the challenge.
“It’s not that you can’t make great board games and
video games from The Lord of the Rings, because there are
many; I just always find myself wanting more,” he admits.
“With a living card game that’s exactly what I get. I also
enjoy the co-operative nature of the LCG because the
theme of people coming together to defeat a common
foe is such an overwhelming theme of the novels that it’s
great to see that translated into gameplay.”
A NEW AGE
While Middle-earth has been pored over,
deconstructed and reimagined by readers, viewers,
designers and players alike for decades, there remains
room to take on Tolkien with a fresh perspective.
This year, Ares released The Hunt for the Ring, a game
from two of the designers behind War of the Ring and
Letters from Whitechapel co-creator Gabriele Mari that
follows the journey of Frodo from the Shire to Rivendell
while being pursued by the Nazgûl. De Meglio claims it
marks the first time a hidden movement title has been
set in Middle-earth.
21/07/2017 15:12
 “A lot of the battles of Lord of the Rings were never
narrated in tabletop format,” he highlights as future
inspiration. “Possibly, some of these games will
become a reality in the future. Board game design is in
a state of constant flux, with new interesting concepts
arising every year – trends such as co-operative games,
legacy games, games with very strong storytelling
elements. Maybe some of these concepts will be used
in Lord of the Rings-based games, too. I am sure that
the books will remain popular for a long, long time,
and that new games based on them will also appear for
a long time in the future.”
The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game also continues
to evolve, six years after its debut, and shows little sign of
stopping anytime soon as it mixes scenes from the books
with brand new events that slot into gaps in the timeline.
“I expect that fans will continue to seek games
that delve into the lore and allow them to explore
the world of Middle-earth,” predicts Grace. “The
challenge for designers will be offering players
new and innovative ways in which to provide that
experience, since there have already been so many
great games based on the licence.”
As Peter Jackson’s original Lord of the Rings trilogy
prepares to turn two decades old itself in the next five
years, and his later Hobbit movies failed to achieve the
same level of critical acclaim and fervent reception
among fans, the burst of interest for Middle-earth
recently sowed among younger followers may simmer
down, leading to a reduced interest in bringing the
world to the tabletop in the years to come.
“It has already become a little bit quieter,” Knizia
observes. “This comes in waves, because we had the
big movies so we had a lot of emphasis on it. I would
guess there is a little bit of a more quiet period
where the general public does not see these big
advertisements or hype for them. Then in the
next generation’s life maybe something more
comes. Nobody at the moment will touch a
Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit movie.”
Still, with the ongoing trend of
revitalised franchises on the
silver screen, Cavatore thinks
it may not be too long before
Middle-earth attracts a new wave
of devotees.
“It depends whether any director would ever in the ■ Above and opposite: Ares’ The
future be as brave as trying to go for a remake of Peter Battle of Five Armies is a War of
Jackson’s movies – think how many times Spider-Man the Ring spin-off inspired by The
or Batman have been remade,” he says. “That sounds Hobbit’s climactic fight.
like a daunting process indeed!
“Another important factor is whether the rumours ■ Below: Reiner Knizia’s
about a Silmarillion movie are going to become a co-operative The Lord of the
reality or not – that could indeed generate scope for Rings game won the 2001 Spiel
battles of such a scale that one immediately thinks des Jahres Literary Award and
about a 15mm wargame!” influenced later co-op games
“I wouldn’t be surprised to see a contemporary – as such as Pandemic.
in modern-day-set – interpretation of the story at some
point on the big screen,” French adds. “Just seems like
a natural development to occur. This in turn will draw
new attention back to the original work.”
Outside of simply bringing
Tolkien’s best-known work back in
a different form, Di Meglio points
out that there is more of Middle-
earth for creators to explore and
usher in a new era of Tolkien on
the tabletop.
“Something many fans – and
game designers – are dreaming of
is that, in some future, the licensing
rights to The Silmarillion become
available,” he comments. “That
would open a whole new universe
of games based in Middle-earth!
Unfortunately, that day is
not here yet.” ■

35

030_035_middleEarth_v4 MJ.indd 35 21/07/2017 15:19

 AN INTRODUCTION TO…
Join us as we get stranded on Matt Leacock’s kid-friendly follow-up
to Pandemic and explain why you should sink into its simple charms
Words by Matt Jarvis
M
att Leacock’s 2008 magnum opus
Pandemic often overshadows the rest
of the talented designer’s repertoire.
One of the games that shouldn't lost in the wake
of the seminal co-op hit is Forbidden Island,
Leacock’s 2010 kid-friendly adventure heavily
influenced by his work two years previous.
Forbidden Island’s debt to Pandemic is clear, as
players hop from location to location in search of
matching cards needed to obtain four treasures
(instead of curing diseases) and working to stop
regions from flooding (instead of being infected)
while the amount of water pouring in continues
to rise periodically – the game’s analogue for
Pandemic’s dreaded epidemics and outbreaks.
Before you shrug it off as simply ‘Pandemic
for kids’, know that while many of the gameplay
actions and events are comparable to its older
sibling, Forbidden Island is an experience that
stands alone. Its gentle mechanics and slightly
easier difficulty – although those after a trial can
up the challenge to ‘elite’ or even ‘legendary’
levels – make it even more of a gateway game for
newcomers to the tabletop hobby than Pandemic
(of course, it can be a stepping stone to that
game, too) and the beautiful presentation of the
illustrated location tiles and miniature plastic
treasures in a compact tin mean it’s perfect as an
attractive gift to introduce friends and family. Plus,
there’s a sequel – we’ll get onto that in a moment.
WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT?
Forbidden Island takes place on the titular
landmass out at sea, where between two and
four adventurers suddenly find themselves
stranded. The island is made up of tiles
constructed in a grid of four-by-four, with two
extra tiles in the middle of each edge, for a total
of 24. Locations include the fantastically-named
Howling Garden, Cliffs of Abandon, Temple of
the Moon, Cave of Shadows and more.
Players choose a character and place them
on their corresponding starting area. As in
Pandemic, each role has unique special talents,
036_037_introToForbiddenIsland_v2 MJ.indd 36
whether it’s the explorer’s ability to move
diagonally, the navigator’s skill at moving
teammates two spaces with a single action or the
pilot, who can simply fly to any other location.
The tension begins as the island begins to
sink, with players drawing flood cards to dictate
which locations end up underwater. To represent
the locations going under, those tiles are flipped
to their blue reverse, making them inaccessible.
Luckily, players can choose to spend an action
to ‘shore up’ a tile next to them and bring it
back above sea level, which also means they can
once again travel to that region. Certain treasure
cards also offer single-use special actions to
help the group survive.
Players can opt to spend an action drawing
two treasure cards, but might also end up
drawing ‘waters rise’ cards, which increase the
amount of water rushing in and reshuffles the
stack of flood cards, allowing previously flooded
tiles to be struck again. If a location drawn is
already underwater, it’s lost for good – if both of
the locations required to find a certain treasure
are lost before the team collects that treasure,
it’s game over. The game is also lost if players
are unable to escape from a sinking tile (not a
problem for the diver) or the Fool’s Landing tile
is sunk completely, removing the ability to leave
■ Forbidden Island is an
easier ride than Pandemic.
36
the doomed isle. Oh, and if the flood water level
hits the skull after drawing too many waters rise
cards – skulls tend to be a bad omen, after all.
The only way for the players to win is by racing
to snatch all four treasures and make it back to
Fool’s Landing, using the helicopter lift card to fly
away. Why don’t they just escape without getting
greedy, you ask? Well, it just wouldn’t be as fun a
game then, would it!
ROOM FOR DESERT
Forbidden Island went down a storm upon
release in 2010, picking up a Spiel des Jahres
nomination and collecting a number of
awards, including a Mensa Select badge.
The game’s popularity eventually convinced
Leacock and publisher Gamewright to produce
a sequel, Forbidden Desert, in 2013.
Based on the framework of Forbidden Island
– which had reimagined the foundation of
Pandemic before it – Forbidden Desert was once
again a co-operative kids’ game that followed a
group of explorers (up to five this time around)
trying to flee from an inhospitable environment.
Forbidden Desert is much more than just a
reskin of Forbidden Island, though. This time,
players have to collect the scattered parts of
a flying machine buried among the ruins of
an ancient city to escape from an incoming
sandstorm, while dealing with the blistering
heat of the desert. There's also a new cast of
characters, including an archaeologist, climber,
meteorologist and water carrier, with the
explorer and navigator making a return from
Island (presumably cursing their rotten luck for
getting stuck twice).
The gameplay is an even bigger step away.
Players traverse a grid of five-by-five cards, with
a hole in the centre of the layout to represent the
whirling storm. New to the setup are sand markers,
which require an additional action to dig through
and reach the equipment hidden beneath.
The parts of the flying machine are harder
to discover than Forbidden Island’s treasure,
needing players to first uncover two clues from
the hidden city to reveal each component’s
position in the layout.
To capture the unrelenting heat of the
environment, players are required to search for
water and carry it with them in their canteen.
Random cards cause the sun to beat down,
affected those unshielded by tunnels or shields
and causing them to lose water – running out
means dying of dehydration.
With water a scarcity, flooding is no longer an
issue – instead, players draw a number of cards
at the end of each turn based on the increasing
sandstorm meter. ‘Wind blows’ cards cause
tiles to shift around the grid, filling the hole that
begins in the middle and taking pawns, sand
and parts of the machine with them. The shifting
21/07/2017 15:13
 ■ Forbidden Desert introduces
several gameplay changes.

sand can stack up, eventually burying players

and forcing their teammates to rescue them – or
end up buried with them, risking a game over.
Forbidden Desert is a tougher experience than
Island, with considerably different gameplay, but
is perfect for those looking for a fresh test or to
take the next step towards the full-blooded co-op
challenge of Pandemic.

WHY SHOULD YOU TRY IT?

Forbidden Island has easy-going gameplay and
an exciting theme, but still manages to present
plenty of challenge and variety in every match.
It’s ideal for those wanting something a little
softer and lighter than Pandemic, with the less
downbeat setting making it a choice pick for kids
who want in on the excellent co-op gameplay.
Even for those who’ve played Pandemic, both
Forbidden games offer a distinctly different type
of experience while maintaining many of the
elements that have made Pandemic a modern
classic. Forbidden Desert particularly moves
away from Pandemic’s blueprint to become a
great game in its own right thanks to the shifting
board and need to combat heat, sand and wind.
If you're after an even more space-friendly
option than the games' compact tins, both
Forbidden Island and Forbidden Desert can
be downloaded in digital mobile versions and
carried around in your pocket. The apps include
the striking artwork from the tabletop editions
and support both single-player and multiplayer
modes, so you don’t even need to convince
others to join you when you play (but you
definitely should).
What’s more, Leacock recently expressed
his desire to return to the Forbidden series at
some point in the future – so it might be worth
jumping on board now, so you’re ready for
whatever comes next in the fantastic series. ■

37

036_037_introToForbiddenIsland_v2 MJ.indd 37 21/07/2017 15:14

 THE MAKING OF...
HUNT A
Co-creators Ryan Hogan and Derrick Smith join us as we open the
case on their ambitious live-action game, which challenges players
to solve a murder mystery using clues they receive in the post
Words by Owen Duffy
T
here’s something timelessly
enthralling about a good murder
mystery. From the enduring
popularity of Sherlock Holmes to the golden
age of Agatha Christie, gritty Scandinavian
noir like The Killing to true crime hits like
Making A Murderer, the appetite for grisly
detective stories seems to be endless.
I’m certainly not immune to their
appeal. I’ve spent hours in the company
of fictional sleuths from Hercule Poirot to
Philip Marlowe and binged on episode after
episode of the Serial podcast. But recently I
had the opportunity to step out of the role of
passive observer and attempt some amateur
detective work of my own.
038_042_theMakingOfHuntAKiller_v2 MJ.indd 38
For the past few weeks, I’ve been hunting
a killer.
It all began with a plain manila envelope
that slid through my letterbox one morning
alongside the usual collection of bills and
junk mail. I didn’t realise it at the time, but its
contents would unlock something deep, dark
and bordering on obsession. Inside I found a
collection of seemingly unconnected objects: a
chart showing positions of stars in the night sky,
a woodblock engraving of a swan, a crushed
paper cup, a newspaper article with words and
phrases redacted seemingly at random.
It didn’t make any kind of sense, but
more bizarre still was the letter. It was
carefully typewritten and addressed simply
38
to “My Dearest Friend”. While its author
was clearly intelligent and articulate, it did
nothing to shed any light on the meaning
behind the strange package. Baffled, I did
what any self-respecting journalist does
upon finding themselves out of their depth:
I turned to Google.
An hour or so of online research later,
I found myself engulfed in a world of
unexplained deaths, sinister organisations
and shadowy figures. I still wasn’t sure
exactly what I’d got myself into, but I was
hungry for more.
A LITTLE HELP
FROM YOUR FRIENDS
There’s not much more I can tell you about
Hunt A Killer without giving too much away.
A murder mystery game, it casts players as
members of the Listening Friends of America,
a non-profit organisation which connects
isolated people in prisons, hospitals and
21/07/2017 15:15
 KILLER
mental health facilities with pen pals in the
outside world.
As a Listening Friend, players receive
correspondence and items from their
newfound companion and use their
curiosity, reasoning and powers of deduction
to unravel the truth behind a series of killings.
It’s an intriguing concept, but what really
sets Hunt A Killer apart from other crime-
solving titles like Sherlock Holmes: Consulting
Detective is its format. The game comes to
its players in regularly-dispatched packages,
dropping a new parcel of clues onto their
doormats every month. Just as services like
Loot Crate or HelloFresh deliver pop culture
items and recipe kits to their customers, Hunt
A Killer is a subscription box for murder.
It’s a novel approach for gaming and
storytelling, and makes for an engrossing and
immersive experience. I spoke to the game’s
creators to find out what inspired it, and how
they’d developed their dark and disturbing tale.
038_042_theMakingOfHuntAKiller_v2 MJ.indd 39
PLOTTING A MURDER
By his own admission, Hunt A Killer co-
founder Ryan Hogan doesn’t have much of
a background in gaming. An officer in the
US Navy, he’s more at home at the helm of a
warship than sitting down to play D&D.
“I wouldn’t say I have a real gaming
background,” he says. “I got into Call of
Duty 4 like the rest of my generation, but
I wouldn’t say I was ever a true ‘gamer.’
However, I do embrace the impact gaming
has on its players in regards to storytelling. It
is incredibly powerful.”
Hogan may not have had a lifelong
obsession with games, but they’ve become
a big part of his professional life. Alongside
his military service, he’s been involved in
the creation of Run For Your Lives, a live-
action survival horror game launched in
2011 in which participants take part in a
five-kilometre race along a course strewn
with obstacles including mud pits, tunnels
39
and cargo nets – as well as real-life actors
portraying ravenous reanimated corpses.
More than 12,000 people participated
in the first event – a level of interest that
surprised Hogan’s co-founder and long-time
friend Derrick Smith.
“We started a small running event with a
zombie theme,” he says. “And people seemed
to love it. By taking a popular genre and
coupling it with an experiential activity, you
create a memorable social happening.”
But that initial success was hard to
maintain. Competitors emerged running
similar events with an identical zombie
theme, and in 2013 the company behind the
races announced that it would be cancelling
future events. Eventually Run For Your Lives
would continue under new management,
but Smith and Hogan had moved on to a
new venture.
Like its living dead-themed predecessor, Hunt
A Killer was born from an ambitious idea. ▶
21/07/2017 15:15
 THE MAKING OF…
In 2016, Hogan and Smith took over a 200-acre
campsite outside Baltimore, Maryland with
the aim of creating the ultimate open-world
murder mystery game. Teams of participants
would discover crime scenes, hunt for
evidence and interact with actors portraying
characters in a carefully constructed storyline.
“Our original goal was to reimagine the
old ‘murder mystery’ parties that gained
popularity in the ‘70s,” says Smith. “With true
crime being such a large and popular genre,
we thought a live event would play well.”
While the game’s ability to immerse
players in its storyline was appealing, its
creators quickly realised that its sheer scale
made it difficult to recreate for future events.
“We realised we’d have trouble scaling the
experience,” says Hogan. “It just wouldn’t fit nicely
into the back of a trailer and travel from venue
to venue. So we asked ourselves: ‘How can we
deliver this investigative experience to homes?’
And so began the Hunt A Killer membership.”
TRUE CRIME
The idea was simple. Rather than attracting
players to the game, the game would go
038_042_theMakingOfHuntAKiller_v2 MJ.indd 40
to the players. Smith took the creative
lead, devising settings and characters and
plotting out the individual chapters that
players would receive every month. At the
same time, Hogan focused on the practical
considerations behind the project – how to
produce and distribute the game’s materials
to subscribers.
Receiving those physical props, says
Hogan, is a big part of the game’s draw.
“It’s critically important,” he says. “In an
age where everything is digital, we wanted
to create a story people could see, touch
and smell. There’s something tremendously
different between consuming content on a
screen and holding real objects in your hand.
It’s digital versus analogue, and it makes it
easier to create an alternative reality where
things are as close to real as possible.”
This physical appeal is at the heart of
Hunt A Killer; Hogan points to a number
of sources of inspiration as evidence of its
efficacy. There’s the phenomenon of escape
room games, where players find themselves
locked in carefully constructed environments
and have to solve a series of mentally taxing
40
puzzles in order to get out. There’s the
continued success of ‘adventure races’, such
as the Tough Mudder obstacle race. And
there’s the intriguing world of interactive
theatre productions like Sleep No More, a
noir-tinged reimagining of Shakespeare’s
Macbeth in which the action takes place
across five floors of a 1930s New York hotel,
with audience members able to wander at
will between different scenes.
Smith argues that while Hunt A Killer’s
tangible nature offers players a sense of
immersion and verisimilitude, it also opens
up storytelling possibilities which aren’t
readily available from more conventional
forms of fiction.
“This storytelling format allows us to
communicate information in multiple ways,”
he says. “A ‘text’ can be considered anything
that communicates information. While you
have the words on the page of course, you
also have the paper itself – the color, weight,
texture. The way a paper is folded, torn, or not
folded. All of these small attributes could be
considered choices made by the character. So
while a simple message may be taken literally,
21/07/2017 15:15

the elements that surround the message tell a
deeper story, developing a richer character.”
“It was important for the story to have a
central character that would be engaging,
charming and mysterious. The unreliable
narrator is an extremely fun tool to use in
the type of modern storytelling we aim to
achieve, as it creates multiple layers that help
piece together the actual story.
“We really pride ourselves in producing
a story that isn’t flat on a screen. So the
subscription box model allows us to change
the way our members interpret the narrative.
To physically interact – touch, feel, smell the
story components – is key to the experience
and one of the main things that I think
differentiates us so much from any other
form of entertainment.”
While Hunt A Killer’s analogue elements
may be its most prominent selling point, it
doesn’t reject technology outright. The game
seamlessly incorporates digital elements into
its web of intrigue.
Type ‘Listening Friends of America’ –
the organisation at the heart of the game’s
shadowy plot – into a search engine and
you’ll discover what appears to be the home
page of a genuine charity, complete with a
mission statement, staff newsletter and even
the option to sign up to receive email updates
on the group’s work.
Investigate a few clues online and you may
discover hidden information that throws an
entirely new light on elements of the story
038_042_theMakingOfHuntAKiller_v2 MJ.indd 41
“We wanted to create a story people could see,
touch and smell. There’s something tremendously
different between consuming content on a
screen and holding real objects in your hand.”
you thought you’d already understood.
You’ll even find places where the game’s plot
overlaps with people, places and events in
the real world, a frankly paranoia-inducing
experience that can leave you wondering
whether you’re playing the game, or the game
is playing with you.
According to Hogan, that’s entirely intentional.
“We strive to actually break reality,”
he says. “The only way to achieve true
immersion is to blend fiction and truth. What
better way to accomplish this than by using
elements of real-world events?
“It takes a lot of research on the part of the
player, and this research can be done from a
computer, but equally it can be done at the
local library. It’s all up to the member. But
because we use real-world influences, this
creates a more authentic experience. Where
does fiction stop and reality begin? That’s
what’s so intriguing.”
Smith echoes that sentiment.
“It has a huge effect on people’s
experience of the story,” he says. “Most
individuals will have a unique experience
■ Above: Hunt A Killer co-creator Ryan Hogan.
■ Left: The physicality of objects can lend itself to clues.
■ Right: Some of the
‘typical’ contents included
in a package.
41
even though they are interacting with the
same elements. It’s almost like a choose-
your-own-adventure mentality.
“When a member makes a connection
between two clues or develops their own
theory, or eliminates a theory, it’s mostly
unique to them. That enjoyable spark that
hits the brain when you figure something out,
or learn something new, is just fun.
And I think those sparks happen at different
times for different people in different ways.
“No matter how a member gets to an
answer, they have figured it out – and I think
that’s a rewarding experience. The internet
makes almost everything accessible. When
we sit down to develop a new episode, we’re
always looking for new things to bounce off
of, to find those new connections that make
sense for the story. The real world is just
another resource. I mean, really, everything
can be a resource.”
GRIPPING MYSTERY
All of this – the compelling central whodunnit,
the hazy line between reality and fiction, ▶
21/07/2017 15:15
 THE MAKING OF…
the theme steeped in True Detective and The
Silence of the Lambs – combines to form a
potent and engaging story. And it’s proven
popular with players, more than 20,000 of
whom have signed up to participate in Hunt
A Killer to date, paying a not inconsiderable
$30 (£23) a month for the privilege.
For the creators, the interest in their
game reflects a deeper fascination with the
kind of dark and disturbing subject matter
their story delves into.
“People are fascinated with exploring
the unknown,” says Hogan. “There’s been a
recent emergence of the true crime genre,
but Unsolved Mysteries [an American
television show highlighting unsolved
crimes] has been around since the ‘80s.
“A normal person can’t comprehend
what drives the logic or reasoning of
serial killers. It’s less an obsession, and
038_042_theMakingOfHuntAKiller_v2 MJ.indd 42
■ Fresh clues and updates to the
ongoing story are delivered through
subscribers’ letterboxes each month.
more a curiosity that isn’t easily shook.
But it’s only recently that you have groups
being formed around these topics – large
communities on places like Facebook.
What once were individual curiosities have
become communal in almost a support
group-type environment.
“These same real-world instances
translate into the demand for our product.
With our service, people get to live in the
head of a ‘serial killer’, while knowing that
it’s only as close as they really want to be.”
Smith, too, has given a lot of thought to
the question of why people are drawn to
particularly horrible crimes.
“There are a lot of psychological
theories on the subject,” he says. “I think
it’s a combination of things that attract
people. Why do we rubberneck to see a
car accident on the side of the road? We
42
know we could see something horrible and
tragic, but we still have this compulsion
to look.
“You look at children’s books and
they’re often filled with villains or
monsters. I think true crime gives adults
that same idea of monsters and villains.
And maybe concentrating on the
extreme horribleness of these people
gives us a sense of relief? Perhaps it
strangely makes us feel safe to think
that we are not those people.”
MODUS OPERANDI
For now, Hogan and Smith are keeping
strict limits on the number of people
playing their game at any given time.
As a small company, they’re wary of
growing their audience faster than they
can keep up with.
“We limit the number of members
purely for consistency,” Hogan
explains. “We have one creative
director and two writers on the team, a
few folks for marketing, and over 10
‘storytellers’ who package every
episode each month.
“All too many times young
companies grow faster than
they should, and it’s always the
customer that suffers – through
quality or experience.”
This desire to keep their business
manageable hasn’t restricted the pair’s
creative ambitions. In October they’ve
planned a return to the game’s live-
action origins, with a 48-hour outdoor
event complete with camping, food and
drink, murder and yoga. It reads like
a surreal mix of nature retreat, music
festival and crime scene, and tickets will
set attendees back up to $877 (£680) for
the weekend.
If that’s a bit too much of a commitment
for you, the co-creators have other projects
in the works.
“We have another game in
development that strays a little away
from ‘true crime,’ but will be just as
mysterious,” says Smith. “We hope to
launch later this year.
“We’re invested in developing
storylines and experiential products that
evoke emotion, challenge traditional
thinking and bring online formats
into the real-world for those who love
mystery, fantasy, medieval times, sci-fi
and more.” ■
21/07/2017 15:15
 The Futuristic Battle Game

As powerful races clash over the fate of whole

worlds, devastating weapons, swift aircraft and
formidable tanks are brought to bear. Mighty
armies take to the battlezones of the far future
to fight for their leaders, as the galaxy is
plunged into war!
Warpath is the two-player wargame where you
engage an opposing army in a dynamic game of
strategy and tactics.

IN STORES APRIL
www.manticgames.com

p028.indd
Warpath Ad1- Tabletop Gaming - 17-03-17.indd 1 22/03/2017
17/03/2017 10:32
10:47
 SWORDS, SEX & SCI-FI
Father-son design team Mike and Cody Pondsmith reveal the future of iconic RPG Cyberpunk and
discuss swapping pixels for paper as they bring video game series The Witcher to the tabletop
Words by Matt Jarvis
Your publishing label, R. Talsorian,
has been around for more than three
decades now. Could you quickly run us
through the company’s history?
Mike Pondsmith: About ‘84 I started a
company called R. Talsorian Games, mostly
by mistake. I had written a game called
Mekton which was the first giant Japanese
robot game. We started a game company
on $500 and it proceeded to grow. We did
Mekton, we did three different versions of
that. We moved onto Teenagers from Outer
Space and several other games – including
the one we known for mostly, which is a
game called Cyberpunk.
Cyberpunk has been published in nine
different languages now. Turned out, one of
the languages it was published in was Polish.
This was back during the Iron Curtain days,
so I just couldn’t imagine anybody being able
to even read Cyberpunk in an Iron Curtain
country. But as our friends over at CD Projekt
Red [the Polish video game studio behind the
Witcher series now developing Cyberpunk
2077, based on the RPG] like to say, ‘We had
communism and Cyberpunk’, so I guess that’s
what we gave them.
044_047_rTalsorian_v3 MJ.indd 44
From there we went on to do Castle
Falkenstein and Bubblegum Crisis and a lot
of anime games including Dragonball Z,
VOTOMS – just basically tons and tons of
stuff. At this point it’s kind of a blur.
People don’t necessarily associate
you with anime roleplaying games,
as much of the attention is focused
on Cyberpunk. What do you find so
appealing about the anime genre?
MP: We got into it because basically we did
Mekton and the Japanese fans liked Mekton
so they got in touch with us and we loved
the shows. I stumbled onto everything from
?
WHO EXACTLY IS
R. TALSORIAN?
If you're wondering who the
mysterious Ross Talsorian is,
you might be surprised to learn
he's a raisin farmer. Mike
Pondsmith was advised
by friends not to name
his new company
after himself – so he
chose one of his
investors instead.
44
Gundam to Shirley in-between. So basically
it was sort of a natural extension an since we
were doing stuff with Japanese companies
we ended up doing a lot of Japanese-based
games. That’s just basically the proclivity – my
wife and I like anime and were big fans at the
time. It just kind of meshed in.
What’s interesting is that cyberpunk was
actually at that point bigger in Japan than it
was in the States. For example, during that
same period of time we get things like Akira
and a lot of other shows – Bubblegum Crisis
was coming out at that point – that were
basically already working on a cyberpunk
ethos. So it wasn’t a huge jump for us to do
cyberpunk at that point. That and the fact that
my favourite movie is Blade Runner.
The original Cyberpunk was later retitled
to Cyberpunk 2013, while the second
edition launched as Cyberpunk 2020...
MP: It’s originally been Cyberpunk, that’s
what it’s trademarked for. Then, in addition,
it went on. The original took place in 2013
and we added the 2020 essentially as version
20.20, which most people have never
actually gotten to guess the joke on. There
21/07/2017 15:20
 was an interim version that I never actually
published. So that was Cyberpunk 20.20 or
2020, that was because we upped the timeline
a little bit so we had a little more breathing
room. 2013 was getting a little close.
And now 2020 is getting a little close!
MP: I know, but I’m not moving it any further
now. We’re moving it up to 2077 and that’s
where we’re staying for a while.
Cody Pondsmith: We’re just going to be
really safe and the next one’s going to be like
9854, y’know?
Technology has moved on since
Cyberpunk was released. In many ways,
we’re living in the cyberpunk era today.
MP: I have a joke around here which is
‘cyberpunk now more than ever’.
One of the things we’ve been doing for
a recent reprint is we’ve actually added a
section called ‘2020 is closer than you think’
where we talk about things that were just
conceptual ideas way the heck back in the ‘80s
and are now fundamental to culture and how
we’ve actually built them.
In a large part, a lot of the things we have
now are coming out of the fact that we
had the cyberpunk ethos which was really
strongly based around personal technology
and personal use of that technology. Sitting
around me right now are at least nine pieces
of phone, recording, computer technologies
that are all essentially extensions of things you
would see in a cyberpunk movie 20 years ago.
So we’ve made it.
The problem with speculative fiction is
you’re going to have people look at it and go:
‘Hm, a phone that can be communicating with
something in orbit that you can just flip open
and talk to anybody you needed to. Beam me
up, Scotty.’ Someone would look at that and
go: ‘That’s a damn good idea, let’s make a
phone like that.’
By contrast, the fantasy genre is
almost entirely based in fiction. With
Cody creating The Witcher RPG at one
end of the scale and Mike developing
Cyberpunk at the other, how does that
difference play into your work?
CP: They are definitely two sides of the
spectrum. For me, as someone who’s always
been big into fantasy, there is an appeal to
that larger-than-life thing that – unless we
go severely off our bounds with genetics and
whatnot – we’re never going to have. But
there’s some appeal to that, because it keeps
some of the fantastic nature of things.
There’s a lot of appeal in the world we
live in where there aren’t many completely
044_047_rTalsorian_v3 MJ.indd 45
unexplored regions. People feel there aren’t
many new things to discover. There’s an
appeal to a world where most of the world is
undiscovered and walking a day or two away
from your house takes you somewhere that
people may never have gone to – or if they have
gone there they may never have come back
MP: What I did realise is that when Cody first
wanted to do Witcher, because he brought
the project to us, what I was always amused
at is that [protagonist] Geralt is a very, very
cyberpunk-esque character in that whether he’s
in a fantasy or cyberpunk setting, he’s essentially
the lone solo who goes out and deals with the
situation. He’s a very film-noir character, and
that makes Witcher appealing to me as well.
When you read the novels, particularly in the
short stories, he sounds almost like a fantasy
version of [The Maltese Falcon protagonist]
Sam Spade going: ‘Okay, so what’s the deal
and what’s the case and I’m going to go deal
with it in my own unique way.’ It’s a very, very
noir kind of character. I love that part.
We have three teams that are all doing “Geralt from The
different things and a couple of them overlap.
For example, the Mekton team and the Witcher is a very
Cyberpunk team have actually a fair amount of
overlap because we’re dealing with technologies. cyberpunk-esque
Your games are built on the Fuzion engine. character. He’s a
How do you adjust that RPG system to
suit the various genres you work with? film-noir character.”
MP: One of the interesting things is Fuzion
grew out of a need to already hit a lot of ▶
■ Above: While Mekton was grounded in anime, Cyberpunk was inspired by sci-fi such as Blade Runner.
■ Top: Mike Pondsmith, Cyberpunk creator, R. Talsorian founder and stylish as hell in a leather jacket.
■ Main, opposite: Cyberpunk 2077, the upcoming video game by CD Projekt Red based on the RPG.
45
21/07/2017 15:20
 R. TALSORIAN
genres. We had applied it to giant robots, we
had applied it to fantasy in some respects
with Castle Falkenstein, which has its own
sub-genre. What we were aiming for was
something that was adaptable on the fly
between types of roleplaying, with the
core being basically that you’ve got natural
abilities, you’ve got stuff you learn and there’s
always a bunch of dumb luck.
What’s fascinating is that over the years
– we hadn’t really seen anything like that
before when I was originally writing Interlock,
Fuzion’s earlier version – it’s now become
very de rigueur to find that combination
because stat skill and dumb luck basically
cover most of the aspects you need to deal
with. Once you get that hammered out, it
becomes how specialised we need to get it.  you’ve never played the video games, here’s
CP: There’s an interesting problem to that
with Witcher, because when we spoke
with CDPR about doing Witcher one of the
core understandings was that they, being
Cyberpunk players, really wanted the game to
be based on the core systems of Cyberpunk,
so they would really have that feeling,
because they felt it would be appropriate.
It’s been an interesting process, because
one thing that hadn’t really been thought
of a lot was the fact that Cyberpunk, being
a near-future game, is very reliant on guns
and ranged weapons and most of its systems
reflect that. Transferring that sort of system
over to Witcher suddenly takes it into a world
that’s based very, very heavily on effectively
melee combat with some ranged combat. It’s
also a system with magic.
There’s been a tremendous amount of work
that’s gone into tailoring a primarily gunfight-
based system into a very solid melee system,
including a lot of work emulating parts of The
Witcher 3’s combat system with its strong and
light attacks and its patented dodge rolls and
whatnot. Also implementing a critical wound
system that I’m very pleased with to give you
that ugly, brutal, visceral feeling that you get in
the books and in the video games; limbs lopped
off and organs wounded and things like that.
MP: There’s another thing that comes with
that as well, that I’m seeing working with
Cyberpunk 2077, which is that even when you
have the same core tabletop system, you have
to adapt to basically work into a digital system
as well. So a lot of the things that Cody’s had
to do would have been artefacts of the digital
system that are going over into tabletop –
things that are assumed or invisible when
you’re playing a video game but become very
visible and no longer transparent when you
take it over to the tabletop.
CP: For example, the adrenaline system in
Witcher 3, which I’m betting a solid 50%
044_047_rTalsorian_v3 MJ.indd 46
“You get that ugly,
brutal, visceral feeling
in the Witcher RPG
that you get in the
books and games.”
to 60% of players don’t notice. When we
transferred things over to the RPG, because
I wanted to be about as faithful as I could,
I had to sit down and solidly look at the
adrenaline system and transfer it into a dice-
based system that could be used in the RPG.
Which definitely brings it from effectively, as
Mike stated, something most people would
never visually see except for maybe a few
bars in a corner into something that – if you
choose to use it, as it’s set up as an alternate
system if you want to get a more visceral
combat system – you have as part of your
game. Something that you refer back to every
once in a while as a core part of combat.
Do you feel indebted to stick close to
the format and ‘feel’ of the video games,
given their popularity?
CP: It’s interesting, because there definitely
are some differences between the books and
the games, including a lot of very interesting
weird canon things based on who you’re
talking to about the canon.
We’ve tried to get a good balance between
the games’ core on the combat and stuff like
that and then the feel really solidly coming
from a combination of the books and the
46
games. Because, while we feel there’s a lot
of good stuff to be drawn from the games
and we want to draw from them as much
as possible, the books are the core source
material and we want to incorporate as much
of them as possible.
So it’s a balancing act of basically us trying
to stay true to the games and get the feel of the
games, because we know that a lot of our fans
will have played the games more than they will
really know about the books. But also we know
that a lot of our other fans, especially outside
of the States and in Poland and Eastern
Europe, will probably be also very familiar
with the books, if not more familiar.
I have gone out of my way to put an
entire section in the book that’s basically if
a few pages to get you caught up on what
happened in the video games and go. 
There are a lot of fantasy RPGs out
there. How did you go about capturing
that distinctly ‘Witcher’ feel?
CP: A lot of what we’ve done is basically drawn
from a combination of characters, a lot of time
spent wandering around the in-game worlds of
Witcher 2 and 3, and a lot of the short story series
in the original core books, because they – more
even than the long narrative – give you a very
solid feeling for what the world is like. So mostly
it’s a lot of effectively observing what we can.
We have two experts over at CDPR who
we talk to about things to make sure they’re
lore-accurate and whatnot. But it’s mostly we’re
trying to get a solid world section where you can
refer to for information and then we build it up
with basically character classes that are based on
21/07/2017 15:20
 characters in the video games and the books so
that you kind of have a concept of what you are.
MP: We’ve carried forward a lot of the same
things we had to do in Cyberpunk originally,
which was to show classes that tell you how
to play within that world.
CP: We also have set up two very, very in-depth
life paths that you run through when you create
your character. Which are basically a series of
roles that give you a background. So when you
go into create your character, you pick out your
race and profession and go through and find
out, ‘Okay, where do I come from? What is my
homeland? Are my parents alive? If not, what
happened to them? What happened in my early
life?’ All of those are heavily geared towards the
feeling of the Witcher world that we’ve gotten via
the books and video games. So, in theory, if you
run through your life path, you will come out
with a character that is a very Witcher character.
Cyberpunk and The Witcher are both
titles rooted in genre, but they exude a
certain ‘badass’ attitude. How are the
games designed to encourage players
to embody this style?
MP: Partially you have to find out a little bit
about what works inside the head of the player.
One of the things that works very well for both
Cyberpunk and Witcher is that we do have
examples now that people can look at and say,
‘It’s like this.’ Your big trick is to make sure that
it’s rewarding to try; that it actually has positive
feedback to try to do things that are cool and
are basically showstopper moments.
CP: I always try to suggest that you basically
start your players off with something that
is 100% in that genre. When I run Witcher
■ Sex plays a big part in the Witcher video
games – it'll be an option in the RPG, too.
044_047_rTalsorian_v3 MJ.indd 47
games I always try to give the players a bit
of background. I try to start them out with a
feeling of what their last couple weeks have
been like so that they know what they’re
coming from. That will usually inform how
they move forward.
MP: That’s sort of the same thing I do with the
Cyberpunk games. I particularly love the setup
situations that evolve around people’s living
situations. I like to point out the fact that you’ve
moved to a really ratty cube somewhere or a
terrible apartment which is better than the fact
you were sleeping under a bridge that night,
and that right now everything you have is in a
bivvy bag and there’s at least two booster gangs
who’d just love to take that, kill you and sell you
for body parts. The big point is to pick this up
at a point of contact where the player knows
how wet, cold or endangered and miserable
they might be, and then to basically give
them something that’s a very, very strong
■ Teenagers from Outer Space, the second RPG
immersion problem right after that. published by R. Talsorian following Mekton.
CP: In the case of immersion, I’ve found that,
for home GMs, if you can pull out a laptop or
your phone or something and pull up those
ten-hour ambient loops for rain or city noises
CYBER SPEAK
or anything like that, it really helps your The world of Cyberpunk has its own unique
players keep focused and in the world. language and dialect, which might seem
unfamiliar to first-time players. We break
down some of the terms you should know.
Sex plays a big role in The Witcher. Have
you included it in the roleplaying game? Booster
CP: Sex is always an awkward one for RPGs. A member of a street gang (known as
There is a section in the game master’s booster gangs). Typical traits include
section which basically goes over that. You a penchant for ultra-violence, cyber
enhancements and intense control of their
can do it. That is perfectly fine. Assumedly, territory. Boosters can be part of sub-
probably most of your players are adults, they categories, such as the identical look of
are used to the concept. But unless everybody poser gang members or chromatic metal
in your game is cool with it, you don’t run it, gangs, who listen to rock music and take
instructions from the lyrics.
because that is probably the second-worst
way to make your game awkward as hell. Bodysculpt
We have joked about doing an entire Drastically changing your appearance
Whoreson [Junior, a crime boss in Witcher using cosmetic surgery and cybernetics.
3] supplement which would have brothel A person bodysculpted with non-human
or alien elements, such as fur or fangs, is
creation tables and stuff like that, but that’s known as an 'exotic'. Can be referred to as
probably going to be an April Fools’ Day biosculpting.
product somewhere down the line.
MP: We’ve had the same issue with Chombatta
Cyberpunk. In fact, oddly enough, the furthest Slang term for a friend or family member. Can
be substituted with 'choomba'.
we ever went with it in Cyberpunk was [sequel]
CyberGeneration, where we looked at it more Braindance
from the standpoint of, well, sex is a lot stickier A digital recording of an individual's personal
and more of a problem when you’re 16, experience, which can then be streamed
y’know? In that one it was essentially more to directly into a viewer's neural system using
a brain augmentation called a BD player,
show it was a messy situation. allowing them to re-experience all the sights,
CP: We do have seduction as a skill, we do sounds, smells and feelings of the event.
have experts, so I suppose you could choose
'expert prostitute'. We do have a social Crystaljock
combat system which has both romance and Computer users and hackers considered
'old-school' due to their use of viruses and
seduction, so I guess if you really wanted to apps over virtual reality. One of the character
you could sit down and run it. I still wouldn’t roles (classes) available in Cyberpunk.
suggest it, but there you go. ■
47
25/07/2017 08:36
 The Ultimate Companion App

FowlLanguageComics.com

LenPeralta.com

DorkTower.com

Learning a new game can be tough.

Let’s Make it Happen on

INDIEGOGO August 28, 2017

p048-049.indd 1 19/07/2017 11:25

 START
PLAYING
NOW.
LEARN AS YOU PLAY WITH THE DIZED APP
Dized interactive tutorials let you start playing immediately,
straight out of the box. Spend more time playing games.

The Ultimate Companion App

Interactive Tutorials Setup Guides Rule Lookup Tool

p048-049.indd 2 19/07/2017 11:25

 ■ The Spanish team huddle to discuss tactics
for fantasy wargame The 9th Age. (ETC)

WHAT WAR
IS GOOD FOR
Fighting spirit and a passion for community go hand in hand.
Fans and creators of Malifaux, Warhammer 40,000, Warmachine
and Hordes tell us what wargamers are doing to support their hobby
Words by Tim Franklin

W
argamers are some of the most
competitive gamers around,
alongside chess grandmasters, CCG
champions and your nan during the annual
family Monopoly game on Boxing Day. They
tweak their armies and hone their strategies
for days on end, removing every weakness and
claiming every advantage, striving for victory
in the next clash of toy soldiers. Kitchen table
battles are hotly contested, and tournaments
resound to the noise of dozens of gamers rolling
dice and pushing plastic, steam whistling
from their ears as their brains overheat.
An army of club, tournament and
convention organisers help make this
happen; volunteers who work long and
hard to give players a place and a reason
to play. Yet there are some members of the
community whose efforts affect players of
their game all across the globe, and enable
competitive gaming at a higher level.
KING OF THE HILL
Competitive wargamers can usually name
a handful of top players in their local scene,
players who have mastered the game and

50

049_052_wargamingCommunity_v4 MJ.indd 50 21/07/2017 15:23

 crush all opposition. But singling out the
very best player in the country would be a
contentious matter for most people – a three-
pint problem for the after-tournament pub
session, sure to generate a heated dispute.
For the wargame Malifaux, however, the
answer is simple: to check on
the current champion you can go
to malifaux-rankings.com where, “Rankings can pull a community
thanks to the effort of a small
team of volunteers, information apart. For Malifaux, they have
from tournaments the length and
breadth of the country is collated simply encouraged more banter.”
and used to rate the performance
of hundreds of players.
The Malifaux rankings system, just like
the worldwide systems for chess and tennis,
tracks each competitor's performance across
tournaments. Points are awarded based
on a player’s placement and the size of the
tournament. Then their best four scores for the
last 12 months are added together, resulting in
their ranking score.
The rankings system team is led by
Kai-Steve Young. Over the years Young has
owned dozens of game systems, but Malifaux
captured his imagination completely.
“I sold all my other models!” Young says.
049_052_wargamingCommunity_v4 MJ.indd 51
He’s a tournament regular. “I get to as many
tournaments as I can, but since I run most of
the Scottish tournaments I travel down south
with my team a lot.”
Young is the fourth developer of
Malifaux Rankings.
“I offered help to the last developer
[Stephen Baird], and wrote the site from
the ground up, using it to learn a scripting
language for work. When Stephen fell ill in
February 2016 he suggested I take it on. I got
a good friend [Jamie Clark] involved to help
out and it went from there.”
Malifaux Rankings has grown since Young
took over.
“In 2015 we logged 162 tournaments
from around the world, and in 2016 that
increased to 192.”
The software now runs in six countries,
and is accompanied by the tournament
■ Hundreds of wargaming matches taking place at once. (ETC)
51
software Bag O’ Tools, which the pair wrote
from the ground up. They also established a
similar rankings system for the community-
developed fantasy wargame The 9th Age.
Running the software gives Young a bird’s-
eye view of Malifaux’s growth as a hobby.
“The popularity of the game
has grown; more and more
tournaments are getting sold
out. I like to think that we make a
difference – hopefully we provide
a way for people to want to stay
and be competitive.”
By tying together a player’s
performance across all the tournaments
they compete in, rankings can change how
someone approaches the game. Highly
competitive players are incentivised to stay
and complete a tournament after they’ve
lost a match even if they can’t claim the top
spot, while players who are just developing
a ranking can watch as they slowly creep
out of the wooden spoon division.
Could there be a downside? Tennis players
are famous for breaking rackets when they
lose a ranked match and rankings can foster
an attitude of continuous competition
between players. ▶
21/07/2017 15:23

“People have remarked that rankings can
pull a community apart," Young reflects.
"But for Malifaux, it has not. It has simply
encouraged more banter!
“The community is unlike any other gaming
scene I have been involved in. Everyone is there
to help and we all get along.”
ERRATA TO END ALL ERRATA
Few wargames tournaments are as ambitious
and international as the European Team
Championship. Up to 1,000 players from
32 countries compete in tournaments lasting
three days. Founded in 2006, the
ETC dates back to a time when
Games Workshop’s Warhammer
“I have friends who I see once
and Warhammer 40,000 were the
biggest show in town, and they
every year at the European Team
remain the focus of the competition.
While recent rivals such as
Championship. It’s like a big village.”
Warmachine and Guild Ball have
been designed specifically for tournament
play, Games Workshop’s titles never escaped
their history as hybrid roleplaying-wargames
dreamt up by hairy Midlands heavy metal
fans. The loosely-written rules are great for
kitchen table battles between friends keen
to add their own scenarios and stories, but
provide plenty of ambiguity that can make
competitive play challenging.
Games Workshop’s errata never quite
closed the holes in the rules, leaving each club,
tournament or individual to make their own mind
up when disagreements arose. Tom Adriany, four-
time chairperson of the ETC, saw the problems
this could create for an international tournament.
“We have teams coming from metas in
different countries and in each one they have
049_052_wargamingCommunity_v4 MJ.indd 52
made a different decision about how a rule
should be interpreted,” he explains. “I remember
a match between the German and Polish teams
where the result of the game, and the whole
round for the team, depended on a very small
but crucial rule about not moving models within
one inch of one another except during close
assault. In Germany they played it one way, in
Poland another. A judge had to be called to make
the decision. That decision decided the game,
the round and the whole tournament for both
teams. If it had been a different judge it could
have been a totally different outcome.”
Adriany knew that the ETC could do better
for its players so, together with other members
of the governing committee, he set out to create
an errata document to set the standard for
international Warhammer 40,000. Providing
definitive interpretations of the game’s many
idiosyncratic rules and ambiguities across the
seventh edition, it grew to over 60 pages.
“Whenever we find a new problem about five
of us get together over Facebook, talk it through
and put it to a vote,” Adriany says. “There’s a lot
of discussion. You’re always deciding between
an interpretation that takes the rules literally,
and one that tries to find the original intention
behind the rule. In the end it’s decided by a
simple majority, which isn’t perfect – sometimes
a similar problem was ruled differently,
52
■ Miniatures on parade. (ETC)
so we’re not creating the most elegant
interpretation of the rules. But we make a point
not to revisit a ruling because iterating on the
rules pack could lead to more confusion.”
It might be surprising that a game that
generated so many problems for competitive
gamers could attract such loyalty among them.
Adriany has his theories.
“There’s nothing else like Warhammer
40,000. It may not be perfect but it’s still just
good fun. People are in love with that world, the
background and the fluff. And there’s the social
aspect. I have friends who I see once every year
at the ETC. It’s like a big village.”
Adriany has more reason than
most to be grateful for the ETC
community, as he met his wife
Tamara Stojanovic when she was
working as an organiser of the
2013 tournament in Serbia.
“We hit it off, and when the
tournament returned to Serbia next year we
decided to give it a try. It’s working!”
The ETC’s rules packet spread beyond its
home tournament, becoming one of several
standards adopted by club competitions
around the world. With the upcoming eighth
edition of Warhammer 40,000 everything
could change, and Games Workshop has
shown more willingness to involve the
community in game design.
“When they were writing their FAQ for
seventh edition we did say, ‘Hey, use ours, it’s
quite big.’ They didn’t! Now with eighth edition
my friends in the competitive scene are very
excited. It’s good to see Games Workshop
have been inviting organisers from major
tournaments, like Mike Brandt from the Nova
25/07/2017 08:38
 Open and Reece Robbins from the Las Vegas
Open, to talk to them about the game. We’re
waiting on our call!”
ON BALANCE
It’s not just grassroots projects that result in the
community influencing a wargame. In March
2017 Privateer Press launched the Community
Integrated Development (CID) programme,
opening up playtesting of its titles Warmachine
and Hordes to fans. While Privateer’s design
team take the lead, any community member
can sign up to the CID forums, download
work-in-progress rules and give feedback that
will shape the game they play.
Chief executive Matt Wilson is impressed with
how things are going.
“The response to CID has been
overwhelmingly positive and very enthusiastic.
Within the first couple weeks of starting our first
cycle testing the new Grymkin faction we had
nearly 4,000 players sign up to participate. When
we opened up testing on our organised play rules
another 600 joined overnight, and we’re now
approaching 6,000 members of the CID forums.”
This provides Privateer one of the largest
playtesting groups in the tabletop hobby.
“On a day-to-day basis, they’re collecting a ton of
data and they’re also actively engaged in discussion
with the players on the CID forums,” Wilson
continues. “The volume of communication going
back and forth is huge. But the results have been
worth it. The development team is as pleased as
the players because they see results immediately
in the testing that can then be applied to the model
rules. It’s a paradigm shift to the way we have
worked in the past but it has become our new
model for developing Warmachine and Hordes.”
■ A match of Malifaux during the
2016 nationals. (Battlefield Hobbies)
049_052_wargamingCommunity_v4 MJ.indd 53
It could be an intimidating prospect to make a
game forum part of your day-to-day office work,
especially if you’ve seen the Wild West that online
communities can descend into. It’s something
that Wilson and the team approached carefully.
“The first question on all of our feedback
submission forms requires the participant to
agree to ‘be a respectful human being.’ If they
decline, the form session ends. For the most part,
people participating in the CID process have
taken this to heart and the feedback has been well
thought-out, on point and generally respectful.
At the same time, the community is somewhat
self-policing. When someone is being a troll or
communicating with an air of entitlement, the
community is quick to call that behaviour out.”
Still, Privateer has the ultimate responsibility for
ensuring the forums are a safe space for discussion
– for its staff as well as the wider community.
“It’s not a three strikes and you’re out system;
everyone gets one chance to be a respectful
human being.”
It’s not surprising that passions could run
high. Warmachine and Hordes players care about
clarity in rules and all models having a use in
competitive play. Every player has an opinion
about which models overperform and which
need work. CID is their chance to work directly
with Privateer to realise the best possible version
of their game. Wilson has been impressed with
how testers have approached this.
“One thing that I have found interesting is how
many of the participants are keen to understand
the intent in the original design. When we
launched the Grymkin cycle, we carefully laid out
our design intent for each of the models so that
players knew what we were aiming for with some
of these abstract concepts and players were able
53
■ A game of Malifaux.
(Battlefield Hobbies)
to use those descriptions to evaluate and frame
their feedback. [Then, however,] we launched a
cycle to focus on existing battle engine models
[huge models like chariots and walkers and other
vehicles] but, because the models have all been
in circulation for a while, we overlooked the need
to articulate our intent in how each individual
model should perform on the tabletop.
Consequently, our biggest comment by far when
we asked how we could improve the CID process
was that participants want us to describe the
intent behind the concepts. I think this illustrates
the spirit of collaboration our players feel with
regards to the CID process; by and large, they’re
not asking to dictate what something is going to
do in gameplay, they are interested in embracing
the concepts and collaborating with us to achieve
something that we can all be excited about
putting into our armies.”
THE PEOPLE'S WAR
Perhaps it’s natural that players who fall in love
with competitive wargaming go on to contribute
so much to their community. Wargames
require a big investment of time and energy
for players to build and paint their armies and
scenery. They’re very social as well, with players
organising car pools to get to tournaments,
running demonstration games to recruit the next
generation of fans and talking tactics with friends
as they hone their skills.
Wargaming is a hobby that rewards a player
who puts a lot in. It should be no surprise that
people who get so much from their hobby are
willing to put so much back. ■
21/07/2017 15:23
 PLAYING WITH
YOURSELF
Designers of single-player-only games tell us why more and more
people are choosing to enjoy their tabletop experiences alone
Words by Matt Jarvis
“H
aven’t you heard? One is the
new two,” sings Amy Adams’
Mary in 2011’s The Muppets, as
she expounds the benefits of throwing a ‘me
party’ and spending some time alone. When
it comes to the tabletop, one is also becoming
the new two, three, four and more as an
increasing number of major games include
variants designed for solo players to face off
against cardboard-powered opponents or
attempt to beat their own high score.
054_056_playingSolo_v2 MJ.indd 54
From Scythe’s detailed Automa rules,
which make use of physical decks of cards
to simulate rival players, to the connected
companion apps of games such as Mansions
of Madness’ second edition that replace the
need for a hostile overlord player with a
phone, tablet or laptop you can (more easily)
lob out the window when they beat you – not
to mention the rise of digital adaptations that
come with virtual opponents ready to play
at the tap of an icon – it’s never been easier
54
to enjoy board games without needing to
carefully align crammed calendars or tempt
friends over with booze and takeaway.
Of course, playing games on your own is
nothing new – there’s a reason Solitaire and
Minesweeper have been fixtures of the humble
PC and workplace lunch break for decades –
but never before has there been such a deluge
of thematically diverse and mechanically
complex games available to play in their full-
strength forms with little extra investment of
time, effort or money required.
Not only are games designed for bigger
groups that support solo play becoming more
commonplace, there’s also been a rise in the
number of titles that go completely the other
way and top out at a player count of one to
begin with. They're popular, too – the 1 Player
Guild on BoardGameGeek, an online group
dedicated to celebrating solitaire gaming, has
close to 7,000 members alone.
“With our modern time’s busy schedules,
adults are having a tough time scheduling
time to play board games with other human
beings, so solitaire games are a great
21/07/2017 15:24
 compromise if you can’t find other people
to play with,” suggests John Gibson, who
designed the solo strategy game Infection:
Humanity’s Last Grasp. “The other thing is
that gamers like the tactile feeling of moving
tokens around on a board or rolling dice to
determine success or failure – iPhones and
video games can’t give you that.”
Hermann Luttman, creator of one-player
zombie survival title Dawn of the Zeds, sees
the ongoing popularity of mobile and video
games as one of the factors contributing to
the strength of solo gaming on the tabletop.
“There is no doubt that solitaire gaming
– with games specifically designed for solo
play – has increased in popularity in the
last few years,” he observes. “Solo gaming
is more socially acceptable with the advent
of computer gaming, video games and so
on. So it doesn’t have the same stigma, I
guess. Solo design has generally become
more sophisticated and clever, as well, thus
making it more challenging and enjoyable
and thereby an attractive gaming alternative.”
A.J. Porfirio is president of publisher Van
Ryder Games and designer of one of the most
acclaimed solitaire releases of the last few years,
Hostage Negotiator, which sees players playing
cards and rolling dice to converse one-on-one
with a criminal, played by the game itself.
“Now it feels like one-player is just another
player count and not some external derivative
for rare gamers that like solo,” he comments.
“Lots of folks are playing solo these days and,
while you still get those that turn their nose
up at it, those slanted views are seen far less
than even just a couple years ago.”
ME, MYSELF AND I
Crafting their game for a single person means
that designers have no need to take into
054_056_playingSolo_v2 MJ.indd 55
“Solo gaming is more socially
acceptable with the advent of
video games.”
account the challenges associated with scaling
mechanics to suit different party sizes or
ensuring there’s the right level of interaction
between participants. The commitment to
deliver a specific experience without having
to consider a variety of different potential
situations opens the doors to tackle themes
and situations that would be diminished by
the presence of another player.
That’s the case with The Beast, an erotic
roleplaying card game that sees players
keeping a secret diary over 21 real-time days
and recording their fictional sexual encounters
with the titular monster. Each day, a new
card is drawn that aims to spark the deeper
imagination of the player by proposing
questions or events: deciding whether the
Beast’s smell reminds them of meat, wild
flowers or faeces, for instance. It’s obviously
not for everyone, but is designed to allow those
willing to give themselves over to its unique
framing the chance to unlock the unexplored
regions of their desires.
“The Beast started as a two-player game
but we saw that the game requires opening
up about one’s deeply hidden fantasies,”
recalls Kamil Wegrzynowicz, who co-created
The Beast with his design partner and wife
Aleksandra Sontowska. “It could easily be
abused in so many ways. Aleksandra came up
with an idea for a solitaire game so that players
can safely explore their fantasies and don’t
have to censor themselves.”
■ Opposite: Infection is
about curing a disease
before it wipes out
humanity – on your
own. No pressure!
■ Left: Raunchy
roleplaying game
The Beast encourages
players to explore
their inner psyche.
“In a way, a
solitaire game is
an interaction with
a designer.”
55
The idea that each playthrough of The
Beast is for one person and that person
alone is key: players are told to hide or burn
their completed diary on the final day, to
encourage their complete honesty without
the worrying of being judged by prying eyes.
“The Beast is about exploring your own
sexuality and we had to deal with self-censorship
and fear of shame,” Wegrzynowicz explains.
“Sometimes even the player can shock
themselves with answers they come up with –
not to mention other people. The Beast as a one-
player game gives safety and a chance to be true to
yourself. With more players, the gameplay would
be more oriented towards showing or shocking
others at the table – it would be more audience-
oriented. Right now, there’s still an audience –
the player themselves – but it’s inward-oriented.”
Not all solo games need to have a theme as
attached to the player’s psyche as The Beast,
but Luttman suggests that forming a personal
bond is key when there are no other players
present to enrich the experience.
“The game’s theme must be much more
immersive – more so than a two-player game,”
he argues. “You need to get lost inside the
game when playing solo, since it’s just you and
the game. The game becomes your opponent
and thus must have a deep, entertaining and
engrossing ‘personality’.”
Porfirio counters with his belief that equally
important is providing motivation for the
player to complete the game – whether that’s by
rescuing hostages, surviving a zombie outbreak
or discovering more about themselves.
“A solo game should have an thematic
narrative and a specific goal,” he states. “There are
tons of themes that can fit, but ones that work best
are those that have someone facing an individual
challenge. For example, a rock climber
climbing a mountain or a survival scenario.”
ALONE TOGETHER
One of the biggest hurdles facing solo titles
is the removal of one of the most ▶
21/07/2017 15:24
 SOLO GAMING

appealing aspects of gaming on the

tabletop: social interaction. As the massive
success of party games such as Cards
Against Humanity and Exploding Kittens has
proved – not to mention the enduring status
of Monopoly as a family favourite despite its
widespread derision – people enjoy using
board and card games as a reason to simply
get together and have a good time. Like
watching a comedy alone, it’s just not the
same when there’s no-one there to laugh
along with you.
“Single-player games are just different
this way,” Wegrzynowicz accepts, but adds
that not all multiplayer games are designed
to be conversation starters, either: “While
social interaction is fun, I can imagine a
group of strangers playing a board game
and effectively not interacting with each
other besides the rules.”
In fact, playing a one-person game
doesn’t mean you’re completely isolated
from the rest of the world at all. Just as the
internet has allowed sub-cultures formed ■ Above: Later editions of Dawn
around other forms of entertainment of the Zeds added multiplayer.
typically enjoyed alone, such as music
■ Below left: In Hostage
or reading, to blossom, solo gamers
Negotiator the player must try
have the ability to discuss their personal and talk down a criminal.
experiences and form relationships with
likeminded people based on countless
other elements of a game.
“While social interaction is important,
“Now it feels like one-player is
there are other goals and ways to have fun
with a game,” continues Wegrzynowicz.
just another player count.”
“This is where a solitaire game can shine.
A player can play against the game, enjoy
fiction or theme, make meaningful choices, achieve skill mastery. Most importantly, Ultimately, if and how you enjoy single-
a player still engages with material given player-only games alongside or instead of
by the game designer. In a way, it is an multiplayer offerings comes down to the
interaction with a designer.” same universal rule applied to the rest of the
gaming hobby: do what’s right for you.
NO GAME IS AN ISLAND “I would say there is one element that
Even for those who feel that playing alone is more important than social interaction,
just isn’t for them, single-player games and that is having fun,” Gibson declares.
aren’t completely off the table. “There are some players who are extreme
“Social interaction is a key element of introverts and they get stressed out by
the gaming hobby and one that should having too much social interaction. Nothing
be embraced and celebrated,” Luttman relaxes them more after a day full of having
says. “Obviously, sometimes this is not an to deal with other people then setting up
option but, then again, simply being able a solitaire game and trying to defeat a
to share a solitaire experience with other silent opponent. And there are people with
gamers can be rewarding as well. situations and schedules where playing a
“One aspect of solitaire games that is tabletop game against another person is
often overlooked is playing solo games simply not an option.”
co-operatively. This is especially fun and “Gamers play games for all sorts of
a wonderful bonding experience when different reasons,” Porfirio agrees. “The only
you do so with your kids and/or spouse. general assertion that I think can be made
But in any setting and with anyone about why people play games is that they
interested, co-op gaming a solitaire play them for fun. Of course, then we could
design can be a truly remarkable and get into what ‘fun’ means – and that would be
fun event.” different to different people.” ■

56

054_056_playingSolo_v2 MJ.indd 56 21/07/2017 15:25

p057.indd 1 19/07/2017 11:37
 HOW
ANALOGUE
GAMING
WENT
DIGITAL
The makers of Carcassonne’s mobile version and new integrated app
game Rising 5 tell us the right way to mix technology and tabletop gaming
Words by Tom Cassidy
A
re smartphones muscling into tabletop
gaming? App-solutey! From faithfully-
recreated digital versions of classic
games to a new wave of games incorporating
phones into their core systems, tabletop
gaming has been sucked into the swell of 21st-
century smartphone ubiquity. The good news:
it works.
POCKET FUN
There’s nothing quite like unwrapping a new
game, inhaling the box-fresh smell and popping
out the counters. There’s a crisp rulebook to
thumb through and the first setup to tackle.
These sensory connections come from this
previously being the only way to play a game.
Today, the same game can be bought
online at a fraction of the price, downloaded
058_060_gamingApps_v3 MJ.indd 58
instantly and be up and running in seconds,
after the handy interactive tutorial, of course.
Smartphone and tablet versions of games are
the height of convenience. There’s no setting
up, many save your game so you can pick up
and play and you can play friends around the
world in a lightning-quick evolution of postal
chess. They are a cheap way to try a game
without buying the box and, in turn, master
tactics away from the table.
Next year the Apple App Store celebrates
its 10th birthday. After a decade’s worth of
development, you’ll be hard pushed to find
a big name game yet to be ported to pockets.
Ticket To Ride and its expansions are on every
app store around, Pandemic is spreading
germs via fingertips the world over. Small
screen replicas are big business.
58
TAPPING ON TILES
One of the most successful and faithful digital
recreations is the iOS version of Carcassonne,
Klaus-Jürgen Wrede’s classic town builder
that has been a gateway game staple since its
release in 2000.
The award-winning iOS app is by German
developers The Coding Monkeys, who
perfectly distill the essence of the game. It is
first and foremost a perfect recreation of the
tabletop game. From that solid starting point,
they add in nine AI opponents each with
their personalities, solitaire puzzle modes
and a killer multiplayer system.
The project came about after the Coding
Monkeys team discussed Carcassonne on
their podcast, Fanboys. Carcassonne’s German
distributor Dominion heard their chat and sent
over some expansions for them to try.
“After that we met and, with the reputation
we had from winning two Apple Design
Awards for macOS applications, one thing
led to the other,” says The Coding Monkeys
co-founder Martin Pittenauer.
“We were aware of the legacy of
Carcassonne and the responsibility to give
it a good mobile port for iOS. That’s why we
planned and crafted the game as a feature-
complete experience – even at a time when
neither Game Center nor the iPad existed yet.”
To date, more than eight million online
multiplayer matches of Carcassonne have
been played, a testament to the care and
attention the team put into its development.
Pre-dating Apple’s Game Center social
platform, used to connect gamers around
the world, Pittenauer’s team had to build a
multiplayer system from scratch.
“Implementing online multiplayer,
together with a system to friend people and a
robust backend running on our own servers,
certainly proved to be quite a challenge,” he
reveals. “We toyed with the idea to ship the
game without online multiplayer and add it
in an update later on. In the end I’m really
thankful that we bit the bullet and postponed
release by three months to have everything
ready at the start.”
Better late than never, as time has proved.
“Running our own system turned out to
be the right decision, given that most, if not
all, of the services available back then are
now defunct,” explains Pittenauer, whose
sturdy system is still tirelessly supporting
games across the globe. “The other thing
that can’t be emphasised enough is that we
were really happy to choose the right tool
for the job. Our backend is written in Erlang,
a somewhat obscure but highly reliable
programming language that provided a very
stable environment for our code.”
21/07/2017 15:26
 ■ Left: Rising 5 combines a
deck of physical cards with
an app that controls the
co-op game's puzzles.

■ Opposite: Carcassonne
was one of the first games
to receive a mobile version.

■ Below: Talisman's AI
was accused of cheating
by players – despite being
balanced fairly.

As well as providing a place for friends to RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE board-hopping battler, but reviews on
play, the iOS of Carcassonne version also has All us tabletop gamers have adapted our Google’s Android Play store call foul.
a cast of colourful AI characters. phones for everyday gaming applications. Who “Cheats like hell,” begins one review from a
“Most of our AI designs are based around hasn’t snapped a picture when a game has user who goes on to list every part of game that
a character trait,” says Pittenhauer. “The been cut short, allowing play to resume days is seemingly against him.
Servant is a little bit simplistic in his plays, the later with the pieces able to go back as they Developer Nomad Games has replied to
Juggler plays a bit weirdly, the Witch makes were? For the battlers, you’ve got your army this accusation and others, stating it’s simply a
more evil and tricky plays. From there we start list in your pocket for quick reference. Missing matter of perception.
experimenting with parameters for how the dice? Roll on your phone. These benign uses “A series of random numbers are generated at
AI plays, plans and responds and try to fit that are quick, handy fixes to old problems. But the start of the game and they are played out in
with the initial vision for the character.” what happens when foul play is suspected? the order they were created in. Each die roll takes
Playing against different personality types Trust is important in gaming. Sure, some the next roll result in the list, no matter what
in any port can be a boot camp for tactics to games are based on deception: being blindsided is happening,” a Nomad spokesperson tells me.
take with you back to the tabletop. But can an in something like Battlestar Galactica can feel In other words: it’s not cheating, it is random.
unbeatable AI player be developed? good – you shake your fist with a smile. But It just doesn’t feel like it. As clever as an app is, it’ll
“I guess it is possible to write an AI that the cold, impotent rage of being cheated by a not be able to faithfully recreate the spontaneity of
plays better than a human, like Google and computer? That’s a different story… even if it clacking two cubes on a tabletop to decide our fate.
CMU have recently demonstrated for Go and didn’t happen. Just look at Talisman. So when it comes to apps, tile-based, card-
Texas hold ‘em poker,” says Pittenauer, before The smartphone edition of the classic drawing, social games are a breeze while, to
emphasising Carcassonne’s key leveller: its Games Workshop adventure board game some players, dice-based systems lack the feel
tile draw system. “Even the best player is is a faithful and fun reconstruction of the of authenticity. ▶
somewhat dependent on luck in Carcassonne.
In any case, mobile devices aren’t yet powerful
enough to run that kind of code.”
So Skynet-grade opponents aren’t lurking in “Rushing the computer AI a bit
our pockets yet – we’d turn off the app before
they got the chance to conquer us. makes its moves less ‘perfect’.”
“For AI, one of the most obvious balance
points is how long you give the computer to
‘think’ about his moves. If your CPU power is
rather limited, running on a mobile device,
it’s a question of how long you want the user
to wait for the computer to find his optimal
play. Rushing the AI a bit makes its moves less
‘perfect’,” Pittenauer explains.
The imperfect AI players seal the deal
on Carcassonne being a perfect port,
developed for tabletop gamers by tabletop
gamers and providing the exact base game
and a host of extras.
Yet despite digitally developing the
ultimate pick up-and-play game, Pittenauer
likes to get stuck into deeper realms when he’s
away from screens.
“Ironically, I enjoy board games with a stronger
emphasis on world-building, and even a bit of
roleplaying, like Betrayal at House on the Hill,
Eldritch Horror or Battlestar Galactica,” he says.

59

058_060_gamingApps_v3 MJ.indd 59 21/07/2017 15:26

 GAMING APPS
CHECK THE TAPE
In recent years, big-name successful games
such as the second edition of Mansions of
Madness and XCOM: The Board Game have
incorporated apps into their core game systems,
sending ripples of ‘brave new world’ excitement
through the already revitalised industry. But
this new phase in tabletop gaming is actually
a second wind. Just as the now thriving virtual
reality made a go of things in the early 1990s, but
didn’t have the technology to back up its vision,
the implementation of technology in tabletop
gaming had an admirable first stab on VHS.
Released in 1991, Atmosfear by Australians Brett
Clements and Phillip Tanner was a board game
with a meddling dungeon master character on
videotape. Pop in the video, press play and watch
your fate play out as the spooky overseer appeared
every so often to give orders. It was fun, sold plenty
(two million copies in two years in Australia alone)
and was a great gimmick. The obvious flaw was
the videotape. The fun is curtailed slightly when
you know The Gatekeeper is going to appear at
22 minutes, having played through from start to
finish a few times. Only now are events, puzzles
and instructions able to be delivered randomly.
Flaws be damned, Atmosfear’s new format was
exciting and spawned a host of sequels, the last of
which was published on DVD in 2006, having made
the jump to the disc format in 2004. Now a direct
line can be drawn between that innovative game
and the latest adopters of technology, 25 years on.
“Atmosfear was the second game I ever played
after HeroQuest and I still have great memories
of playing that game in a dark room with friends,”
says Holy Grail Games’ Jamie Johnson, publisher
of Rising 5: Runes of Asteros. “I’ve always believed
in the potential of app-driven games and, with
Atmosfear technically being the first of the genre,
I don’t think there’s a coincidence there.”
Rising 5 is a co-operative exploration game
with a fiendish Mastermind-style puzzle, whipped
up live in its app. With this, Johnson notes an
important distinction between the two current
camps of games. While the
058_060_gamingApps_v3 MJ.indd 60
“The larger community of gamers
are starting to come around to
app-driven board games.”
likes of Warhammer Quest: The Silver Tower have a
companion app to log your items and stats between
quests, games with integrated apps embed the
technology deep in the game mechanics.
“The app doesn’t control any events; these
are located in a more classical deck of cards,” he
explains. “The app controls the puzzle element
of the game: the rune combination that will
allow players to seal the Rune Gate. It randomly
assigns each rune an astrological symbol and
it’s through these that it will communicate with
the players throughout the game. The players
have to discover the relation between the runes
and the symbols in order to discover the correct
combination… whilst fighting their way through
hordes of monsters, of course.”
Both brains and brawn required, then.
“This makes the app much more central to
the gaming experience then simply generating
some events. Other good examples of this level of
integration would be XCOM or World of Yo-Ho.”
With new ways to introduce technology popping
up across the industry, inspiration is spreading
and unlocking ways to implement ideas.
“Gary [Kim, who designed Rising 5 with
Evan Song and Vincent Durait] had the base
idea for Rising 5 in his head but it was when he
encountered Alchemists and its app at Essen Spiel
a few years ago that it all clicked and The Gate, as it
was known at the time, was born,” says Johnson.
“The authors wanted a quick and simple
system that would allow gamers to play out the
adventure-puzzle experience. Although this
could eventually have been achieved through
physical components or a human element like in
Mastermind, it would not have been as simple,
aesthetic or immersive as the app.”
60
To get a simple system, a whole new world
of complicated co-ordination and costs are
introduced. While Codenames creator Vlaada
Chvátil famously – and cheaply – hashed out the
Spiel des Jahres winner in 45 minutes with some
squares of paper and a pencil, developing tech
lands developers with a big new bill.
“In the case of Rising 5 it was the biggest
development cost,” says Johnson of the Kickstarter-
funded game. “[South Korean developer] Mandoo
worked with external programmers to develop the
app. Very few board game companies have internal
teams for this kind of task. As the solidity of the app
was of paramount importance, the collaboration
was done very closely with a lot of back and
forth that not only made sure the app functioned
perfectly but also improved on the design of
not only the app but the game as a whole.”
The result? Another new and exciting
crossover between tactile tabletop board
gaming and the limitless possibility of apps.
TOGETHER FOREVER?
So long as developers commit the extra resources
to innovate app integration, the pool should
continue to grow in weird and wonderful ways.
“A couple of years ago, when smaller
companies were releasing app-driven board
games, people were very sceptical,” says Johnson.
“It’s still a difficult sell, though, as the genre
comes with some natural disadvantages when it
comes to commercialisation.
“The majority of these are simply due to an
erroneous perception by gamers, however, with
bigger companies such as Fantasy Flight Games
and Space Cowboys putting their weight
behind the genre, the larger community
of gamers are starting to come around.
“Within a few years I think app-
driven games will become widely
accepted, which is great as they have
so much to offer board games.” ■
25/07/2017 08:40
 ITB
INSIDE THE BOX

BOARD GAMES

Play With Ideas

itbboa
rdgam
es.com
/

ITB
BOARD GAMES

INSIDE THE BOX The Political Card Game

The Political Card Game

Th e
Poli
t i ca
l Ca
rd G
ame

ITB
INSIDE THE B

BOARD GAM

Order your copy of Statecraft or Sub Terra now!

ITB
BOARD GAMES

INSIDE THE BOX

p061.indd 1 19/07/2017 11:33

The Political Card Game INSIDE THE BOX
REDISCOVERING THE DISC
Nearly 20 years after
I
t seems to be a rule that if you build an interesting
enough world, eventually people will want to
it was released, roleplay in it. This is doubly true when it involves
the chance to meet an elf or battle a dragon, and
Discworld RPG author there can be few fantasy settings as popular as Sir
Phil Masters tells us Terry Pratchett’s Discworld.
While the comic fantasy series first found its
about encouraging footing as a straight parody of sub-Tolkien sword and
humour at the table sorcery titles, it gradually grew in scope and scale.
As the books progressed they began to encompass
and how you go about murder mysteries, riffs on Shakespeare and dramas
set around banks and post offices.
adapting a series as To date the series has sold an absolutely staggering
beloved as Sir Terry 85 million copies across the world and includes more
than 50 novels, spin-offs and supplements. Among
Pratchett’s modern these is the Discworld Roleplaying Game, originally
fantasy classic published by Steve Jackson Games in 1998 as GURPS
Discworld. The title received a
Words by sequel, GURPS Discworld Also, in
Richard Jansen-Parkes 2001 before dropping the underlying
RPG engine’s label (it stands for
Generic Universal Roleplaying
System, if you’re curious) with its reprint
the following year.
A long-awaited second edition of the game,
accommodating content from dozens of new books,
hit the shelves late last year. But with so much going
on in the series – not to mention the sheer volume
of printed material out there – how on earth would
anybody find a way to set an RPG on the Disc?
“Well, it helped that I’d been reading the
Discworld books right from the very beginning,”
explains Phil Masters, a veteran of the British RPG
scene and author of both editions of the Discworld
Roleplaying Game.
“I think I picked up my copy of the first book in the
series, The Colour of Magic, just a few months after
it first came out. It got me enthused enough that I
made sure to read all the others when they came out
over the years. That continued right up to the very
end of the series.
“As you might expect, when Steve Jackson Games
asked me whether I would be interested in working
on the Discworld product I think I almost bit their
hands off.”

PULL IT TOGETHER
It’s not every day you get to work on a dream project,
though in Masters’ case it probably helped that he
had plenty of experience with RPGs and already
developed a strong record with the company.
“It was Steve Jackson Games that originally put
together the relationship, though I must admit I’m
not entirely sure how they did it,” he laughs. “They
somehow managed to persuade Terry that a
GURPS adaptation would be viable. One or
two people had already been working
on it, but it didn’t really gel until they
threw it my way.
“I’d established a
reputation for being able

62

062_065_discworld_v2 MJ.indd 62 21/07/2017 15:29

 to do humour in RPGs, which helped as that’s an “In the time between working on the first and
incredibly tough thing to manage. second editions of Discworld I’d also gained a lot
“We put together the first edition and a follow-up more experience in adapting the GURPS rules to fit
book so, when a few years later fourth edition GURPS the setting, rather than just hoping that I could put
was released, I suggested putting together a new the two of them together and they’d mesh.”
version of the Discworld game too.” He adds: “That was one of the major reasons I was
When the first edition of the book came out, so keen to do the update, actually. I wanted to fine-
Masters was faced with the prospect of trying to work tune things so that they felt more natural when you
around 20 novels’ worth of content into the setting. put them side by side.”
That was tricky enough, but when the updated edition The release of new editions has been part of
was finally approved the challenge had grown to the tabletop gaming landscape for as long as it’s
engulf even that. been around. Sometimes these updates mean
A complete collection of Discworld titles could little more than minor refinements of rules ■ Above: Discworld consists of a
easily fill a bookcase, but the complications and plot, while at other times they’re more like large disc balanced on the backs
were greater than the mere quantity of words complete reworkings that wipe away everything of four elephants that are stood
and pages out there. After all, one of the secrets that came before. on a turtle slowly swimming
to the series’ long-term success is its incredible In the case of the Discworld RPG revisions, through space. Really.
diversity of themes, locations and characters. The they definitely lean more towards the former –
fan-supported Discworld Wiki lists almost 1,250 overhauling rather than rewriting. In the same ■ Opposite: In Sir Terry
named characters and 250 separate locations. So way that the setting itself has moved forward Pratchett’s novels, Death is a
how do you go about trying to fill out the world that over the years, so has the GURPS system. character – and he can shred.
contains all of them? However, even though many of the core
“Having a good memory for plots and story details rules have translated to the Discworld without ■ Below: Many of Discworld’s
helps,” says Masters. “While I was working on it I much modification, other parts have seen inhabitants are rooted in classic
needed to go over the books to check things and jog significant alterations. ▶ fantasy and mythology.
my memory every now and then, but I didn’t have to
sit down in front of a stack of 50-something novels.
Not that I think I would have minded that.
“Beyond that, I did have a little bit of help from the
simple fact that Terry wasn’t always 100% consistent
himself, so I could always blame him for any minor
slip-ups!”
Beyond this, Masters explains that the simple fact
that they only had one volume to work with helped
out, as there was no way to could include everything
unless they wanted to publish a book two feet thick.
“We had to narrow things down a bit, and that
allowed us to make sure we were carrying over the
things that were important. Well, the things I thought
were important, anyway,” he adds. “I have no doubt
that some fans will disagree, but they can come and
argue with me at conventions.
“That’s pretty much what conventions are for,
after all.”

DICE ON THE DISC

There’s more to an RPG than getting characters’ hair
colour right, of course. The rules and systems that
guide the game don’t just shape the way you play,
but also affect the way in which the players perceive
the setting.
For example, if a system is geared almost entirely
to the intricate details of combat it will play out very
differently to a rules-light game that emphasises
roleplaying over everything else, even if the scenes or
setting are exactly the same.
“GURPS was already a Steve Jackson Games
product, but it was also a very good fit to the
Discworld setting,” says Masters. “It allows a decent
amount of detail that can be pretty easily adjusted to
work smoothly with the world.

63

062_065_discworld_v2 MJ.indd 63 21/07/2017 15:29

 DISCWORLD RPG

“Making an adaption like this work with a wide-

ranging system like GURPS is less about creating new
“If you want
rules, and more about knowing which ones to cut out
and leave in,” Masters explains.
to play in a
“The full GURPS system has huge amounts of
detail, and it was a question of finding existing rules
funny setting
and making them fit.
“For example, there are plenty of intricate
you’re
systems and rules around combat, and you can
make it quite simulation-like if you want to.
probably
However, while there certainly is combat and
conflict in the Discworld, it’s very rarely the focus,
pretty keen
so we pruned it down quite severely.
“There are also lots of common-sense things.
on creating
There’s information for laser weapons and space
combat in the full rules, but they are rather
funny
unlikely to crop up unless the game gets very
odd indeed.”
situations.”
That’s not to say that everything is taken from the
regular GURPS rules, of course. Some of the changes
are minor and mostly cosmetic – the skill allowing a
character to communicate without needing to share
a common language has been renamed ‘Shouting at
Foreigners’, for example – but a few are much more
intricate and involved.
“Magic plays a fairly significant role in the books,
but it doesn’t work the way it does in most other
fantasy settings,” explains Masters.
“Rather than try and somehow force the
conventional GURPS magic rules into the book I
wrote a simple but flexible magic system that fits the
way that magic works in the Discworld.”
ADAPT AND EVOLVE
Over the years, Masters has worked on a huge range
of different RPG products. While many of these are
set in worlds of his own creation, he’s also a dab hand
at adapting other people’s works into RPG systems.
Listed among his credits are adaptations based on the
acclaimed comic book Hellboy and the long-running
Vorkosigan Saga sci-fi novels.
“There’s definitely a process difference when
it comes to working with licensed material,
especially if you’re also using an existing
framework of rules like GURPS,” he says. “You
have to find clever ways to shape the rules around
the ideas in the setting itself.
“If you’re designing the rules from the ground up
you naturally take a different approach in places –
sometimes you’ll include a location or a concept that
is explicitly designed to show off the rules to their
best effect.
“While that can be fun, that can also feel a bit artificial.”
Despite all this, however, Masters adds that
while it has its quirks and a few unique challenges,
adaptation projects aren’t hugely different from
working on an original setting
“Personally, when I’m developing my own
ideas I try to produce worlds or concepts that are
interesting on their own merit and then think about
how it could interact with a game,” he explains. “The
starting point is a little different, but it all works out
in a similar way.”

A FUNNY OLD GAME

The Discworld is fairly unusual place, even by
the generous standards of fantasy worlds. Its
dragons are small and relatively harmless, the
vampire population has sworn off human blood
and most of the great barbarian heroes have
long since retired.
One of the interesting things with how the
Discworld’s unique characteristics interact with
RPGs is that the world has narrative imperative
baked into its physical laws. However, one of the
themes that keeps cropping up in the books is that
if people realise this fact and try and use it to their
advantage, there’s a good chance that it’ll backfire
on them.

64

062_065_discworld_v2 MJ.indd 64 21/07/2017 15:29

 through experience to a certain extent. Sometimes
you get jokes, sometimes you don’t, and that’s okay. WHAT IS GURPS?
The Generic Universal
“Most of the jokes and humour that crops up Roleplaying System
at the gaming table – tables with people over (GURPS) was created by
the age of 12 anyway – is the kind of thing Steve Jackson Games
back in 1986.
that feels perfectly at home in the Discworld
At the time, most such
anyway. People play with clichés and systems were tied down
stereotypes, and by getting their fantastic to specific settings or
characters stuck in mundane situations.” genres, but GURPS was
designed to accommodate
One of the ways Masters subtly
practically anything a
encourages players to try their hand at player or designer wanted
humour is through the disadvantage to throw at it. You could
system. This is an idea used widely use it to play out space
battles, fencing duels or
throughout GURPS, where characters can
courtly intrigue – potentially
take one or two disadvantages in exchange all at the same time.
for some extra skill or ability points. This It was also one of the
may include having a character that is an very first RPG systems to
establish the concept of
alcoholic, hates anyone taller than them or
using points to purchase
is obsessed with gold. skills and abilities from
“If you have a party where one character a wider list, rather than
is greedy, one is paranoid and one is scared simply rolling for attributes
or being locked into a
of heights, most players who are interested
class progression.
in the Discworld in the first place will end The flexibility offered
up finding a way to use those traits for comic by the system has led to
effect,” he says. enduring success, and
GURPS has remained
“After all, if you want to play in a funny
consistently popular for
setting you’re probably pretty keen on creating almost 30 years now.
funny situations. That’s the unique thing about
the Discworld.” ■

“We actually explicitly included that in the rules,” ■ Above: Players are encouraged to play with
says Masters. “If a player is trying to rely on narrative – but not rely on – fantasy cliché.
conventions to help them along, the GM is encouraged
to undermine them as much as possible. After all, ■ Opposite: Characters can take on
it’s perfectly possible that – within the context of the disadvantages, such as alcoholism,
setting – they’re playing to the wrong story. to acquire extra skills.
“Having said that, witches are encouraged to try and
work their magic into the stereotypes, as in the books ■ Right: Honestly, Death
that’s how they gain a lot of their power. An old woman is just the coolest.
with a black hat and an evil laugh will be more powerful
that she would if she dressed in an old cardigan.
“The vampires were particularly fun to work
with, too, as in the Discworld most of them have to
constantly battle against the temptation to fall into
cliché and stereotype. They’re consistently their own
worst enemy, and good players can use that in really
enjoyable ways.”
This raises the question of one of the other pillars
of the Discworld – its humour.
For most gaming groups comedy tends to crop
up naturally, no matter what system or adventure
they’re playing. When you have a group of friends
sitting around a table even games themed around
horror and misery, such as Call of Cthulhu, are often
punctuated with laughter and one-liners.
Intentional comedy, however, has always been a
tricky thing to handle.
“Trying to enforce humour through the rules is
hard, and really wouldn’t fit the setting,” explains
Masters. “It’s something that needs to be conveyed

65

062_065_discworld_v2 MJ.indd 65 21/07/2017 15:29

 SUBSCRIBE
TODAY
GET SIX ISSUES
PER YEAR FOR
JUST £29.99!

UK GAMES EXPO 2017

tabletop

WERE YOU THERE? PICTURE SPECIAL INSIDE

#11 Aug/Sep ‘17 tabletopgaming.co.uk
STARFINDER | MIDDLE-EARTH | UK GAMES EXPO 2017

TOLKIEN ON SWORDS,

THE UK’S ONLY MAGAZINE

THE TABLE SEX AND
MIDDLE-EARTH’S
LASTING LEGACY
SCI-FI
AS THE HOBBIT HOW CYBERPUNK

CELEBRATING ALL GENRES

TURNS 80 AND THE WITCHER
BROUGHT STYLE
TO ROLEPLAYING

OF TABLETOP GAMING
▶ EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEWS
WARHAMMER REDISCOVERING
40,000
DISCWORLD

WITH FAMOUS DESIGNERS

CENTURY: STEP BACK INTO
SPICE ROAD TERRY PRATCHETT’S
SIDE-SPLITTING RPG
SECRETS

SAGRADA

SUB TERRA

ENERGY EMPIRE

THE CAPTAIN IS DEAD

▶ IN-DEPTH FEATURES & REVIEWS
OF THE GREATEST GAMES
STARFINDER
A FEAST FOR ODIN

THIS WAR OF MINE

WORD SLAM
PAIZO REVEALS ALL ABOUT ITS INTERSTELLAR
#11 AUG/SEP '17

DICE FORGE PATHFINDER SEQUEL + WE GIVE OUR VERDICT

▶ NEW SCENARIOS
Display until 04/10/17

ANALOGUE TO DIGITAL HAVE A GOOD WAR

£5.25

AND HOBBY TIPS

MEET THE TECHNOLOGY CHANGING THE INSIDE THE WELCOMING
FACE OF PHYSICAL GAMING FOREVER WARGAMING COMMUNITY

Subscribe online at
www.tabletopgaming.co.uk
or call 01778 392034
QUOTING CODE TTGM/SUBS17

ttgSubsFP.indd 1 26/07/2017 10:09

m2+y
y2+z3
c
cc 180
∏r 2
Play it smart
Manchester Metropolitan University academics and Games Research Network co-directors
Paul Wake and Sam Illingworth reveal why studying board games is anything but boring
Illingworth
Doctors Paul Wake and Sam
F
irst, some introductions. We’re both
academics at Manchester Metropolitan
University and members of the Games
Research Network, a multidisciplinary group
covering all aspects of games, gaming and
play. This means we’re lucky enough to work
on – and play – games with a great group of
colleagues, students and games designers.
While our research group covers games of all
kinds, from VR to the playground, for us this
means board games. Which is why we’re here.
At this point you’re probably asking,
“What kind of academic conducts research
into board games?” and/or, “What will their
research tell me that I don’t already know?”
Both are fair questions – they’re questions
we’ve asked ourselves in the development of
this column. What we’re hoping to show is
that while academic work can at times appear
abstract it often provides innovative solutions
to a range of societal issues. (Yes, that
includes work on board games.) Three recent
research publications about Klaus Teuber’s
Catan provide examples of this in action.
Emile J. L. Chappin and colleagues at
the Delft University of Technology in the
Netherlands used Erik Assadourian and Ty
Hansen’s Catan: Oil Springs to investigate
067_playItSmart_v3 MJ.indd 67
√z
a+b
the effectiveness of using ‘serious games’
as a way of increasing public awareness
of sustainability issues. Arguing that
knowledge alone is not enough to change
behaviour, their work suggests that the
value of gaming is in allowing people to
experience real-world scenarios through
play. Oil Springs works well to provide
just this experience – its mechanics
model a situation in which individual
victory must be balanced against global
catastrophe. Accordingly, players must
pursue their individual goals within
a context that requires collaborative
effort: there are no winners if the island
of Catan is destroyed!
Jonathan Rey Lee’s recent article on the
Oil Springs scenario, published in Analog
Game Studies, observes how playing
this scenario enables gamers to better
understand the role played by capitalism
in our current global environment. By
providing a game mechanic linking resource
generation to land ownership, it allows
gamers to observe the effect that a capitalist
approach to resource management has
on other people. Lee’s conclusion – one
which we would endorse – is that Catan,
like many other contemporary board
games, offers its players an
embodied experience
that reveals, and calls
into question, certain
social systems.
In another study,
Markus Guhe and
Alex Lascarides at
the University of
Edinburgh used
■ Catan has been used
to demonstrate the real-
life role of capitalism,
as well as helping to
train machine learning.
67
(a) 2
+
6 (b)
Y
P
La
Ga
Am
Es
Catan as the basis of an exploration of
machine intelligence, pitting a sinister-
sounding (but not actually sinister)
‘autonomous agent’ against human
opponents. Given the game’s complexity,
its trading mechanisms and the variety of
routes to victory, Teuber’s classic game
offers an ideal platform for testing machine
intelligence and learning. So, when the
time comes for us to welcome our machine
overlords, you can expect a hexagonal
approach to regional boundaries.
As demonstrated through these short
examples, we’re hoping this column will reveal
some of the ways in which academic research
can provide insights into the games that we
play, and how in turn the games we play can
provide a lens through which to observe the
workings of our lives and society. ■
Over the coming months this column will offer
a window into the kind of work on gaming
that’s taking place in universities around the
world. We’re delighted to have the chance to
share what we’re doing, we hope you’ll find
it interesting and we welcome suggestions for
future topics.
25/07/2017 08:43
 R E
U AL
T CI
ICE
P P
S

UK GAMES EXPO
WERE YOU THERE?

68

068_073_ukgeReport_v4 MJ.indd 68 21/07/2017 15:32

 More than 16,000
players roamed
the NEC in June
to check out the
latest must-see
titles headed to the
tabletop. Whether
you made it to
Birmingham or not,
here’s your guide
to an unmissable
weekend, plus
some of our
favourite games
from the show

Words by Matt Jarvis

Pictures by Sarah Atchama

69

068_073_ukgeReport_v4 MJ.indd 69 21/07/2017 15:32

 UK GAMES EXPO 2017

UBOOT
A real-time sim of a submarine during WWII
that plays like a hardcore version of Captain
Sonar. The first officer gets to man the
periscope through the required companion
app, while another player navigates the
sandbox environment using a historically-
accurate grid map and the captain attempts
to keep morale high. Detailed, deep and
gripping, it’s set for a Kickstarter later this year.

■ Above: For the Emperor! A Space

Marine spotted out and about.

■ Right: The bring and buy remained

as popular – and busy – as ever.

■ Right: One of the most unforgettable sights of the

WHEN I DREAM weekend was the roaming pack of Uruk-hai.

One player dons the included sleep mask and must try ■ Below: The Pokémon TCG championships were just
and guess the central dream described in one-word one of the many gaming tournaments taking place.
clues by the rest of the players. Easy, right? Except one
of the clue-givers is actually an unhelpful bogeyman
trying to mislead the sleeping guesser for their own
gain, while another might be the sandman trying to
keep balance between wrong and right. It’s cutesy fun,
with the multiple roles spicing things up. You’ve only a
few sleeps to go before it’s released this October.

70

068_073_ukgeReport_v4 MJ.indd 70 21/07/2017 15:32

 LAZER RYDERZ
YOUR PICKS
We asked some of the show’s many
Easily claiming our made-up award for best style, Lazer visitors which games and stands
Ryderz includes a package shaped like an old VHS cassette had caught their eye over the
box set and stars neon characters who could’ve come weekend. Here’s what they said…
straight out of an ‘80s Saturday-morning cartoon. The idea is
to pilot your rider using X-Wing-style
-style movement templates
to capture three prisms before your rivals. You can steal a
captured prism back, but hitting an opponent’s beam means SPENCE + JUSTINE
exploding like the bikes in Tron.. You’ll need to manage your • The Football Game
speed, as whizzing around in too high a gear can risk losing • Nefarious
control, while a lower speed provides the chance to pull off • Redacted
tighter turns and outmanoeuvre your foes.

■ Top: Baa-rilliant. One of the sheep on the Catan stand.

■ Below: The winners of the UK Catan championship.

HANNAH + JAMIE
• Tutorial app Dized
• Nine Worlds

BUG OFF!
There were many impressive POOKA
designers around the floor, but • Temp Worker
perhaps none more impressive than Assassins
Tom Hall, a 14-year-old showing off
his first game: Bug Off! A wargame
that can be played anywhere, Bug Off!
uses discs as units that stand up in
whatever nature throws at you. After
two years in the works, the clever
title is due to come out next spring.
Did we mention it’s illustrated by a
10-year-old? Kids these days.

71

068_073_ukgeReport_v4 MJ.indd 71 21/07/2017 15:33

 UK GAMES EXPO 2017

PERFECT CRIME
Perfect Crime has become a fixture at the UK Games Expo,
having been in the works for a number of years now.
However, it looks like that work is paying off, producing
a highly detailed heist game where a group of players
controlling criminals face off against one of their friends,
who’s in charge of the bank. The core of the game is in
preparation, as the robbers only get a single chance to pull
off their master plan. The whole thing takes just 90 minutes
to play, but offers a deep and complex simulation of a
bank robbery. It should finally tunnel in this September.

ELEMENTAL
ASCENT
■ Left: The
cosplay zone
Originally devised as a reimagining of Fantasy
was the place
Frontier at UK Games Expo in 2015, Elemental
to check out
Ascent was the runner-up in the Redesign-a-Game
impressive
competition last year and returned this year with its
costumes of
latest version. Moving away from its inspiration a
every kind.
little, the game is described as a ‘mini Civilization’
with combat completely optional. There’s no board:
players create the map by exploring with their
airships, which generates specific sets of tiles that
can be tapped for resources or have elemental
shrines built on them. The game was looking for a
publisher when we saw it, but has plans to launch a
Kickstarter if the team decides to go it alone.

■ Left: The special

children’s ticket
was designed by
nine-year-old Anya
Cawkell (far right).

■ Right: Fantasy
Flight held its
first European
Championships
at the show.

ESCAPE THE
DARK CASTLE
Escape the Dark Castle applies the dice-rolling
gameplay of RPGs to the snappy adventures of
gamebooks and ‘80s TV classic Knightmare. Players
progress through a deck of cards full of traps
and monsters before facing a final boss, choosing
their path and rolling to pass tests. Its beautiful
monochromatic illustrations will be familiar with
anyone who grew up with Fighting Fantasy. After
a Kickstarter in June, it’s out this November.

72

068_073_ukgeReport_v4 MJ.indd 72 21/07/2017 15:33

 YOUR PICKS

LORNA + RYAN
• Codenames Duet
• Robinson Crusoe
• Bohnanza

■ Above: The wargaming area was full

of beautiful miniatures and scenery.
SCRUMPY
As English as tea or scones (though
perhaps not as breakfast-friendly),
strong cider is the subject of this DHANA
unique deckbuilder. Unlike other • Kingdomino
entries in the genre, you don’t • Photosynthesis
purchase new cards every round –
the idea is to provide more control
over your deck, as cards can also
be used as resources. Despite
only beginning development
in February, it shows a lot of
promise – we hope to harvest
this one soon.

■ Right:
The pile of
giant dice at
the show’s ELAINE + ROB
entrance was • Bärenpark
just asking to • Dice Forge
be climbed on. • Kitchen Rush

73

068_073_ukgeReport_v4 MJ.indd 73 21/07/2017 15:33

 䄀圀䄀刀䐀            圀䤀一一䤀一䜀 䜀䄀䴀䔀 䴀䄀吀匀

䰀伀吀匀 伀䘀 䐀䤀䘀䘀䔀刀䔀一吀 嘀䄀刀䤀伀唀匀 䘀䰀䄀吀 刀䄀吀䔀

䐀䔀匀䤀䜀一匀 䴀䄀吀䔀刀䤀䄀䰀匀 匀䤀娀䔀匀 䔀唀 匀䠀䤀倀倀䤀一䜀

圀圀圀⸀䐀䔀䔀倀䌀唀吀匀吀唀䐀䤀伀⸀䌀伀䴀 䤀一䘀伀䀀䐀䔀䔀倀䌀唀吀匀吀唀䐀䤀伀⸀䌀伀䴀

p074.indd 1 19/07/2017 11:41

 76 78 80

PLAYED
PLAYING WITH REALITY
81 82 84

W
rong as it may be, there’s little more exhilarating than successfully
lying and bluffing your way through a social deception game,
convincing your companions you’re on their side and to be trusted,
only to reveal your hidden identity or sabotage their win at the last moment.
A number of games we’ve looked at this month play with the idea of fibbing
86 87 88
to your friends in different and interesting ways. In Saltlands, allegiances are
fluid, with players working together or apart as necessary to survive the arid
wasteland. As in so many social deduction games, both Werewords and The
Chameleon make words your weapons, as the zoological liars try to mislead or
blend in, respectively. In Secrets you may not even be aware which side you’re
on until it’s too late and, as in Brutal Kingdom, you must try and use what little
knowledge you may have to work out the plans of those around you. Of course,
lying isn’t just about deceiving, and it’s not always a bad thing – Starfinder,
90 91 93
as with any RPG, is all about becoming someone you’re not and living out
exciting and fulfilling adventures in another universe with your close friends
around you. Actually, couldn’t that be said for nearly all tabletop games?

76 STARFINDER
78 SUB TERRA
80 CENTURY: SPICE ROAD
81 SECRETS
94 95 96
82 WARHAMMER 40,000: DARK IMPERIUM
84 UNFAIR
86 SAGRADA
87 THE CAPTAIN IS DEAD
88 BÄRENPARK
90 THE MANHATTAN PROJECT: ENERGY EMPIRE
91 SALTLANDS
97 99 100
93 MAGIC: THE GATHERING: ARCHENEMY: NICOL BOLAS
94 WEREWORDS
95 ETHNOS
96 DICE FORGE
97 THE CHAMELEON
99 A FEAST FOR ODIN
100 CHIMERE
101 102 103
101 THIS WAR OF MINE
102 OUTLIVE
103 ESCAPE FROM 100 MILLION B.C.
105 PACK O GAME
106 WORD SLAM
107
108
ARCADIA QUEST: INFERNO
DOUGHNUT DRIVE-THRU
105 106 107
108 BRUTAL KINGDOM
109 ACCESSORIES

108 108 109

075_ReviewsIntro_v2 MJ.indd 75 25/07/2017 08:44
 PLAYED
STARFINDER
Pathfinder takes to the stars, but is its
sci-fi sequel interstellar or lost in space?
Paizo | £64.79 | RPG | Players: 2+ | paizo.com/starfinder
S
tarfinder is an evolution
of Pathfinder in just about
every sense of the word.
Not only does the sci-fi-soaked
follow-up to 2009’s influential
Dungeons & Dragons descendant
take place thousands of years
later in the same universe – albeit
completely transformed by the
advent of futuristic technology
and unexplained disappearance of
Pathfinder’s ’s home planet of Golarion
centuries before – it also makes
significant changes to
Pathfinder’s roleplaying and
combat systems (which were
an advancement on D&D
3.5 to begin with) that result
in a game that feels familiar
and aware of its legacy, yet
distinctly unique and singular.
There’s no need to know
the wider lore of Pathfinder to
appreciate Starfinder’s ’s interstellar
setting – in fact, the designers
themselves seem to be making an
effort to distance themselves from
076_077_starfinderReview_v2 MJ.indd 76
■ Above: Absalom becoming bogged down in questions
Station is the cultural
of specific links to Pathfinder by
melting pot of the
galaxy. (Artist: introducing a mysterious period in
Leon Tukker) time called the ‘Gap’, which resulted
in a galaxy-wide amnesia that means
■ Below: The core ‘only’ around three hundred years’ of
rulebook includes a
chapter explaining history is known. It’s the storytelling
how to convert equivalent of skipping a chapter
Pathfinder creations while reading a book and could be
for the new game. seen as an overly-convenient way
of jumping ahead in time without
having to establish how the fantasy
world transformed into a galaxy full
of lasers and androids – at the same
time, it’s a way of neatly separating
the games instead of feeling
beholden to its predecessor’s
dense lore. For me, it worked.
If you are a fan of Pathfinder,
there’s still plenty to chew on
that’s been carried across, from
the reappearance of deities to
the evolved forms of existing
creatures. If you can’t find
something, there’s a very
good chance you can just
bring it across yourself: the
76
core rulebook includes a sizeable
chapter detailing how to convert
existing Pathfinder characters and
monsters over to the new game with
minimal fuss, as well as explaining
how to use the traditional fantasy
races in the sci-fi setting and running
through what’s happened to them in
the time since Pathfinder.
Replacing the classic races (except
humans, who remain a fixture) are
six new defaults, leaping from sci-fi
staples of androids, four-armed
nomads called kasathas and the
psychic aliens known as lashunta to
anthropomorphised lizards, insects
and rats. It’s a fun mix for you to
craft your guardians of the galaxy
from, with each race well established
within the in-game universe and
presenting plenty of interesting
options for player characters. There
does remain a feeling that the
spaceship could’ve been pushed a
little further out with some slightly
more weird and wonderful options
– this is something that will likely be
resolved by future player guides – but
this is a strong starting point.
The races are expanded by seven
classes, which do a good job of
evolving things beyond the classic
RPG clichés yet remain recognisable
enough to be easily understood –
among the more interesting picks
are the Jedi-esque solarians, who
can summon weapons and armour
out of energy; mechanics and their
versatile drone companions; and
technomancers, who operate using
a blend of technology and magic,
compared to the more traditional
spell-wielding mystic. Of course,
there’s nothing stopping a non-
magic character from installing a
body augmentation that allows them
to breathe fire, either – one of the
highlights of character progression is
discovering the quirky tech-infused
talents available for the right price.
Completing each character is a
theme, providing a general focus –
from ace pilot or bounty hunter to
the galaxy-wide celebrity of an icon.
The themes are general personality
traits but, more importantly, lend
extra depth and narrative thrust to
characters, as well as bonus abilities,
helping them to feel more fully-
rounded from the moment they blast
off into the universe.
25/07/2017 09:10

■ Players and GMs can
create and battle starships.
(Artist: Ben Wootten)
Although magic is present, it
takes a backseat to Starfinder’s
more tech-focused abilities. When
magic is used, it’s been massively
simplified from the preparation
and components required to cast in
Pathfinder – now, casters need only
concentrate for a set amount of time
to fire off an enchantment, although
they can be interrupted and fail the
spell if attacked. Similarly, while
each class gets its own list of spells,
gone is the division between arcane,
divine, psychic and so on. It makes
for a more straightforward system
that aligns with the less prominent
role sorcery plays in Starfinder's
076_077_starfinderReview_v2 MJ.indd 77
setting, and also allows it to feel like
a more natural fit with the futuristic
weaponry and skills of characters,
instead of feeling like a hang-on from
its fantasy forebear.
A similar philosophy of
simplification has been applied to
the combat. Natural 20 rolls on a
d20 now score instant critical hits
for extra damage and effects – no
secondary confirmation check
required – and players can perform
two simultaneous attacks off the bat
(with a hit penalty to both) instead
of needing to scale up their attack
strength as in Pathfinder.
Pathfinder Flat-footed
has been relegated to a condition
and fixed roll penalty rather than a
dedicated armour class, while attacks
of opportunity now only affect three
specific actions (moving, ranged
attacks and casting) to stop enemies
striking out every time a player does
so much as scratch their nose. The
small changes chime perfectly
with Starfinder’s increased focus
on ranged combat – although laser
swords and other melee weapons
are just as viable and effective –
and add up to give combat more of
the cinematic speed and thematic
feel of a Star Wars lightsaber duel
or Star Trek phaser shootout.
Adding to this is the decision to
divide health into HP and stamina,
with the latter serving as a form of
rechargeable shield that is lost before
characters are damaged directly.
Stamina can be recovered by resting
briefly and spending resolve points, a
successor to the hero points handed
out by Pathfinder GMs that
allowed players to pull off
special abilities. RP can
similarly be used to re-roll
certain checks or recover when dying
(as well as counting as extra HP when
mortally wounded) but, unlike the
single-use hero points, are calculated
based on each character’s makeup
and can be recovered with a long
77
rest. The expanded recovery options
mean that casters aren’t quite as
integral to a party as before, while
RP presents more ways to help turn
fights in the players’ favour – plus
offer a way to counteract frustrating
dice rolls, albeit at a cost.
The single biggest addition to
Starfinder is space combat, which
comes complete with its own set of
rules and character-specific abilities.
It’s by no means mandatory, and IF YOU LIKE
PATHFINDER…
slightly awkwardly requires a separate
TRY
hex map in addition to the standard STARFINDER
square grid used for ground missions, The Pathfinder
but fully delivers the atmosphere of a sequel is much
more than a
living, breathing universe.
simple reskin
Ships are created and upgraded of the fantasy
by GMs and players much RPG, with both
like characters, with speed, expanded and
tightened-up
maneuverability and armaments
roleplaying rules.
dictating the way they fly around and
fire at any attacking vessels. Players’
characters take on the various roles
onboard – from captain and pilot
to gunners and engineers – and
can lend their skill to each round of
combat, boosting systems and their
crewmates before moving, pulling off
X-Wing-style stunts and attacking.
There are a number of different
talents for each role (characters can
swap positions mid-battle), yet they
are largely specified by the role rather
than the character – you wouldn’t
necessarily want to have a space
combat-only campaign or scenario,
as it does feel more limited than
fighting on the planet surface, bwhen
it comes to presenting a different
style of combat and storytelling.
Starfinder isn’t quite the quantum
leap away from Pathfinder some
might expect or desire – if anything, it ■ The lizard-like vesk
are just one of the
feels more like Pathfinder 2.0. If you
new races inhabiting
didn’t enjoy the crunchier aspects the universe. (Artist:
of the fantasy game’s roleplaying Remko Troost)
recipe, the mechanics here are
significantly streamlined but stay
true to supporting a complex and CONCLUSION
potentially overwhelming amount Starfinder does
a fantastic job of
of options for more casual players. translating Pathfinder’s
In tightening Pathfinder’s gameplay, gameplay to a sci-fi
though, Starfinder improves in setting, refining the
almost every way on the older game, classic d20 RPG
mechanics while
while managing to successfully bring introducing smart
to life a universe with established additions that fit with the
history that also feels fresh and ready game’s greater scope. It
to be explored anew. I can’t wait to won’t change your mind
if you’re not already a
head back in. ■ fan but, if you are, it’s
MATT JARVIS a joyous next step.
21/07/2017 15:36
 PLAYED
Hold your breath as we go beneath the surface of the caving horror
Inside the Box Board Games | £25 | Co-op | 1-6 players | 60 minutes | Age: 10+ | itbboardgames.com/games/sub-terra
B
eing trapped underground is
one of those universal fears,
like falling or drowning, that
sends shivers down backs with the
mere thought alone. In Sub Terra, the
dwindling light and air is only part of the
problem – you’ll also need to contend
with cave-ins, floods, gas and, worse of
all, the mysterious ‘horrors’ that pursue
you through the winding tunnels.
Like caving in real-life, it’s best to
head into Sub Terra with at least one
other person, as the co-operation
between the uniquely-skilled characters
is key to escaping the tunnels. Turn-
to-turn actions are simple, but varied.
Characters will spend most turns
drawing random facedown tiles to
expand the cave system in search of
the exit, which lurks somewhere in
the bottom six of the 64 squares. Even
on the standard difficulty, it can be a
challenge to even get close to simply
discovering the exit unless you’re
revealing and moving onto new tiles on
almost every turn – which risks running
straight into hidden hazards and
monsters with little chance of reaction.
At the end of each set of player turns,
the hazard deck triggers the dangers
on a specific tile type. This generally
involves the fragile explorers unlucky
enough to be resting on the spaces
immediately taking damage or having
to pass a simple skill check by rolling the
die, but can also set loose up to three
horrors. These mysterious creatures
078_079_subTerraReviewInterview_v3 MJ.indd 78
SUB TERRA
BOX CONTENTS are the highlight of the game, forcing
◗ 66 cave tiles players to stay on the move as they’re
◗ 31 hazard cards chased through the caverns, but can be
◗ 20 health markers frustrating to encounter. It’s an instant
◗ Eight caver boards
◗ Eight caver pieces KO if a horror catches you, knocking
◗ Three horror pieces your character out of the game until
◗ 23 game markers you're healed by another player. With
◗ Nine action tokens the random layout and need to press
◗ Six-sided die
◗ Tile holder on to escape before the hazard deck
◗ Rulebook runs out – while avoiding any remaining
horrors – players may end up forced to
leave their friends behind, meaning a
rather dull wait for those eliminated.
At least the horrors are somewhat
predictable. That’s not the case with the
rest with the hazards, which can strike
suddenly and quickly wipe out even a
careful team. While many depend on
the risky decision to stay on a particular
tile, tremors strike players regardless of
where they are and can dish out wounds
based on an unlucky die roll.
While the use of luck keeps things tense
and random, the tight time pressure often
results in the game becoming nothing but
an exercise in pure hope, undermining
much of the chance for strategy. It’s not
uncommon to realise you stand little
chance of discovering the exit based
on the remaining number of tiles and
cards halfway through, having spent
too many turns being forced to heal or
recovering from unfortunate draws.
IF YOU LIKE BETRAYAL AT HOUSE ON THE HILL… TRY SUB TERRA
It may not have the same tongue-in-cheek storytelling fun as Betrayal, but Sub
Terra still offers plenty of gripping life-and-death tension. Just prepare to suffer.
78
The punishing difficulty would be
easier to look past if there was a greater
opportunity for experiencing unique
stories, but with the tiles consisting
solely of a small selection of hazards and
no real narrative element beyond light
characterisation of the explorers, it too
commonly descends into a draw tiles-
draw card-repeat loop with little sense of
reward or progression. The core gameplay
is solid, but it feels like the number of
cards and tiles could’ve been better
offset against the luck factors to achieve a
tense experience that avoids too much
frustration and apparent lack of control –
yet that’s just not always the case here.
It’s a disappointment, as Sub Terra
has a great look, does a fantastic job
of translating its absorbing concept
to interesting gameplay and makes a
strong first impression. Unfortunately,
spend too much time trapped in
its depths and you might end up
climbing the walls. ■
MATT JARVIS
CONCLUSION
Sub Terra looks fantastic and is fun to
play at first, but the crushing difficulty
and heavy reliance on lucky draws and
dice rolls ends up making it feel unfair,
rather than presenting a satisfying
challenge. It’s a shame there’s not a
stronger story element to help spice up
the repetition, either.
21/07/2017 15:37

After a barnstorming Kickstarter, Sub Terra is tunnelling onto the tabletop. Designer Tim Pinder and Peter
Blenkharn from British publisher Inside the Box Board Games shine a light on the survival horror hit
Tim, what was your initial
development of Sub Terra like?
Tim Pinder: I’d been messing around
with various prototypes for the
preceding few years, which were usually
quite abstract and logical.
Sub Terra was a deliberate effort to
make something with greater emotional
and social appeal, to try and get out of
my comfort zone. I’d always felt that the
horror genre was underexplored in board
games – mechanically speaking, plenty
of games feature zombies or Cthulhu! –
so that seemed like a fun place to start.
The co-operative nature of the game
was a natural fit; horror movies are often
about a group of friends under attack
from some faceless evil, so why not try
to emulate that in board game form?
Peter, you discovered Sub Terra
at the Dragons’ Den-like Wyvern’s
Lair event at UK Games Expo 2016.
What was your first impression of
Tim and his project?
Peter Blenkharn: The Wyvern’s Lair
event was a fantastic cross-section of
ideas within the tabletop community,
but Tim’s presentation raised the
standard significantly. His project was
exceedingly well thought-through, with
a clear sense of purpose and design
methodology. Sub Terra was clearly a
slick game, with a strong market given a
lick of paint and a few bolts tightening.
Tim was evidently a skilled designer, as
was his systematic engineering
approach, which appealed to us greatly!
The thing that really stood out in Tim’s
presentation was that he had a lucid sense
of what the game was ‘for’; it had a clear
objective – replicating the experience of
dread in survival horror movies. It was
ambitious and creative, and we loved it.
How has the game evolved since
Inside the Box came onboard?
PB: Although we’ve tweaked a few of
the mechanical elements, tidied up a
few rules and tightened the character
powers, it’s fundamentally the same
game with the majority of the original
design intact. One of the strengths of
the design has always been that every
078_079_subTerraReviewInterview_v3 MJ.indd 79
GOING UNDERGROUND
Interview by Matt Jarvis
■ Above: Some of the design decision Tim took was derived
dangers awaiting from a distinct core purpose, to make an
players in Sub Terra. accessible strategy game that invoked
genuine dread.
■ Bottom right: Aside from the mechanical elements
Publisher Inside the of the game, Tim has worked extensively
Box signed the game on building the story behind Sub Terra,
after seeing it at the UK to build out the characters and provide
Games Expo Wyvern's a ‘world’ that the game exists in. Early
Lair event. on I pushed hard for this to facilitate
a spin-out graphic novel and, from
that, Tim’s generated a huge amount of
backstory and world-building which has
added significant amounts of flavour to
Sub Terra, and has provided us with a
more lucid sense of how we expand the
game’s IP further.
Sub Terra is billed as ‘‘Pandemic
Descent’ as a result of
meets The Descent
its subterranean horror elements.
How do you inspire fear in players?
TP: A wonderful thing about humans
is that we’re terrible at reasoning with
probability. Just awful at it. The better we
are at imagining something, the more
“I’d probable we'll feel it is, even if cold hard
numbers are telling us otherwise. This is
always related to a number of cognitive biases,
felt that
the horror
genre was
under-
explored
in board
games.”
79
and it’s a big part of why people are
scared of flying, for example – it’s much
easier to imagine a crash than the actual
chance of one happening.
Sub Terra exploits this by making
sure that on almost every turn, there’s
always something that could go very
badly wrong… but it’s fairly unlikely
that it will. Additionally, the number
of turns remaining is just slowly
ticking down, pressing you to get a
move on and start taking more risks.
Finally, while there are monsters in the
game, they’re not zombie-like cannon
fodder; I deliberately made them both
very lethal and very hard to get rid of. You
are trespassers in their subterranean
realm, and direct confrontation will
lead to an early death. Run!
You’re an AI programmer by trade
– did this influence your approach
to making a board game?
TP: I’ve had the good fortune to work
with game AI for the last eight or so
years, including some of the more
traditional turn-based board game
approaches with Magic: The Gathering’s
Duels of the Planeswalkers series.
Tabletop games are interactive
puzzles, and knowing how machines
would solve them is a great help when
making them interesting for human
players to solve as well.
What’s next for Sub Terra?
TP: Honestly, the cave setting is fairly
restrictive. However, if you think about
it, there’s nothing really stopping
the core mechanics of co-operative
tile-based exploration working in a
different, less restrictive setting. The
sky’s the limit? ■
21/07/2017 15:38
 PLAYED
Cards, spice and everything nice fill this gorgeous Splendor-killer
Plan B | £34.99 | Card drafting | 2-5 players | 30-45 minutes | Age: 8+ | planbgames.com
T
here’s a wonderful moment
in Century: Spice Road when
everything comes together.
You’ve spent the first few turns slowly
filling your caravan with the dinky
coloured cubes that represent the four
spices – turmeric, saffron, cardamom
and cinnamon – being traded,
exchanging them for more valuable
seasonings using upgrade cards and
filling out your hand of dealers, who
allow you to swap one combination of
cubes for another. You may have even
cashed in a handful of your spices for
one or two of the scoring cards, perhaps
claiming a gold or silver coin from the
two leftmost slots for bonus points.
At some point during your first
match – and a few turns into every game
afterwards – the juggling of cubes and
cards turns from a cautious step-by-step
experiment into a fully confident spice-
trading ballet as you lay down patterns
of acquisition, upgrade and exchange
cards to work towards the next rainbow
of condiments required to score big.
It’s a hugely satisfying feeling as you
race against your rival caravan leaders
to build up the necessary spice, keeping
an eye on their own stock of cubes and
cards as you hope your card-powered
cube-churning machine is more
efficiently-constructed than theirs.
Fans of Splendor will find plenty to
like here, as the battle to cash in colour
combos has much in common with
080_spiceRoadReview_v2 MJ.indd 80
CENTURY: SPICE ROAD
the popular 2014 gem-trader. For me,
Spice Road excels over the older game
thanks to its more interesting theme
and gameplay that offers a far more
engaging set of player options due
to its combination of deckbuilding-
lite drafting and resource trading,
in comparison to Splendor’s more
one-note collectathon. (Spice Road also
supports one extra player and comes in
a more travel-friendly box – small but
BOX CONTENTS meaningful differences.)
◗ 36 point cards Although most of Spice Road’s
◗ 53 trading cards conflict takes place in your own hand,
◗ Five caravan cards
◗ 105 wooden cubes light player interaction occurs as cards
◗ Four plastic are collected from the central market.
spice bowls Trader cards are free to add to your
◗ 20 gold and silver deck, but those further down the line
metal coins
◗ Rulebook require spice cubes to be dropped
along the preceeding cards to reach
them, offering an advantage to rivals
who collect cards piled with cubes on
later turns. The cubes are considered
to be unlimited – unlike Splendor’s
limited treasury of chips – but certain
score cards offer a small number of
gold and silver coins that can swing
the advantage for those who claim
them first.
To get the most out of your time with
Spice Road, we’d recommend playing
with around three or four players,
IF YOU LIKE SPLENDOR… TRY CENTURY: SPICE ROAD
Spice Road blows Splendor out of the water when it comes to looks and gameplay,
offering far more engaging decisions and a greater sense of player progression.
80
opening up the more interesting
interactive aspects of the design while
keeping play time a comfortable length.
These coins are metal (just try to
resist that delightful clink) and, like
everything else in the box, contribute
to Spice Road’s universally breathtaking
visual panache, from its gorgeous cards to
the spices, which come with four diddly
bowls to tidy up unruly heaps of cubes.
Century: Spice Road’s overall
delivery is outstanding, offering
plenty to chew on and decide in
every turn while being easy to teach
and understand, all wrapped up in a
stunning, carefully-crafted package
that makes every match feel like an
event. It’s easily a superior successor
to Splendor, and may well become
the next card game phenomenon
for those seeking meaningful
gameplay without sacrificing looks
– Spice Road is style and substance,
perfectly combined. ■
MATT JARVIS
CONCLUSION
Spice Road is a gorgeous triumph,
offering looks and depth in a card
game that can be taught to anyone in
a matter of minutes. It never outstays
its welcome and is hugely satisfying as
everything comes together in a fully-
formed experience.
21/07/2017 15:38

The Cold War heats up tensions in this sneaky game of lying and deceit
Repos | £17.99 | Social deduction | 4-8 players | 20 minutes | Age: 10+ | rprod.com
T
he second collaboration
between lauded designers Eric
Lang and Bruno Faidutti after
the prisoner’s dilemma-inspired HMS
Dolores, Secrets is – like that previous
game – built around a very simple
decision: accept or reject.
Players take it in turns to draw two
cards, show the group the options and
then offer one facedown to another
player. If it’s accepted, it’s placed in
front of that player and takes effect. If
it’s rejected, it returns to the offering
player, who similarly displays it face
up and uses its ability. Each card is
worth positive or negative points –
four or five cards in front of any player
ends the game, with scores deciding a
winner. Simple, right?
Only it’s not quite that straightforward.
You see, each player is also secretly
assigned a team. In the game’s
Cold War stylings, it’s a showdown
between the CIA, KGB and hippies.
Players sneak a look at their lovely,
thick plastic allegiance chips at the
beginning of the game, but can’t
check later on unless a specific card
ability allows them. This is the meat
of Secrets, as chips can be swapped,
081_secretsReview_v3 MJ.indd 81
SECRETS
revealed or peeked at by other
players if they accept the right cards,
confusing who's on which side –
although accepting can be risky, as
two matching cards in front of you
means losing the points on both
(which can actual be quite useful in
the case of minus scores).
Scores are tallied as teams, which
results in amusing attempts to jump
ship if you’re stuck with low-scorers
– while hippies work alone and win
independently if they have the lowest
score of any player, encouraging a fun
race to lose as many points as possible
without being forced onto a team that
will suddenly make your low score a
burden rather than a boon.
Things become especially
interesting with more players, as the
rules allow you to see the allegiance
token of the person to your right in
addition to your own from the off –
meaning you can try and convince
them you’re on their side and get them
to offer you useful cards. Until you’re
revealed as a manipulative liar, that is.
Secrets has a striking look, lovely
components and is relatively easy to
pick up and play due to the simple
81
BOX CONTENTS gameplay, as you only really need to
◗ 29 character cards know what the two cards potentially
◗ Four bullet cards
◗ Help sheet on offer do, and none of the effects
◗ Four reference cards are overly complicated.
◗ 10 identity tokens While there are all the ingredients
◗ UN token of a cracking little bluffing game
◗ Two help tokens
◗ Rulebook present, the social deduction aspects
never properly clicked during any
of the matches we played. The most
exciting role to be in is that of a
undiscovered hippy, who suddenly
reveals their apparently poor play as a
winning low score at the last moment.
Because scores are largely visible
(although the assassin can dish out
negative bullet cards that remain
hidden until the end), Secrets should
be a game about constantly switching
sides and lying through your teeth to
try and stick with the winning team
as long as possible. This doesn’t
necessarily pan out, as the random
nature of the two cards drawn limits
IF YOU the strategic play – even if allegiances
LIKE COUP…
are discovered, there’s sometimes little
TRY SECRETS
Secrets offers a you can do to impact the situation.
more dynamic and The standout card is the diplomat,
unpredictable take which allows you to secretly swap one
on Coup’s game of
of your neighbours’ tokens with the
ability bluffing.
centre loyalty chip, often throwing the
knowledge of who is who into disarray.
It’s just a shame there aren’t as many
cards that offer such an exciting shake-
up of the social elements during a
match, as the tension more often than
not evaporates by the mid-point.
When things hit their stride, Secrets
is a unique and enjoyable game of
bluffing, chance and deduction – little
beats the feeling of flipping over your
token at the last second to reveal you
were on the opposite team the entire
time. The problem is that this never
seems to be a consistent experience,
relying more on the luck of the draw
than quality social interaction. ■
MATT JARVIS
CONCLUSION
Secrets looks fantastic, has a brilliant
concept on paper and can be
fantastically good fun when everything
pulls together, but the experience varies
wildly between games based on the
luck of the draw, making it hard to fully
recommend. It’s a real shame, as there’s
so much here to enjoy otherwise.
21/07/2017 15:39
 PLAYED
WARHAMMER 40,000 (EIGHTH EDITION):
DARK IMPERIUM
The legendary miniatures game trims the fat with a fantastic new edition
Games Workshop | £95 | Wargame | 2+ players | 2+ hours | games-workshop.com
I
n news sure to shock teenage
collectors of plastic figures across
multiple generations, Warhammer
40,000 turns 30 years old in 2017.
Over the decades – and more than
half a dozen different editions – the
iconic grimdark game of battling
Space Marines, Orkz, Eldar and
Chaos has become somewhat
notorious for its convoluted and
bloated ruleset, putting off those
attracted by the top-notch models
and brutal, bloody universe.
This year’s eighth edition aims to
solve that with a stripped-back set of
rules, spearheaded by the beginner-
friendly Dark Imperium boxset. On
almost all accounts, it’s a resounding
082_083_warhammer40kDarkImperiumReview_v2 MJ.indd 82
If you’ve encountered Games
Workshop figures before, you’ll
know they are among the very
best out there, and these are no
exception. Covering standard
infantry, a handful of powerful
unique characters, the airborne
Inceptor squad of the Marines and
the Foetid Bloat-drone vehicle
of the Death Guard, it’s a varied
and vast selection that showcases
the impressive sculpting and
production that made Warhammer
a household name to begin with –
the spiked, contorted and grotesque
Death Guard troops provide a
nice contrast to the smooth power
armour and tactical poise of the
Space Marines. The multi-part
models aren’t hard to put together,
especially so thanks to an included
construction and painting guide,
which makes it little harder than
building a Lego model (albeit using
superglue).
The real triumph of the set, however,
is in the rules. Taking heavy inspiration
from the similar reimagining of its
fantasy sibling Age of Sigmar, 40,000’s
core ruleset has been condensed
in a way that maintains the depth
and strategy of the wargame while
also making many of the overly-
complicated and unnecessary rules
of the past much more logical and
straightforward to understand – or
removing them entirely.
One major example is the
presence of vehicles, which could
previously become near-unstoppable
killing machines that only took
damage from certain attacks; they
now use the same combat statistics
BOX CONTENTS success that injects a much-needed as standard units, allowing them
◗ 22 Primaris freshness and excitement back into to be hurt by standard troops, and
Space Marines
plastic miniatures the aging wargame, bringing it back weaken increasingly as they soak
◗ 31 Death Guard alongside rivals from the last few up wounds, which helps to even
plastic miniatures years that had begun to creep ahead the battlefield a little. Another
◗ 280-page hardback with their fast-flowing gameplay and overhauled system is morale,
core rulebook
◗ Eight-page core streamlined rules. which has been simplified to a
rules reference card The Dark Imperium box itself simple die roll that dictates how
◗ 24-page Primaris is an excellent starting point, many additional troops are lost.
Space Marines book packed with the eight edition’s core Meanwhile, terrain no longer
◗ 24-page Death
Guard book rulebook, the bits and bobs needed impacts movement, and universally
◗ 12 six-sided dice to play (including 12 dice and a increases sheltered or covered units’
◗ 12-inch range ruler range ruler – though, strangely, no saving throws by one – simple as
◗ Construction guide objective markers are included, that. All templates, such as those
◗ Primaris Space
Marines decal sheet despite their importance to the new for grenades, have been removed,
rules), and 53 miniatures split into replaced by a random number of
the new Primaris Space Marines and automatic hits, helping to speed up
Death Guard armies. combat resolution.
82
21/07/2017 15:41
 There are countless examples of
such tweaks across the game, but the
upshot is that 40,000 is both easier
to understand and faster to play.
This doesn’t mean it’s been dumbed
down, just that the same actions and
characteristics can have an effect
on battles without players having
to waste minutes working through
the intricacies of each and every
decision. In fact, the eight-page rules
reference included covers nearly
everything to enough of a point that
you could almost play straight out of
the box – a few hours' of gluing and
painting of models not permitting.
With the rules no longer weighing
the flow of each match down, 40,000
skirmishes become much more
cinematic and dynamic events. This
is reflected by the new division of
matches into open, narrative and
matched games, which offer different
setups and play formats focused
on whether you’re after flexible
multiplayer, story-driven battles or
more regimented, points-dictated
rules for tournaments, respectively.
Regardless of which mode you
go for, an assortment of missions
and randomly-selected objectives
provide much greater variety than
just slaughtering the opposite team
■ The Dark Imperium
set includes the Foetid
Bloat-drone vehicle.
082_083_warhammer40kDarkImperiumReview_v2 MJ.indd 83
(although there’s certainly nothing
stopping you), introducing the
chance to earn bonus VP for tasks
such as holding points around the
map, eliminating specific characters
or protecting your base.
Even in non-narrative matches,
these added objectives bring to the
fore more of Warhammer 40,000’s vast
universe and lore. It encourages more
on-the-fly and thematic storytelling
within the game – a lone Space Marine
holding off a squad of Poxwalkers from
a strategic point is far more exciting
than just crashing two squads into
each other and seeing who survives.
Unique characters can no longer
be part of units, both stopping the
use of the models as a way of forming
overpowered squads and giving
them the chance to stand alone
as notable singular forces on the
battlefield. Their presence also helps
to give weaker troops a new purpose,
as characters cannot be targeted
by enemy shots when another unit
is closer, stopping players from
focusing all their fire on the most
powerful character first by using the
weaker units almost quite literally
as a meat shield and allowing the
character to get in closer instead
of being wiped out from the off.
Again, this makes every match more
variable, as characters roam around
the battlefield and opposing forces
attempt to outmanoeuvre them in
order to take them down.
While the missions and objectives
lend themselves to 40,000’s more
varied play, there is a weakness in the
initial setup of many of the missions,
as players take it in turns to place
objective markers around the
field and the person who
places last then decides the
layout of troop deployment
from one of six in the core
rulebook. This is a strange
choice, as it often gives the
second player a huge advantage
while choosing the placement of
objectives. What’s more, the first
player must start deploying
their troops first, saddling them
with another tactical handicap.
It’s a decision that will likely be
adjusted in the months to come
with the living set of rules, or
simply ignored by those looking
for a more balanced setup.
83
■ Characters play a
much bigger role in
battles, driving the
improved storytelling
of the game.
The reference materials for
IF YOU LIKE
the new edition are roundly INFINITY… TRY
excellent, with the revised unit WARHAMMER
profiles making it painless to check 40,000
all the necessary information Eighth edition’s
changes bring
for each unit and its potential Warhammer 40,000
equipment and the rules reference back into line with
serving as a one-stop shop for its modern-day sci-
fi wargaming rivals.
newcomers learning the ropes.
The core rulebook isn’t always as
streamlined or easy to understand
as the rules it’s explaining, with a
few questionable choices in terms
of the way and order in which more
advanced rules are explained, but
it’s still a huge improvement on
past editions.
Despite a few very minor
missteps, eighth edition is
an outstanding evolution of
Warhammer 40,000 across the CONCLUSION
board. It brings back the excitement By stripping back
the unnecessary
and feeling of cinematic action that complications that had
many remember from their early built up over decades,
days of playing the game, but which Warhammer 40,000’s
wasn’t always reflected in a ruleset eighth edition makes
the classic a fast,
that had grown out of control and exciting and vibrant
isolated the game as more of a past wargame once again.
relic than an up-to-day contender The increased focus
to modern sci-fi wargames. With on atmosphere is a
joy, and the fantastic
this, the Emperor may very well Dark Imperium box is
have reclaimed his throne. ■ the perfect place to
MATT JARVIS dive back in.
25/07/2017 09:11
 PLAYED
We promise we’ll be fair – even if this theme park-building card game isn’t
CMON/Good Games | £49.99 | Card drafting | 2-5 players
60-90 minutes | Age: 14+ | unfair-game.com
T
he front of Unfair’s box shows
a rollercoaster train at the top
of a track, suspended over
the steep drop it’s about to plummet
down. The artwork doesn’t just
visualise the theme park setting of the
card game – it actually manages to
capture the very feel of the gameplay.
Of the many things to admire
about Unfair’s hugely enjoyable
game of constructing the best theme
park in the land while screwing over
your rivals by bribing their staff,
sabotaging their rides and generally
being, well, mean is that it makes
each roughly hour-long match feel
like a rollercoaster ride.
Like a real coaster, it’s not all non-
stop speed and loops, either. A series
of eight city cards apply random
events to each round, with the first
four offering generally beneficial
occurrences and the latter four set
to tear down much of the players’
work in the run-up to the finale. This
helps the first half of the game feel
084_085_unfairReviewInterview_v3 MJ.indd 84
UNFAIR
BOX CONTENTS like the ascension of a coaster train
◗ Six themed packs of 57 as it gently ratchets up a slope, with
cards (jungle, robots,
pirates, vampires, players taking the time to construct
ninjas, gangsters) their rides, attractions and upgrades
◗ Five game and hire staff, before the train begins
changer cards to come rocketing down the track,
◗ Blueprint closure
reminder card destroying players’ hard-built efforts
◗ Double-sided board and wiping any any hope of victory.
◗ Two player It is called Unfair, after all.
reference sheets Building rides is very satisfying,
◗ Starting player token
◗ Current step marker as players mix together a number
◗ Current step miniature of differently-themed card packs
◗ 86 coin tokens (pirates, ninjas, vampires and so on
◗ 14 mesmerism tokens – the clichés fit the funfair setting)
◗ Scorepad and pencil
◗ Rulebook based on the group size. These
present general attractions, such as
sideshows and cable-car journeys,
as well as the big thrill rides and
one-off showcases needed to pull
in punters. Rides can be upgraded
with a number of cards, adding
luxury elements, extra excitement
IF YOU LIKE STEAM PARK… TRY UNFAIR
Unfair takes a more ruthless approach to building your own theme park than the
older coal-fuelled title, making the most of its snappy card-based gameplay.
84
or mashing up themes to give rides
that jungle-gangster-pirate-robot
flavour, all lovingly rendered in the
lively artwork.
Bigger and better attractions pull
in more guests at the end of each
round, which earns extra cash to
invest in future rides. The main aim,
however, is to complete blueprint
cards, which can be drawn during
your turn and serve as a parallel
to Ticket to Ride’s destination
tickets – build the combination of
attractions and upgrades listed and
you’ll score big, otherwise losing
points. Increasing the risk-reward
tension is the ability to take out
loans, sacrificing points in the hope
of putting the money towards high-
scoring builds. Unfair’s city cards can
be punishing, leading to completed
blueprints suddenly becoming
unfulfilled in the closing rounds,
but the game is universally harsh to
all players, offsetting the otherwise
potentially frustrating inability to
recover from an unlucky draw.
Players have extra opportunities
to put stones on their opponents'
tracks using event cards drawn and
played during the beginning of each
round. Each card is split between two
options – one that helps that player
and another that hinders a rival,
often by closing rides and stopping
them earning money that round –
neatly opening up two divergent
paths to victory.
Unfair lives up to its name – even
a solid strategy can be quickly
undone by unfortunate event or
city cards, which will leave some
players fuming. If you can cope with
not being a sore loser and just go
along for the ride, though, it’s a card
game packed with personality that’s
buckets of fun to simply watch play
out – for better and worse. ■
MATT JARVIS
CONCLUSION
Unfair is massive fun to play, as long as
you can cope with being the victim of
unlucky draws and last-minute losses
every now and then. The lively artwork
and writing brings the theme park
setting to life, while the gameplay makes
building up your rides (and tearing down
the work of others) a total blast.
21/07/2017 15:42
 ALL THE FUN OF THE (UN)FAIR
Australian designer Joel Finch takes us through the thrills and spills of creating his first game
If Unfair was a theme park ride,
what would it be?
Unfair is definitely a thrill ride! It has
the highs and sometimes the lows of a
rollercoaster. If I was going to choose
just one type it would probably be a
duelling roller coaster, because it has
more than one path from start to finish.
For some reason, theme parks
haven’t been a common setting
for tabletop games. What made
an amusement park the right
theme for Unfair?
I’ve always enjoyed theme parks
and they were a rare treat when I
was younger because we lived a few
hours from the city.
I can’t say exactly where the
thought came from to use that for a
game, but the theme definitely came
first and the mechanics were selected
to best represent that idea.
I wanted to make a game that wasn’t
based heavily in science fiction or high
fantasy, something that had a modern
setting, and something that many people
would have a direct experience of.
Unfair is your first published
game. What was the journey
like from original concept
to finished release?
Long! Unfair started out
as a spare-time project for
me about six years ago,
something I was working on
essentially as my hobby. We
were playing board games
084_085_unfairReviewInterview_v3 MJ.indd 85
Interview by Matt Jarvis
with friends when we saw them for
dinner every few weeks, and I decided
to design my own.
I had worked on a number of
computer game projects in the past,
and I thought a board game would be
a good way to use those skills without
the usual technical requirements and
a larger team – with no coding and no
hardware platforms to worry about, I
could make anything I liked and take
as much time as I liked. How hard
could it be? Hard, as it turned out.
Did the game change much during
that time?
Originally it had no blueprints, no
market, no separate events deck, no
board and not much engine building
or combo play to speak of, and
completely different scoring – it mainly
focused on set collection and some
events. It had people cards with their
likes and dislikes, hand drafting, card
auctioning, upkeep, separate buy and
build costs, bidding for advertising – all
kinds of things that sound like they
■ Top: Finch's two might be fun. And it was terrible.
favourite cards from Since then, the rules have been
the game. through nine changes that were large
enough to get their own number, and
■ Below: Unfair countless smaller variations as we tried
designer Joel Finch. out different things out.
Did you take inspiration from any
other tabletop titles?
I remember playing Tigris & Euphrates
and really liking the idea of building
monuments by assembling four tiles
and converting those squares into a
larger structure, and that was reflected in
the basic idea of building attractions by
assembling pieces, instead of just buying
them whole as other games have done.
There were also aspects of
Dominion to it. I liked the idea
of combining different cards
each time to give the game
a different feel on each
replay. For Unfair, rather
than a card-by-card
approach to switching
up the game, we
went with a larger
pack-based method, so
that enough similar cards
85
would be included to support that
theme’s particular mechanism.
Magic: The Gathering was a giant
source of inspiration too. My wife
refuses to play Magic – just really not her
thing – so I wanted to get some of the
cards with powers, the combo play, into
a game that she would actually play!
The title is Unfair – please tell us
this isn’t true of the gameplay!
The unfairness is reflected in the
game as asymmetry. There are super
attractions that each have a unique
power, and everyone gets two to
choose from, but nobody gets the same
power, so everyone starts on an equal-
but-different footing.
There is also a city deck, revealing one
card each round that affects all players.
For the first half of the game, those
cards are helpful, but in the last half, the
city tightens the screws and sometimes
applies some unhappy rules to your
theme park, though these can mostly
be defended with some preparation.
Personally, I consider that fair – the
city helps for half the game and then
hurts for half the game – but some
people see unfairness there.
What’s your favourite Unfair card?
It’s so hard to choose, but my favourite
card for the artwork is the Lost & Found
Attendant, who is himself a little lost.
For the power of a single card, I like
Instant Karma – it’s an immediate serve
of justice to anyone who attacks you.
What is the local tabletop scene
like in your home of Australia?
Australia is very active in board games.
Local to us in Brisbane, there are
many organised groups meeting
regularly, and I think that’s true of all
the major cities. There are plenty of
people we know who are keen to play
board games casually, as well.
What’s next on the track for Unfair?
We have an expansion underway. 'A for
Alien' and 'W for Western' seem very
likely, but no firm details yet.
With sufficient interest from players,
we have plans that will fill the whole
alphabet of theme letters, eventually. ■
21/07/2017 15:42
 PLAYED
Dice have rarely looked as beautiful as they do in this stained glass spectacle
Floodgate | £39.99 | Dice drafting | 1-4 players | 30-45 minutes | Age: 13+ | floodgategames.com/sagrada
S
till under construction close to
150 years after work first began,
Barcelona’s breathtaking Sagrada
Familia is one of the greatest works of
art ever created, comprising countless
minute details and religious symbols in
its sculptures, architecture and stained
glass windows. Just one of the many
impressive aspects of Sagrada, the dice-
drafting game named for the church, is
how it captures the intricate complexity
and detail of Gaudi’s masterpiece
without necessarily complicating its
gameplay – or taking a century to play.
Players begin the game with a
patterned grid that slides into a beautiful
window frame board, setting up the
mosaic they must attempt to complete
over ten rounds. To do so seems
fiendishly easy, as each would-be artist
takes it in turns to choose a die from a
pool of coloured cubes rolled at the start
of each round and slot it next to one of
their previous placements. As the frame
begins to fill, however, it increasingly
becomes a challenge of careful
arrangement as matching dice – in either
colour or result (which thematically
represents ‘shade’) – can’t be neighbours
and certain squares that specify a hue
or number must be obeyed.
Each player has a secret object card
that rewards bonus points for using
a certain colour, while three shared
objectives encourage placing sets
of numbers or avoiding particular
combinations, such as repeating shades
086_sagradaReview_v2 MJ.indd 86
SAGRADA
or colours in a row or column. Quickly,
choosing and placing each die for
maximum effect becomes a brain-
busting trial of prediction, planning
and a bit of luck – not unlike building
a massively ambitious minor basilica,
we’d wager.
Helping out are three tool cards,
which can be used by spending one
or two favour tokens (depending on if
you’re the first to use the skill), provided
BOX CONTENTS at the beginning of the game based on
◗ Four window frame the difficulty of each pattern. While only
player boards
◗ 12 window
a handful of window, tool and objective
pattern cards cards are used during each match, there
◗ 90 dice is a healthy selection in the box, offering
◗ 12 tool cards plenty of variability from game to game.
◗ 10 public
objective cards
Much like its namesake, Sagrada
◗ Five private takes a number of simple materials and
objective cards combines them to produce something
◗ 24 favour tokens that is both easy to comprehend and
◗ Round/score
track board
staggeringly multifaceted. There are
◗ Four score markers very few surface-level decisions to make
◗ Dice and favour every turn – place a die, use a tool, do
token bags both or neither – yet the ramifications
◗ Rulebook
of each placement can be highly
complicated. It’s not uncommon to
find yourself trapped in a corner by
the end of the game, unable to place
a die and cursing your questionable
use of a tool earlier on – as only full
rows and columns count towards
scoring, it can be devastating. Despite
IF YOU LIKE BLUEPRINTS… TRY SAGRADA
Sagrada swaps Blueprints’ architecturally-minded game of dice rolling and vertical
stacking for a tighter focus on drafting and carefully arranging stained glass.
86
this, the gameplay flow never comes
to a standstill, with enough options to
keep players feeling in control without
burying them in potential decisions.
With a gorgeous set of components
and absorbing theme that seeps
through the mechanics, Sagrada is a
perfect title to introduce newcomers to
gaming. The thick and colourful player
boards are arguably unnecessary – the
pattern cards would have worked fine
on their own – but, like every part of the
game, they work towards delivering a
visual experience on the tabletop that
reflects the beauty of its inspiration.
From the glassy favour tokens to the
translucent rainbow of dice, which both
come stored in included material bags,
this is a game to be displayed proudly,
drawing grandparents, children and
friends alike in with its bright charms
and alluring simplicity. Just beware –
you might be adding a holiday to Spain
to the shopping list soon. ■
MATT JARVIS
CONCLUSION
Sagrada captures the complexity and
beauty of Gaudi’s magnum opus in easy-
to-understand gameplay complemented
by gorgeous visuals, offering depth and
replayability without ever making things
feel convoluted or overwhelming. It’s a
game you’ll want to show to everyone
you know.
25/07/2017 09:29

Report to the bridge as we set phasers to fun (and promptly get killed)
AEG | £49.99 | Co-op | 2-7 players | 60-90 minutes | Age: 14+ | alderac.com/thecaptainisdead
T
he Captain is Dead should really
come with red shirts in the
box, because – like Star Trek’s
infamously ill-fated unnamed crew
members – you’re going to die a lot in
this game. And you’re going to have a
hell of a time doing so.
The framing of the frantic co-op
title is the last 10 minutes of every
sci-fi serial since Kirk and Spock first
boldly went: your leader deceased,
your spaceship staff (positions range
from janitor and hologram to admiral
and ensign, Wesley Crusher knitwear
not included) are desperately trying
to repair the ship's jump core before
increasingly aggressive aliens reduce
your shield to zero and turn you into
food for space worms.
087_theCaptainIsDeadReview_v2 MJ.indd 87
THE CAPTAIN IS DEAD
Gameplay is reminiscent of
Pandemic, as the uniquely-talented
crew move between different areas
(armoury, cargo bay, engineering) and
do their best to hold off teleporting
invaders (instead of infection cubes)
and fix constantly failing systems. As
in Pandemic, each player draws a card
at the end of their turn that intensifies
the situation but, unlike in the
disease-curing favourite, there’s no real
breathing point in the action spiked by
the periodic panic of epidemics – here
it’s always-on full-on as the cards ramp
up to the all-but-instant death of the
final few draws.
This can put your survival time
down to the luck of the draw
somewhat, but maximising your
character’s abilities and working
efficiently with teammates is key to
lasting as long as you can. There are
a healthy variety of options every
turn, whether you draw potentially
beneficial battle plans (with Star Trek
references aplenty), spend science
to upgrade onboard functions, fire a
87
torpedo to fend off damaging foes,
collect limited-use tools or hoard skills
in the hope of getting the engineering
needed to shift the ship. Even when
failure hits you fast and hard – and it
will – the experience is never less than
gripping throughout thanks to the top-
notch presentation of the components'
vivid abstract art style, the hilarious
and charming theme, and the superb
execution of the gameplay.
While the game scales brilliantly BOX CONTENTS
◗ 90 cards
down to as few as two players, it’s worth ◗ 64 mini cards
eschewing the random assignment of ◗ Game board
player colours (each offering a handful ◗ 30 character standees
of different roles for players to choose ◗ Seven plastic torpedoes
◗ Three plastic markers
from) during setup with smaller groups ◗ Rulebook
at least the first few games through, as
we felt not all of the characters were
equally matched. If you can gather a
bigger group, you will get to experience
more of the game, as the ongoing
effect of random anomalies can have a
significant impact on players’ actions
but are discarded when playing with
just a pair of people. Difficulty can
be neatly scaled in both directions by
increasing or decreasing the number of
jump core repairs required to win (and
removing torpedos on the very highest
handicaps), but even normal provides a
IF YOU LIKE
fair challenge. PANDEMIC…
Not all players will love The Captain TRY THE CAPTAIN
is Dead – as undestroyed alien ships IS DEAD
Drenched in theme,
begin to stack up the damage dealt
buckets of fun and
and crucial systems explode, a easy to learn, the
match can quickly be lost with little sci-fi newcomer
chance for recovery, and the largely might just be the
next big co-op
random element of skill cards can be
gateway game.
frustrating if luck isn’t on your side.
The player-specific abilities feel fresh
and offer plenty of variety, but effective
teamwork is paramount to surviving, CONCLUSION
opening the door for disgruntled or The Captain is Dead
won’t suit those who
controlling players to try to take the can’t stand being
captain's chair and command others. beaten – even unfairly
For most, though, these very minor – as the random
quibbles (which occur in plenty of elements conspire
against you. If you can
other games) will be dwarfed by the accept that, you’re
massive potential for fun that every in for a real treat of
element of the game lends itself to entertaining theme
if you’re willing to simply enjoy the and simple, dynamic
gameplay that you’ll
experience. In the words of Captain want to introduce to all
Jean-Luc Picard: make it so. ■ your friends and play
MATT JARVIS time and time again.
21/07/2017 15:44
 PLAYED
Let this adorable tile-arranger wrap you in its warm bear hug
Lookout/Mayfair | £41.99 | Tile placement | 2-4 players | 30-45 minutes | Age: 8+ | mayfairgames.com
I
f you’re a fan of the Tetris-like practice
of skillfully positioning tiles on a
board, you’ve been spoilt for choice
when it comes to games of the last few
years. From the head-to-head intensity
of Uwe Rosenberg’s Patchwork to the
twee charm of Cottage Garden by, urm,
Uwe Rosenberg, or the complex, crucial
arrangement of epic Viking saga A Feast
for Odin… wait, that was Rosenberg,
too. Well, the master of tile placement
might now have to clear a polyomino-
shaped space for Sushi Go creator Phil
Walker-Harding and his latest design:
the enchanting, delightful Bärenpark.
Bärenpark hits the adorable factor
from the off, as players throw open the
doors to their own bear park (the various
starting boards translate the title into
Russian, French, Japanese and more) and
begin to acquire tiles of various shapes
and sizes from the central supply board.
Covering certain icons – scaling
from wheelbarrows and cement mixers
up to diggers and entire construction
crews – presents the chance to pick
up new tiles (or, in the case of the
latter, a brand new area board) that
represent everything from toilets and
playgrounds to the main attraction of
bear houses and unique enclosures.
The game ends after a player
completes four areas, before points for
special tiles, completely filled boards
and any achievements – which include
placing certain types of matching
bear tiles, laying a continuous river or
088_089_barenparkReviewInterview_v2 MJ.indd 88
BÄRENPARK
BOX CONTENTS completing multiple boards at once – are
◗ 19 park area boards scored and a winner declared.
◗ 52 green area tiles
◗ 28 animal house tiles With such easy-going and forgiving
◗ 12 enclosure tiles gameplay (not to mention the adorable
◗ 16 bear statue tokens animals), Bärenpark is a perfect family
◗ 30 achievement tiles game for four, but it works just as
◗ Supply board
◗ Rulebook fantastically with a couple. That’s not
to say it lacks bite, either – while the
tile arrangement is less intense than
in a typical Rosenberg game, there’s a
satisfying amount of strategy and player
interaction that arises from nabbing
extra points by being the first to acquire
certain tiles, fill boards and complete
achievements. The achievements are
said to be an optional variant for those
more familiar with the game, but we’d
say they’re vital to offering that extra
level of depth and strategy – plus, they’re
not that hard to understand anyway.
The simple-but-sweet gameplay is
underpinned by a warm, charming art
style. As the sandy emptiness of your
park disappears under the blue tones
of polar bear enclosures, the yellow of
gobi bear houses, the luscious green of
koala habitats and the silver of panda
tunnels, you’ll smile as you plug a gap
with another portaloo.
A few matches in, you’ll likely be
able to knock out a game in under half
an hour, bringing the same charm,
ease and friendly pull-out-and-play
IF YOU LIKE COTTAGE GARDEN… TRY BÄRENPARK
Bärenpark offers a simpler take on tile arranging than Uwe Rosenberg’s various
strategic masterworks – but that doesn’t mean it’s not just as, if not more, fun.
88
appeal to tile placement that Sushi Go
brought to card drafting.
The only letdowns are outside of the
main game. There’s an unfortunate
misprint on the supply board regarding
the number of playground and food
street tiles for different numbers of players,
which is a shame – but not a dealbreaker
by any means. While it’s thoughtful to
include an insert of any kind in the box, the
simple interlocking one used here is a little
awkward and hardly ideal for storing the
various shapes and pieces, making setup
a little longer than it could be. Even then,
it’s never more than a couple of minutes.
If you come to Bärenpark expecting a
deep, headscratcher of a tile-placement
game, you’ll be disappointed – Uwe
remains the place to go – but if you’re
instead after a quick-to-learn, quick-to-
play game that still has depth to offer
alongside its irresistible visuals and fun
theme, you can’t really go wrong here.
Let it wrap you in its bear hug and simply
enjoy the loving embrace. ■
MATT JARVIS
CONCLUSION
It might not be the deepest game around,
yet Bärenpark is packed with more than
enough charm and joy to be an absolute
blast. Like Sushi Go, it’ll be a game you
find yourself bringing out time after time
for a delightful half-hour – before you end
up playing for hours, with no complaints.
21/07/2017 15:44
 BEAR WITH ME
After partying with the sea delicacies of Sushi Go, Phil Walker-Harding
is getting cosy with grizzlies in zoological delight Bärenpark
Interview by Matt Jarvis
Your latest project is
Bärenpark – where did the
idea come from?
I have always wanted to design a
game using polyomino tiles. Some
of my favourite games in this genre
are The Princes of Florence, Arkadia,
FITS and Mosaix. More recently,
Patchwork has been a real favourite
for my wife and I. Seeing this game
do so well encouraged me to get
to work!
I really wanted the tiles themselves
and their different shapes to be the
focus of the game. It’s all about fitting
them together in fun ways, and the
satisfaction that comes from filling
up your board completely with them!
This means the game is pretty
abstract at its heart, but my original
theme was building an amusement
park. The different tiles represented
the different rides and attractions
you could build. The publisher,
Lookout, felt a more original theme
was needed and so they came up
with building a bright and colourful
wildlife park for bears!
What’s your favourite part of
the game?
I think I am most happy with the
mechanism for collecting new
tiles. Whenever you lay a tile in the
game, you will cover one or more
icons on the board below it. Each
icon you cover awards you with a
new tile of some type that you can
place. This gives the game a simple
structure and the feeling of flow and
progression from turn to turn.
My favourite component is probably
the smallest tile in the game – the toilet!
How many games get to have a toilet
piece in them? I have joked with new
players that if you don’t have at least
one toilet in your park, you lose the
game. This is not actually a rule, but it
does make lots of practical sense!
More importantly, what’s your
favourite bear?
I think I’ll have to go with polar
bears. It takes guts to wear all white.
088_089_barenparkReviewInterview_v2 MJ.indd 89
“Favourite You published your own games for
seven years, but transitioned fully
bear? I’ll into designing in 2014. Why did
you decide to move away from
have to go the publishing side of things?
My favourite part of the process
with polar was always the actual designing,
and I was finding that all the
bears. administration and logistics that
goes along with publishing was
It takes taking away from that. Getting a
game to print and then distributed
guts to around the world is quite a big task,
especially being based in Australia.
wear all I was also building more
relationships with outside publishers,
white.” and so it seemed like a pretty natural
move for me to focus just on design.
Three years on, what do you miss
most about self-publishing?
The main thing I miss is getting to
work on my own designs as products
– being involved in the theming, art
and product design myself. This was
my favourite part of self-publishing:
figuring out how my game would
look and feel to the players. These
days, I try and bring some of this
into my prototype making. I like to
spend a bit of extra time on their
components and art to reconnect
with that process.
You’re known for creating
relatively fast-paced, easy-
to-pick-up games. What's so
important about creating such
accessible titles?
Board and card games are unique in
their ability to bring people together
for an interactive social experience.
I love playing games with diverse
groups of people of different ages
and backgrounds. Easy-to-learn games
allow this to happen more freely, as the
barrier to entry is lowered for the players.
Learning new rules, and then
the pressure to understand and
remember them right away, can be a
turn-off to people outside the hobby.
■ Walker-Harding has So I try my best to make my games
more ideas for future easy to teach and easy to connect
Sushi Go games. Yum! with on the first play.
89
What’s your own favourite quick
go-to time-filler?
For many years my favourite filler has
been For Sale by Stefan Dorra. It packs a
lot of decision making into a very short
play time and has a wonderful two-part
structure. I also find it is a nice game to
play with people new to board gaming.
They usually feel pretty familiar with
the idea of increasing the bid or dropping
out, and enjoy watching the game unfold.
I also really like Coloretto, Loco and
Battle Line, among others.
Sushi Go is probably your best-
known game, and you followed it
up with Sushi Go Party last year.
What are your future plans for the
delicious card-drafting series?
I definitely have more ideas for different
things in the Sushi-verse! Nothing is
completed yet but I have multiple games
at different stages of development.
Because the core system of Sushi
Go is so simple, it can be hard to find
new things to do with it that feel fresh.
Hopefully some of my ideas will come
together and really click soon.
Beyond Bärenpark and outside of
Sushi Go, what else is next for you?
Another unannounced filler card game
of mine should be coming out later this
year. There are also more expansions on
the way that I can’t talk about yet!
I’d love to design games in genres
I haven’t worked in before, such as
social deduction and dexterity, so
hopefully something will emerge one
day from those experiments. ■
21/07/2017 15:44
 PLAYED
THE MANHATTAN PROJECT:
ENERGY EMPIRE
No one game should have all this power
Minion | £64.99 | Worker placement | 1-5 players | 1-2 hours | Age: 13+ | miniongames.com
E
nergy Empire is that perfect
tabletop combination of fulfilling,
meaningful gameplay and a
rich, engrossing theme. It is a complex,
multi-layered game that is made easy
to understand and consistently fun to
play by the near-flawless execution of
its design.
Players step into the polished shoes of
worldwide leaders working to advance
their energy output in the decades after
World War II. One of the game’s great
achievements is its feeling of progress.
You start off largely reliant on petroleum,
which can produce a fair amount of
energy but is likely to add pollution
tokens to the environment section of
your player board. Over time, you’ll be
able to invest in clean (but less efficient)
hydro and solar power, continue to
exploit the dirty-but-effective nature of
coal and petroleum, or even discover
the ability to split the atom for nuclear
energy – which will keep both your
lightbulbs and irritated rivers glowing.
Each type of energy is represented
by coloured dice, which are rolled
during a ‘generate’ turn. Petroleum
dice are temporary for that round
only, acquired by refining oil barrels,
while the others take up permanent
slots on your board. The pool is rolled,
energy tokens acquired and – depending
on the highest die value – pollution
090_energyEmpireReview_v2 MJ.indd 90
BOX CONTENTS or nuclear contamination (which is
◗ Main board
tougher to clean up) potentially added to
◗ 24 energy dice
◗ 30 worker tokens the environment. As in real life, there’s a
◗ 50 energy tokens genuine feeling of tension over balancing
◗ 10 nation cards sufficient energy creation and the risk
◗ Five player mats
to the environment, which the light luck
◗ 78 structure cards
◗ 15 global impact cards aspect keeps taut throughout each match.
◗ 10 player markers Once energy has been generated,
◗ 27 science discs it feeds back into the only other turn
◗ 25 steel tokens
option: ‘work’. This is split between
◗ 25 plastic cubes
◗ 30 oil barrels choosing where to place your diddly
◗ 54 money tokens workers on the central board to perform
◗ 12 oil well tokens a variety of actions and spending energy
◗ 54 double-sided
to both outbid your rivals and power any
pollution/nuclear
contamination tokens structures you’ve bought on past turns.
◗ 20 achievement tiles Actions can’t be performed without
◗ Rulebook outbidding those who’ve used the
action previously, leading to a one-
upmanship contest on particular
spaces. The events are split into three
colours, which roughly indicate their
focus (government spaces concern
research and science, the commercial
area is largely trade, and so on), but also
dictates which structures that player can
activate that turn – including the neutral
nation card, which advances your
standing with the United Nations.
There aren’t so many actions that it
feels overwhelming – in fact, given how
IF YOU LIKE POWER GRID… TRY ENERGY EMPIRE
Like Friedemann Friese’s network-building modern classic, Energy Empire is an
electrifying masterpiece about the strategic generation and supply of power.
90
much there is to track and manage,
all of Energy Empire feels completely
natural to understand and can be
learnt relatively quickly, meaning
you can crack on with refining oil
into plastic, erecting wind turbines
and expanding your workforce.
While the game can stretch up to a
couple of hours with a full house, the
momentum is so fluid and the sense of
progression so satisfying that it’s never
anything less than wonderful fun.
Driving the game along are six global
impact cards, with one revealed after
a set amount of pollution tokens have
been placed. Split into ‘early’ and ‘late’
events, these refresh markets, spark
one-off events and score a random row
of players’ environments – as well as a
final points tot-up, VP can be obtained
throughout the game, helping to give
a good sense of the current rankings
and the chance to understand what
you should be aiming towards from
round to round. Achievements can be
acquired during the game that reward
bonus VP – these are nicely varied and
aren’t all for keeping the environment
squeaky-clean, opening up the chance
for players to profit from pumping the
earth full of radiation or clogging the
clouds with smog.
Energy Empire is an exceptional
creation, crackling with the potential
for deep strategy while offering plenty
of gameplay variation and flexibility
to keep things exciting throughout its
longer play time. The joy of building
up an efficient cycle of energy
generation before spending the power
to refine and improve your output
(while occasionally mopping up the
environment) remains endlessly
engrossing and, most importantly,
massively fun. Invest your own energy
in tracking down a copy – it’ll more
than pay you back. ■
MATT JARVIS
CONCLUSION
Energy Empire has so much to offer
in terms of strategy and fun that it’s
a wonder its numerous parts come
together so effortlessly. As you place
workers, acquire and roll dice, trade
goods, manage structures, outbid rivals,
clean up the environment – and so much
more – a couple of hours will whizz by
and leave you buzzing.
21/07/2017 15:45

Sail along the Fury Road in this beautiful but flawed Mad Max-a-like
Antler Games | £46.99 | Exploration | 1-6 players | Time: 2 hours | Age: 14+ | saltlands-game.com
S
altlands is just six letters and
a couple of Australian accents
away from being Mad Max:
The Board Game. As in the cult series
of movies, the game takes place in a
post-apocalyptic wasteland where
vehicular combat is the gritty bread-
and-butter and fuel is as crucial to
survival as water.
There’s a lot to like off the bat, with
a distinctive visual style (let down only
by the ugly brown raider miniatures)
and an interesting premise: players
must scour the arid plains for rumours
of three escape points, fleeing pursuing
raiders and either working with or
against their fellow travellers.
Once the unintuitive rulebook and
multitude of symbols littering the
cards and tokens have been decoded,
things begin to lock into gear as the
underlying game engine starts to
rev into life, coming down to a very
straightforward set of turn actions:
move, explore and fight.
The landscape and its loot are
randomly generated each game
– players can only move once per
turn, and must try to balance the
importance of collecting equipment
and items with the need to exhaust
the stack of rumour cards and locate
an exit by the time six rounds are
up. This, sadly, is where frustration
and disappointment begin to creep
in, mainly as a result of the game’s
punishing difficulty.
091_saltlandsReview_v2 MJ.indd 91
SALTLANDS
Raiders – driving sports cars, trucks,
bulldozers and more – activate at the
end of each player’s turn, and perform
a random set of moves, moving and/
or attacking the closest player. Attacks
can only be fended off with armour
or healing items, or by sacrificing a
member of crew – one hit on your
undefended character and it’s lights
out. One more death (on normal
difficulty) and that player is eliminated
for good, which isn’t much fun if you’re
not far into a two-hour-ish match.
More frustrating is the fact that only
specific items provide defence, which
must be drawn at random by spending
your turn searching specific spots.
Even if you’re armed to the teeth with
machine guns and pistols, you’ll be
toast without an often one-use-only
shield – human or otherwise. Easy
difficulty removes the permadeath and
reduces the raider count, but it feels
like something that should’ve been
considered for the ‘standard’ game.
Similarly, the ‘classic’ game
mode revolves around the uneasy
alliance between players – multiple
players can team up and pool their
resources to escape together, or try
to go it alone. However, unlike in the
optional competitive mode (which
only sees one player able to win),
there’s no way to attack or rob your
fellow humans, so the potential for
betrayal is actually very limited.
It’s another intriguing concept that
91
sounds promising but ultimately
misses the mark on the tabletop.
That’s not to say all of Saltlands’
good ideas are wasted: the role of the
shifting wind direction and speed is
very tightly implemented, and plays
nicely into the starting landsails
used by players, which have their
maximum movement dictated by BOX CONTENTS
the weather. Upgrading to a powered ◗ 13 terrain tiles
◗ 36 plastic miniatures
motor by fighting raiders can have ◗ 107 item cards
its benefits (such as spending fuel ◗ Six raider info cards
to travel further), but there remains ◗ Six character cards
a nice trade-off between speed, ◗ Six character standees
◗ Six player mats
versatility and defence. ◗ 48 damage cards
Equally thematic and engaging are ◗ Nine rumour cards
the rumour markers hinting at the ◗ 10 weather cards
potential location of the exits, which shift ◗ 51 tokens
◗ Three rumour markers
between terrain tiles with each rumour ◗ Wind tile
card uncovered, forcing players to adapt ◗ Rulebook
their plans as the game draws on. ◗ Raider bag
Saltlands is disappointing
not because there is nothing to
recommend it, but because many of
its best ideas are buried by their poor
execution. There is a thrilling blend
of exploration, combat and social
deception under the dunes – you’ll just
need to dig deep to uncover it. ■
MATT JARVIS
CONCLUSION
Saltlands has the right look and the right
ideas – sadly, it just doesn’t have the
strength to pull off its ambitions in a way
that’s satisfying. Dropping the difficulty
level to avoid player elimination helps,
but too much holds the rest of the
gameplay back to fully enjoy your time.
IF YOU LIKE
WASTELAND
EXPRESS
DELIVERY
SERVICE…
TRY SALTLANDS
The grease- and
blood-splattered
spirit of Mad
Max thrums
loudly in these
post-apocalyptic
board games of
wasteland survival
and car carnage.
21/07/2017 15:47
 all scenery and battle mats are ready straight out of the box: pre-painted  and assembled
www.gamemat.eu

p092.indd 1 19/07/2017 11:43

 PLAYED
MAGIC: THE GATHERING:
ARCHENEMY: NICOL BOLAS
Can’t we be archfrenemies instead?
Wizards of the Coast | £59.99 | CCG | 2-4 players | 30+ minutes | Age: 13+ | magic.wizards.com
M
agic: The Gathering’s
Archenemy format is a
fantastic idea – why not allow
three players, each controlling their
own deck and planeswalker, to team
up and fight a single powerful villain,
with a unique set of event cards to really
shake things up from turn to turn?
Unfortunately, the original 2010
release was far from approachable
for those not already well versed
in the complexities of building a
custom Magic deck, offering four
separate decks of normal cards and
the oversized scheme cards for four
different superpowered baddies, but
requiring that players construct their
own 60-card setups for their heroes,
individually crafted to adjust for the
different setup.
This year’s follow-up fixes that
problem, focusing on a single big
bad: the titular god-pharaoh Nicol
Bolas. In place of the three other
villains, the complete box includes
093_magicArchenemyReview_v2 MJ.indd 93
BOX CONTENTS three pre-constructed decks for the
◗ 60-card Gideon opposing planeswalkers: Gideon
Jura deck
◗ 60-card Chandra
Jura, Chandra Nalaar and Nissa
Nalaar deck Revane. All of the normal cards have
◗ 60-card Nissa been seen before, although the four
Revane deck planeswalker cards feature fresh
◗ 60-card Nicol
Bolas deck
artwork and the scheme cards are
◗ Oversized 20-card all brand new. There’s also a handful
scheme deck of token cards, deck boxes and a life
◗ 10 double-sided counter to track Bolas’ increased 40
token cards
◗ Four deck boxes
hit points of health. All in all, then,
◗ Life tracker the box feels much more like a self-
◗ Rulesheet contained event – something you
could bring out and enjoy with non-
Magic fans after quickly explaining
the basics. No deckbuilding required.
You’ll be wanting to get as many
people involved as possible, too, as
Nicol Bolas is a hell of a foe to take on.
A new scheme card is revealed at the
start of the villain’s turns, setting in
IF YOU LIKE AEON’S END… TRY ARCHENEMY: NICOL BOLAS
Like the idea of working together to beat up a monster with cards, but want that big
bad to be your pal instead of a card-powered baddie? This set has you sorted.
93
motion instant and ongoing effects
that have the potential to quickly wipe
out his rivals. The effects are good fun
and make the battle feel distinct from a
standard Magic showdown, but they’re
clearly designed for a full house of four
players – playing with just two or three
noticeably throws off the balance,
especially as Bolas’ health and abilities
aren’t adjusted in any way to account
for the smaller group.
Two of the three planeswalkers
break with Magic tradition and offer
decks built solely around a single type
of mana and play style, rather than the
traditional two, making it key to work
together as a team to dish out damage
while fending off Bolas’ crippling
attacks – the boss gets three types of
mana to wield. In a major change from
the 2010 rules, players can now choose
to block an attack on their teammates
using their own creatures, which both
strengthens the feeling of co-operation
and helps to even the odds a little. It
makes each turn an exciting, cinematic
affair, as scheme cards are drawn,
blows traded and the planeswalkers
regroup before taking another run at
felling the mighty dragon, who must
consider his attacks more carefully
against the combined force.
It’s not quite easy or simple enough
to be a gentle introduction to Magic,
but the three-on-one format is a
thrilling way to experience the card-
battler with a larger group that feels
like a fantastic game in its own right.
The scheme cards give the intense
boss battle the epic, unique feeling it
deserves, while the focused makeup
of the planeswalker decks and rule
tweaks smartly encourage effective
teamwork – even if that means the
game suffers with fewer players. Still,
nothing’s stopping you just playing a
round of standard Magic if a cracking
two-player duel is what you’re after. ■
MATT JARVIS
CONCLUSION
It’s not too far removed from the card-
duelling foundations of Magic, yet Nicol
Bolas feels like a standalone event as
the scheme cards and planeswalkers’
flexibility to work as a team disrupt
the usual flow of a match. Just make
sure you take full advantage of the
opportunity to play with four people.
25/07/2017 09:30
 PLAYED
WEREWORDS
We’ve got 20 Questions for this snappy game of word deduction
Bezier | £19.99 | Social deduction | 4-10 players | 10 minutes | Age: 8+ | werewords.com
A
t some point in your life,
you’ve probably played a game
of 20 Questions, the quick
party game that involves figuring out
a hidden answer by asking simple yes/
no interrogations. Is it an animal? Does
it have wings? Is it smaller than a loaf
of bread? Does it live in the woods? Is
it furry? And so on. (I was thinking of
a badger, if you’re wondering.)
As it once did for another party
favourite, Werewolf, Ted Alspach has
now put his own lycanthropic spin
on 20 Questions with Werewords,
which sprinkles hidden roles into the
question-and-answer mix.
One player is the mayor, who
knows the hidden word and can
only answer questions with 'yes/
no', 'maybe' and ‘so close’ tokens.
Meanwhile, at least one werewolf
(which can be the mayor) also knows
the word, and is trying to mislead the
guessing players without giving away
their ulterior motives. There’s an extra
gang of different roles and talents
– the seer, beholder, doppelgänger
and minion all make a return from
One Night Ultimate Werewolf – that
094_werewordsReview_v2 MJ.indd 94
can added to the roster to help and
hinder the players and werewolves,
depending on how many people are
playing and your personal preference.
It’s a very simple setup made
easier by the free companion
BOX CONTENTS app that you’ll need to play. The
◗ 12 role cards mandatory app provides a choice
◗ 36 'yes/no' tokens
◗ 10 'maybe' tokens of words for the mayor, commands
◗ One 'so close' token players to open and close their
◗ One 'correct' token eyes at the right points, and can
◗ Rulebook also provide some atmospheric
background music as the four-
minute timer for each round ticks
away. It works well, and there’s a nice
amount of customisation for word
lists and game setups, although the
commentator’s performance is laid
on a little thick at times. It’s a shame
that it can’t be played without the
app, but the 10,000 built-in words
and ability to add custom lists of
answers far outweighs the negatives.
The word choices range between
easy and ‘ridiculous’, throwing up
IF YOU LIKE INSIDER… TRY WEREWORDS
Werewords expands Insider’s co-operative spin on 20 Questions with a large
number of optional player roles and an increased focus on deception.
94
everything from Bambi and April
O’Neil to a police car and knob. (We’ll
let you decide which type.)
Because the majority of the
game consists of asking questions,
deliberating over the werewolf is
somewhat sidelined until a 60-second
round of voting after the main round if
the group fails to get the answer right.
It makes the game a less intimidating
experience for newcomers to the
social deduction genre, but also
takes some of the excitement and
tension away from the more exciting
deception-and-debate elements that
more hardcore fans may expect. As
it takes only a few minutes to play
and can be explained in a couple
of sentences, it’s a good gateway
introduction for the genre, but it’s
unlikely to hold your attention for
as many plays as more intense and
complex games about lying such as
The Resistance or Deception.
As with Bezier’s past One Night
and Werewolf games, the art and
style is an acquired taste – the
cartoonish look doesn’t really do it
for me, but it’s innocuous enough
to ignore and enjoy the game. (Most
of the cards spend the whole time
facedown anyway.) Regardless, the
components are lovely: the role cards
and answer tokens are thick chunks
of cardboard that feel like they will
resist the giveaway scuffs and creases
that often ruin the cards of other
hidden-role games.
Werewords is a fast, friendly and
easy-going social deduction effort.
It doesn’t have the most riveting
hidden-role gameplay around, but
evolves the 20 Questions formula
enough to offer an interesting and
enjoyable few minutes. Just don’t
be surprised when you find yourself
moving on to something a little
more substantial. ■
MATT JARVIS
CONCLUSION
Dialling back the more confrontational
accusations and deceit of its Werewolf
siblings, Werewords is an even lighter
social deduction game that’s ideal
for players looking to fill a spare few
minutes, but not those looking for
something they’ll stick with for a long
time. Is it still a laugh? Absolutely.
25/07/2017 09:32
 ETHNOS
Conquer the land using fantasy creatures in this intriguing title
CMON | £39.99 | Set collection | 2-6 players | 45-60 minutes | Age: 14+ | cmon.com/product/ethnos

E
thnos makes a strong first
impression out of the box.
Artist John Howe’s detailed
artwork for the 12 factions vying for
control of a mythical kingdom helps
to alleviate the fantasy stereotypes
– elves, trolls, giants and orcs are
all present and correct – while the
brightly-coloured design of the
cards and circular control markers
hint at the lively battle to come.
In a particularly neat touch, there’s
a number of extra boards and tokens
that only come out to play when
certain races are included in the six
randomly selected for each match,
providing a nice level of variety
whether you’re trying to impress
the merfolk to progress up their
dedicated board or amassing the
largest army of giants to swipe the
points-scoring token off your rivals.
Ethnos’ core gameplay comes
down to a simple idea: bigger is
better. Players can draw cards from
a deck or choose from a selection
of face-up cards discarded by other
players each turn, building their
hand up until they can place down
a ‘band’ of cards that match either
species or location. Each band can be
used to place another control marker
on one of the six regions, which score
a random amount of points for the
dominating player during each of the
three phases, but must have more
cards than markers currently on that
location. (One of the best elements
is that skeletons can be summoned
to plump out any army to conquer
a region, but crumble back to dust
before points are scored for size.)
Taking over areas is in many ways
a distraction, as the most effective
way to rack up points is by laying
down the biggest armies possible,
which score increasing amounts of
points at the end of the round. Any
cards not included in the band must
be discarded and can then be picked
up by other players, making holding
out for another matching card
potentially risky as it could hand an
advantage to your rivals.
The leader of each tribe denotes
the location that must have a marker
added and activates a faction-
specific power. These powers make
for a different style of play each
game, with the centaurs’ opportunity
to play multiple bands in a single
turn and the elves’ ability to hold
onto cards without discarding
particularly changing the game
drastically, as they all but remove the
need to consider what you will lose
by holding out for an extra card or
playing a band from a bigger hand.
Even when playing with other races,
the face-up selection of cards quickly
vanishes and it often becomes a case of
drawing randomly from the deck until
you hit the ten-card hand limit and lay
the biggest force you can, selecting the
leader than makes the most sense from
the line-up you happen to have. There
is a level of strategy to the factions, BOX CONTENTS
and an interesting enough selection of ◗ Game board
different quirks (halflings cannot place ◗ 156 tribe cards
◗ 156 control markers
markers so are generally fodder for ◗ 18 glory tokens
huge armies; laying enough merfolk ◗ 12 setup cards
grants the placement of a free marker, ◗ Three dragon cards
undermining the need to outnumber ◗ Double-sided
merfolk board
hotly-contested areas) to avoid it ◗ Orc horde boards
becoming a game of simple luck, but ◗ Double-sided
it lacks the decisive tension of better giant token
games that use a similar card-drawing ◗ Six troll tokens
◗ Rulebook
format, such as Ticket to Ride.
Ethnos’ many interesting ideas
are let down by a forgettable theme
(despite the favourable presentation)
and a failure to fully wring the fun
and challenge from its use of unique
factions. Rather than showcasing
gameplay that feels fresh and
challenging with each combination
of creatures and the varied strategies
they allow, it descends into a back- IF YOU
and-forth of drawing cards and being LIKE TICKET
pleasantly surprised when luck is on TO RIDE…
TRY ETHNOS
your side. ■ Ethnos uses a
MATT JARVIS similar card-drawing
system to the train-
themed tabletop
favourite, layered
with very different
gameplay as players
fight for control of
the regions.

CONCLUSION
Ethnos buries its
unique concepts
and engaging
implementation of
different factions
under gameplay that
fails to present enough
interesting decisions
from turn to turn,
instead becoming
a game of drawing
cards and seeing how
your luck turns out. It’s
a shame, as there’s
smart and gripping
design underneath.

95

095_ethnosReview_v2 MJ.indd 95 21/07/2017 15:49

 PLAYED
DICE FORGE
Roll with the gods in this light and bright dice-crafter
Libellud | £34.99 | Dice crafting | 2-4 players | 45 minutes
Age: 10+ | en.libellud.com/games/dice-forge
A
t some point in their life after
rolling non-stop ones and
twos, everyone has wanted
to pick up an errant die and rip the
faces right off it, creating a perfect die
that delivers the ideal result without
having to contend with their stinking
luck. Dice Forge takes the inherent
satisfaction of seeing numbers get
bigger with the pure physical joy of
popping plastic pieces together and
apart (Lego fans, listen up), mixed
with a little bit of tense luck.
The crux of the game is rolling a
pair of customisable dice to gather
resources and victory points, which
can be traded for new dice faces and
ability cards, allowing you to earn
slightly more resources and points,
and so on.
It sounds repetitive but, in practice,
the joy of seeing a newly-purchased
face rake in bonus gold or the two
elements used to buy cards is so
immensely pleasing that the simple
dressing lets the core gameplay shine.
The ten rounds of the game whizz
by and never get bogged down by
complex calculations or having to
overthink how to achieve the best
probability on a die roll – it’s just a joy.
096_diceForgeReview_v2 MJ.indd 96
BOX CONTENTS After all players roll, each player’s
◗ Eight dice with turn essentially consists of a single
removable faces
◗ 108 die faces
action: buy a die face with gold
◗ Temple board or buy a card using sun or moon
and sleeve shards. Hot tip: an extra action can
◗ Islands board be purchased using two sun shards,
◗ 96 cards
◗ Four hero pawns
making it valuable to invest in those
◗ Four hero inventories dice faces early on.
◗ Rulebook The cards’ effects range from
the simple – extra points – to the
more involved, such as extending
the amount of resources that can
be stored on a player’s board,
unlocking bonus die faces or
offering a way to invest spare gold to
earn bonus points using a separate
tracker. Most take effect instantly,
but some can also provide ongoing
benefits – such as the chance to
re-roll and gather more income.
There are actually two different
sets of cards that can be mixed and
matched between games to shake
the options up, but even the default
cards are varied enough for plenty
of fun.
IF YOU LIKE RATTLEBONES… TRY DICE FORGE
Dice Forge takes the dice-crafting gameplay of Rattlebones and evolves it with a
resource-collecting twist, fetching style and the welcome variety of its ability cards
96
There’s a light amount of player
interaction in the limited number of
die faces and via some of the cards,
as well as in the process of buying a
card – if another player ‘ousts’ your
pawn from that space by buying
a similar card on their turn, you
earn an instant re-roll, making it
sometimes more beneficial to hold
off for a bit. This means playing with
three or four people makes the game
notably different – and is probably
the ideal way to go – but it works just
as great with two, too.
Although the game can be fiddly
to unpack and set up the first time
around, the box is cleverly packaged
to make subsequent setups very
quick indeed, and is even designed
to become part of the playing area by
serving as a 3D temple to tie in with
the Greek mythology theme. The
artwork looks great, popping with
bright colours and stylish cartoon
takes on iconic monsters including
Medusa, the Minotaur and Hydra
and, when slotted into the main
board, the cards extend the main
image and make the entire layout a
real sight to behold.
Dice Forge is light, bright and loads
of fun to play. It’s got a fantastic look
and simple rules, but offers enough
below the surface to make it more
than a one-note gimmick. You’ll
want to pop off dice faces long into
the night – and, this time, for all the
right reasons. ■
MATT JARVIS
CONCLUSION
The cartoon Greek mythology theme
is a winner thanks to its clever
execution and gels brilliantly with the
deeply satisfying dice customisation
that powers Dice Forge along. It’s
easy to learn, snappy to play and
simply a joy to experience.
21/07/2017 15:49

Try to blend in with this mixture of Spyfall and Codenames
Big Potato | £20 | Social deduction/party | 3-8 players | 15 minutes | Age: 14+ | bigpotato.co.uk/thechameleon
S
pyfall is a good game.
Codenames is a great game.
Put 'em together and what
have you got? Other than bibbidi-
bobbidi-boo, it’s The Chameleon,
the latest design from the author of
Coup, Rikki Tahta.
The Chameleon takes the social
deduction aspects of Spyfall – in that
one of your group is the eponymous
lizard and must try to blend in despite
not knowing a secret shared by the
rest of the group – with the one-word
efficiency of Codenames, as players
offer short clues hinting at a hidden
answer based on a number of topics,
from musical instruments and TV
shows to wedding anniversaries and
popular tattoos.
As in Spyfall, the idea is for the
player not in the know to bluff their
way through – but if they are revealed
by a vote at the end of the round,
there’s the chance for salvation
by correctly guessing the secret
phrase, so the other players must be
specific, but not too specific. It’s less
confrontational and more routine
than Spyfall, as players take it in turns
to provide hints rather than directing
questions at specific targets, but the
097_theChameleonReview_v2 MJ.indd 97
THE CHAMELEON
variety and eccentricity of the topics
is great enough to inspire just as many
amusing (and often useless) teases.
While its gameplay simply refines
two proven concepts, where The
Chameleon really excels is in its
delivery. Gone are the awkward
piles of location cards from Spyfall,
replaced by a central grid of answers
on each topic card and identical code
cards that are shuffled and handed out
alongside the Chameleon card. Two
dice are rolled, indicating which co-
ordinate on the visible grid the players
should use based on their code cards.
There are dozens of topic cards,
each with 16 unique phrases,
for plenty of replayability, plus
a wipeable blank topic card and
dry-wipe pen included out of the
box – so you can play with any set of
words you like. It’s a smart decision
that minimises setup time, as a new
topic card can be flipped over and
the code cards quickly redistributed
to play a fresh round in a matter of
seconds. Just make sure you don’t
immediately put your card on the
table while everyone else is searching
for the hidden word if you’re the
Chameleon – it's a dead giveaway.
97
BOX CONTENTS There are actually two sets of code
◗ Topic cards cards – blue and green – included
◗ Blue code cards
in the box, in order to shake up the
◗ Blue Chameleon card
◗ Green code cards potential results of the dice rolls.
◗ Green Chameleon card It’s an odd choice, given the results
◗ Yellow six-sided die are random regardless, but is also a
◗ Blue eight-sided die
missed opportunity, as it feels there is
◗ Blank topic card
◗ Dry-wipe pen a fun team mode variant just waiting
◗ Rulesheet for a set of rules – especially as there’s
an optional scoring system. As with
most party games, The Chameleon
works best with a bigger group (we’d
say ideally five or more) to make the
most of the voting and deception
mechanics. The rules advise providing
two guesses at the secret word for the
Chameleon once revealed when you
are playing with three people, but
we’d suggest going around the table
twice before voting.
The only real knock we’d put
against the game is that while the
IF YOU LIKE
SPYFALL… visual illusion used for the box
TRY THE artwork and card backs is clever, it
CHAMELEON can be a bit hard on the eyes once
The Chameleon
the novelty wears off. Still, the bold
tightens up
Spyfall’s messy colour-coding means it’s hardly a
mass of cards problem once things are in motion.
with its effective The Chameleon won’t replace
dice-dictated
Codenames in your collection, but it
answer grids.
may just replace Spyfall as a faster,
more flexible party game. Unveiling
your friend as a liar (or successfully
deceiving the entire group) remains
as gripping and hilarious as ever, and
the opportunity to introduce your
own weird and wacky answers into
the game using the inventive code
system means you can keep coming
back without burning out on the same
old clues. It’s a game that takes the
clever aspects of past games and adds
its own smart ideas for a great little
package. Will it change the world? No.
Is it a lot of fun to play? Hell yes. ■
MATT JARVIS
CONCLUSION
The Chameleon takes some of the best
elements of Spyfall and Codenames
and remixes them into an incredibly
fun and tight party hit. Using dice
to decide the secret phrase is an
ingenious move made even better
by the inclusion of a blank card for
unlimited replayability. Just make sure
your party has enough people!
21/07/2017 15:50
 伀昀昀椀挀椀愀氀 匀漀甀渀搀琀爀愀挀欀 昀漀爀 

∀䄀 洀甀猀椀挀愀氀 挀愀爀瀀攀琀 琀栀愀琀 眀漀爀欀猀 瀀攀爀昀攀挀琀氀礀
 眀椀琀栀 䔀瘀攀爀礀⸀ 匀椀渀最氀攀⸀ 䜀愀洀攀⸀ 䤀渀 琀栀攀 圀漀爀氀搀⸀⸀⸀
䤀琀✀猀 戀氀漀漀搀礀 愀眀攀猀漀洀攀℀∀ ⴀ 刀倀䜀⸀一攀琀

∀䤀✀瘀攀 戀攀攀渀 愀 匀礀爀椀渀猀挀愀瀀攀 昀愀渀 愀渀搀 猀甀戀猀挀爀椀戀攀爀 猀椀渀挀攀 
䤀 戀攀最愀渀 䜀䴀✀椀渀最 愀最愀椀渀⸀ 匀礀爀椀渀猀挀愀瀀攀 愀甀搀椀漀 愀搀搀猀 猀漀 
洀甀挀栀 琀漀 洀礀 最愀洀椀渀最 猀攀猀猀椀漀渀猀Ⰰ 愀渀搀 䤀 欀渀漀眀 洀礀 瀀氀愀礀攀爀猀 
氀漀瘀攀 琀栀攀 爀椀挀栀 愀甀爀愀氀 猀漀甀渀搀猀挀愀瀀攀猀 椀琀 挀爀攀愀琀攀猀⸀ 䄀琀 氀攀愀猀琀 
爀椀最栀琀 甀瀀 琀漀 琀栀攀 瀀漀椀渀琀 琀栀攀椀爀 挀栀愀爀愀挀琀攀爀猀 搀椀攀 栀漀爀爀椀戀氀礀⸀∀ 
              ⴀ 䨀漀栀渀 䬀漀瘀愀氀椀挀 ⠀䴀甀渀挀栀欀椀渀Ⰰ 䐀漀爀欀 吀漀眀攀爀⤀

匀礀爀椀渀猀挀愀瀀攀 椀猀 琀栀攀 愀眀愀爀搀ⴀ眀椀渀渀椀渀最 愀瀀瀀 琀栀愀琀 戀爀椀渀最猀 琀愀戀氀攀琀漀瀀 最愀洀攀猀
琀漀 氀椀昀攀 眀椀琀栀 椀洀洀攀爀猀椀瘀攀 猀漀甀渀搀 攀渀瘀椀爀漀渀洀攀渀琀猀Ⰰ 攀昀昀攀挀琀猀Ⰰ 洀甀猀椀挀 愀渀搀 洀漀爀攀⸀
唀渀氀漀挀欀 礀漀甀爀 昀爀攀攀 ㌀　ⴀ搀愀礀 琀爀椀愀氀 琀漀搀愀礀 愀琀 猀礀爀椀渀猀挀愀瀀攀⸀挀漀洀⼀昀爀攀攀琀爀椀愀氀

䔀倀䤀䌀 䜀䄀䴀䔀匀 一䔀䔀䐀 䔀倀䤀䌀 匀伀唀一䐀

p098.indd 1 19/07/2017 11:47

 PLAYED
A FEAST FOR ODIN
Gorge yourself on Uwe Rosenberg’s Viking epic
Z-Man | £99.99 | Worker placement | 1-4 players
30 mins per player | Age: 14+ | zmangames.com
A
Feast for Odin is billed as a saga
in the form of a board game,
a tabletop simulation of the
daily lives and now legendary exploits of
Vikings over three centuries condensed
down to a couple of hours and lots of
cardboard. The scale of Uwe Rosenberg’s
design is stunning, gravitating around
an enormous central action board
with over 60 different action spaces.
Each round, players move their
Vikings from their home boards to areas
on the main sheet, performing a huge
variety of tasks by spending different
numbers of tribesmen. Options range
from harvesting wood, stone, ore and
silver from the separate mountain strip
boards, constructing ships and buildings,
and purchasing livestock and food from
the market to hunting for meat, exploring
distant islands and, yes, raiding, pillaging
and plundering, as is the Viking way.
It’s not for those looking for a tight
set of decisions each turn – A Feast
for Odin’s core strength is the sheer
breadth of possibilities available,
which absolutely embody the feeling of
managing a clan of Vikings. One turn
you may find yourself breeding sheep to
collect valuable wool, another you might
be whaling for meat and bones. While
the routes to victory are diverse, the
099_aFeastForOdinReview_v2 MJ.indd 99
BOX CONTENTS
◗ Two goods boxes
◗ Orange eight-sided die
◗ Blue 12-sided die
◗ Action board
◗ Four home boards
◗ Ship supply board
◗ Four two-sided
exploration boards
◗ Special tile
supply board
◗ 15 special tiles
◗ Two extension tiles
◗ Round overview tile
◗ Three shed building tiles
◗ Three stone house
building tiles
◗ Five long house
building tiles
◗ Eight mountain strips
◗ 32 ship tiles
◗ 190 occupation cards
◗ 47 weapon cards
◗ 346 goods tiles
◗ 125 silver coins
◗ 32 wood tokens
◗ 24 stone tokens
◗ 40 ore cubes
◗ White round
tracking cube
◗ 48 Viking meeples
◗ Start player token
◗ Appendix
◗ Almanac
◗ Rulebook
gameplay is so impeccably crafted and
feels so natural that it’s just rewarding to
sink into the Norse world.
For those looking to claim glory,
there is the ultimate pursuit of victory
points. The majority of your player board
is taken up by a grid of squares, most
of which detract from your score if left
empty. As you acquire blue and green
tiles, you begin to cover over the squares.
Over time, this steadily increases your
income, as well as earning bonus
resources and goods from special spaces
once they are fully surrounded. The
pressure to organise tiles effectively can
lead to newer players freezing up – but
as they can be put down at any time, it
helps to avoid a player bottleneck.
No matter how impressive your
hoard, there’s an engrossing sense of
advancement over the lengthy playtime.
Pairs of animals breed, natural resources
deplete and refresh, and the number of
Vikings huddled around each player’s
village square grows, unlocking the
chance for more and greater actions.
There’s a lovely thematic hum to the
heavier, drier Euro mechanics: harvests
IF YOU LIKE AGRICOLA… TRY A FEAST FOR ODIN
A Feast for Odin takes aspects from across Rosenberg’s acclaimed
oeuvre and combines them to form a truly astounding creation.
99
occur periodically, offering certain crop
tiles during good periods, and nothing
during off-seasons. Vikings are hungry
folks, and have to be fed at a banquet (a
feast, one might say) during the close
of each round – any available food tiles
have to be rearranged in a separate
window on the board, but are subject
to rules that stop the Norsemen eating
nothing but peas and flax, or chowing
exclusively on red meat. (It’s not good
for the heart.) Coins can be used to pad
out holes in the meal, neatly reflecting
the balance between trade and self-
sustenance, while emigrating Vikings
to distant lands can bring down the
amount of food required.
While many of the mechanics
interlock and tick away with the precision
of a watch, there are a couple of luck-
dependent aspects that introduce a bit
of unpredictable tension. Hunting game,
whaling, raiding and pillaging require
rolling a die that dictates the cost of
hunting and the potential value of blue
goods tiles acquired from looting. Players
can roll up to three times, but choose
when to stop – adding an effective
push-your-luck decision when trying to
bring in the best treasure and resources
around. This also ties into the weapons
cards, one of which is added to a player’s
inventory each round and serves as the
price of hunting, laying snares or whaling
– or, in the case of swords, increasing
the die roll when pillaging and raiding.
There are a truly astonishing number
of things happening in A Feast for
Odin, yet it remains relatively simple to
understand. It achieves the rare feat of
feeling wholly authentic in its detailed
portrayal of Viking life; you feel the relief
of bringing in a tiny cardboard side of
beef during a hard season, and the thrill
of stepping onto a new island board with
bountiful grid squares to be filled. It’s a
rich, hugely rewarding experience that
needs to be felt, rather than just played. A
tiny horn of mead never tasted so sweet. ■
MATT JARVIS
CONCLUSION
A Feast for Odin is awe-inspiring in the
scale and detail of its Viking simulation.
The game's many parts come together
to offer an enthralling,
epic experience unlike
little else on the tabletop.
21/07/2017 15:51
 PLAYED
CHIMERE
A frantic magical monster-builder that doesn’t quite
add up to the sum of its beastly parts
Game Flow | £25 | Set collection | 2-5 players
20-30 minutes | Age: 8+ | game-flow.fr/chimere
E
ver wondered what you’d get
if you crossed a mammoth, a
cuttlefish and a Venus flytrap?
Or if you grafted the tail of a scorpion
and the head of a snail onto the body
of a shark? Well, in its own crazy,
colourful and messy way, Roméo
Hennion and Clément Leclercq’s
quick-play set-collecting game
Chimere has the answer.
Rather than taking the roles of
insane vivisectionists (that would
take the theme in an infinitely ickier
direction), each player in Chimere is
a wizard, tasked by ‘the good king’
with creating the best chimera to
become the kingdom’s mascot.
This sorcerous tournament takes
place over three years (or rounds), with
the wizards given four opportunities
per year to splice together random
animals. Each season has a randomly
selected pair of conditions to aim for
with your monstrous creation: one
primary, one secondary. The idea is
100_chimereReview_v2 MJ.indd 100
BOX CONTENTS
◗ Circular contest board
◗ 20 season boards
◗ 30 contest tiles
◗ 120 animal part tiles
◗ 15 Queen’s Award tiles
◗ 30-second sand timer
◗ Rulebook
■ Players compete
to create the best
animal hybrid – while
sabotaging their rivals.
to create chimeras with a skill set that
scores highest in both categories. So,
for example, if you got the primary
condition ‘giant’s’ for the winter
IF YOU LIKE
competition, you want the chimera MONSTER
on your winter season board to have MAKER…
the highest weight (represented by a TRY CHIMERE
This 2007
blue weight icon), earning four points.
monster-building
If you got the secondary condition title is similarly
‘melee’, you’d also want it to have aimed at the
the best score for its ‘protection’ skill younger age of
the age-spectrum,
(represented by a green shield icon),
though it’s far
earning two points. simpler and
The tricky thing is, your chimera involves card
isn’t valid unless it’s composed of drafting and trading.
three completely different creatures.
If you end up breaking that rule, you
have to flip over one of your offending
animal part tiles (split into tail, body
and head components) to reveal a
segment of humble sheep, which
is entirely skill-less. Even trickier is
the fact that the research phase – in
which each wizard snatches animal
parts from any player’s facedown
100
stacks of component tiles – happens
for everyone simultaneously. Oh,
and if that wasn’t tricky enough, each
competitor can also sabotage any
other player’s chimeras by dumping
down useless animal parts on any of
their opponents’ season boards.
Despite Chimere’s kiddie-friendly
look and tone, this phase is inherently
frantic and invites frustration, with a
high chance of the game’s numerous
tiles getting flung to the four corners
of the room (either accidentally or
through rage), and thus makes it
unadvisable for diddier players. At
least it's followed by the creation
phase, where you have a limited
time (determined by a sand timer) to
rearrange the beast bits on your own
quartet of season tiles and thereby
try to minimise any damage done by
your opponents.
During this phase, the player who
first completes their four chimera
becomes the people’s champion, and
selects a random ‘Queen’s Award’,
which offers bonus points for the
most ridiculous chimera, for example,
or the most graceful. This element
requires each player to argue the
case that one of their monsters best
matches that criteria, and then votes
are cast to decide the winner. But this
section of the game feels extraneous,
and only invites further discord
among players who may already
feel quite heated from all that tile-
grabbing and spoiler-play previously.
It’s certainly Chimere’s weakest
aspect, and eminently skippable.
So sadly, this is one of those games
that’s only half as fun to play as it
looks, especially as it’s so elegantly
designed, with bright, cartoonish
illustrations by prolific games
artist Biboun. There is plenty of
entertainment value in forming your
own monstrous creations, both in
terms of their bizarre look and freaky
names (our scorpion/shark/snail
combo came out as a ‘scaril’), but the
scrabbly, simultaneous-play mechanic
– which also, incidentally, requires a
lot of reset downtime between rounds
– only detracts from its appeal. ■
DAN JOLIN
CONCLUSION
Lovely design and a fun monster-
creation theme are let down by the
messy and potentially aggressive
simultaneous-play mechanism.
21/07/2017 15:51
 THIS WAR OF MINE: THE BOARD GAME
The brutality of conflict has rarely felt so real on the tabletop
Awaken Realms/Galakta | £65 | Simulation | 1-6 players | 45-120 minutes | Age: 18+ | thiswarofmineboardgame.com
W
ar is hell. It’s often easy to
forget the real, human cost
of conflict when flesh and
blood becomes plastic; death and
suffering a few sentences on a piece of
card. That’s not the case with This War
of Mine: The Board Game.
Based closely on the 2014 video
game, itself inspired by the real-life Siege
of Sarajevo that took place between
1992 and 1996 during the Bosnian War
and resulted in the death of more than
5,000 civilians, This War of Mine is a
sobering simulation of the day-to-day
struggle of everyday people caught up
in a conflict beyond their control. It’s a
far cry from the daring of lone heroes
fighting to end wars single-handedly
or the detached tactical coldness of
sweeping strategy titles, as players try
to scrape together the food and water
needed to simply survive another day
in the hope a ceasefire will take place.
The focus of the game is on the
table-spanning board, which depicts
the shelter in which your characters
are taking refuge. Each turn takes
place over a single day, as characters
clear rubble and search the shelter for
resources – eventually finding enough
to build a rudimentary bed or heater
101_thisWarOfMineReview_v2 MJ.indd 101
if they’re lucky – before heading out
under the cover of darkness to hunt
locations for extra supplies. Actions
are simple to execute, but the game’s
complexity arrives in its decision-
making – can you risk sending an extra
person to scout a nearby church for
the food to stop your people starving,
BOX CONTENTS or will it mean losing even more as
◗ 12 character miniatures raiders attack your poorly-defended
◗ Game board
◗ 10-sided die
home? Every choice feels meaningful
◗ Three six-sided dice and fully authentic, and you will soon
◗ 200+ tokens develop an attachment to your group
◗ 200+ cards as they suffer, finding brief reprieve in
◗ The Book of Scripts
◗ Journal
their individual love of luxuries such
◗ Two scenario sheets as books or coffee – when you’re not
burning the books for heat, that is.
What makes the world, its characters
and their personal stories carry extra
emotional weight is The Book of Scripts,
a tome of more than 1,000 narrative
passages that are read when certain
cards are revealed or events occur.
Many have branching choose-your-
own-adventure paths that present
■ The main board genuinely tough dilemmas. Do you
depicts the shelter mug an old woman for her food to
where characters stop your group starving? Do you risk
will try to survive
while hunting for
bartering with armed strangers? When
supplies and building your characters die – and they will, at
basic necessities. least in your first few games – there’s a
101
unique epilogue for each, providing a
sombre full stop to their miserable life.
It's written with skill and sensitivity,
uniting the various gameplay elements
to form an experience that offers some
of the most affecting gravitas and
realism of any board game in memory.
There’s still an interesting game
lurking beneath the narrative, but
it’s very much there to serve the
oppressive mood. When combat
occurs between characters and raiders
or strangers, it’s fast and brutal: a series
of dice rolls used to dish out wounds
based on whether combatants are
unarmed, wielding melee weapons
or lucky enough to have firearms and
ammo. Often the best option is to flee,
but that won’t stop you being gunned
down – and even surviving can take its
toll on the mental state of characters.
Those looking for balance won’t find it,
as fairness takes a back seat to tone and
atmosphere. Being suddenly picked off
by a hidden sniper is as shocking and
upsetting as you’d expect.
On this point: This War of Mine’s
box claims it supports a player count of
up to six, but you’d be doing yourself a
disservice to play in anything more than
a pair. Ideally, the game is a solo affair,
as adding more players doesn’t change
the rules at all and only dilutes the
intense sensation it excels at provoking.
Still, the overall quality remains so high
that it remains a great multiplayer game
– but it is truly outstanding alone. ■
MATT JARVIS
CONCLUSION
This War of Mine is not easy. It’s arguably
not even fun. Yet, its unique blend of
storytelling and realism creates an
intense and moving depiction of war that
absolutely everyone should experience.
Just try to do so on your own.
IF YOU LIKE DEAD OF WINTER…
TRY THIS WAR OF MINE
If overcoming a
zombie apocalypse
wasn’t quite
believable enough
for you, This War
of Mine offers an
intense dose of
real-life survival.
21/07/2017 15:52
 PLAYED
We head into the post-apocalypse to recover what we can from this mess
La Boite de Jeu | £42.99 | Worker placement | 2-4 players | 25 minutes (per player) | Age: 14+ | laboitedejeu.fr
I
f you end up having to fight for survival
in the post-apocalypse, at least join
forces with people with amusing
names. This is the main takeaway from
Outlive, a worker-placement game with
some interesting gameplay ideas that is
ultimately let down by significant flaws
and a deeply unsatisfying experience.
Things start out well, as players set
up their nuclear fallout shelter and
gang of survivors, led by a random
character. These leaders dictate each
player’s starting resources, equipment
and placement on the central board
and are of little consequence past
the first few turns. More importantly,
they boast some of the best names
around, with Swifty Bingham and Mary
Koolpepper among the potential picks.
Unfortunately, this is where things
start to head downhill. Specifically, as
soon as you open the rulebook, which
has been poorly translated from the
102_outliveReview_v2 MJ.indd 102
OUTLIVE
BOX CONTENTS original French. It is riddled with typos
◗ Main board
◗ Convoy board
and clunky phrasing throughout, making
◗ Four shelter boards it difficult to understand the basics of the
◗ 16 player meeples relatively straightforward game and hard
◗ Four radioactivity to engage with it on either a mechanical
tracer cubes
◗ 100 survivor tokens
or thematic level. The problem extends to
◗ 30 wood tokens the rest of the game, too, with widespread
◗ 30 metal tokens spelling errors – including on the back
◗ 30 meat tokens of every ‘equipments’ tile.
◗ 30 water tokens
◗ 30 canned
Once you battle your way through
goods tokens the rules and things get underway,
◗ 30 munitions Outlive picks itself up a little. The main
◗ 30 prey tokens tension centres around the board’s eight
◗ 12 event cards
◗ 10 leader cards
locations, which players will travel to
◗ 20 search tiles and explore using their four meeples,
◗ 40 equipment tiles collecting the items, water, food, ammo,
◗ 12 standard room tiles wood, metal and microchips needed to
◗ 38 advanced room tiles
◗ Seaweed token
survive the wasteland.
◗ First player token What makes this interesting is that
◗ Rulebook each meeple is emblazoned with a
number representing its individual
strength, from three to five. The number
reflects how many actions that piece
can perform on a location – searching
for equipment, collecting resources or
trading for water – but also defines its
ability to hold off rival players’ pieces.
Stronger pieces can apply pressure to
weaker explorers already in an area,
stealing a number of items from those
players unless they are driven off using
ammo. Strength can also be used to hunt
for prey, which gathers meat that can be
used to feed survivors for that turn only –
unlike canned food, which lasts.
The varying strengths and player
interaction make knowing not only
where but when to move your pieces
vital in order to gather the most resources
and avoid losing them to opponents.
102
This all plays into the second half of
the game, which involves managing
a bunker full of survivors at the end
of each round, feeding and watering
them so they can operate useful rooms
built using resources (which provide
bonus effects) and protect against the
increasing radiation outside – which
can also be reduced by finding and
eating seaweed, an apparent natural aid.
Event cards are drawn at the beginning
of each new round that set in motion
ongoing effects, but can be resolved
by spending resources, stopping the
effect and giving that player bonus
VP. Discovered equipment similarly
starts off broken and can be fixed,
providing extra benefits and points
after the game’s six rounds are up.
There’s a lot happening, and you
can see occasional flashes of clever
design in the messy execution – the
problem remains that it never becomes
all that interesting or engaging when
put together. The events rarely make
enough of a difference for turns to
seem distinct from each another, and
quickly begin to feel repetitive. One
of the issues is that the game board
is reset at the beginning of every
turn, with minor variations based on
certain event cards – perhaps keeping
resources as they are and forcing
players to clash over the limited supply
would’ve been more involving. Even
then, the lacklustre turn-to-turn
decisions and abysmal language issues
mean you should steer well clear. ■
CONCLUSION
Outlive buries its moments of innovation
and tension under tiresome gameplay
and an absolutely unacceptable level of
sloppy presentation. It’s not that there’s
nothing to enjoy or appreciate here, but
the amount of effort to uncover it isn’t
ultimately worthwhile.
IF YOU LIKE THE MANHATTAN
PROJECT… TRY OUTLIVE
Looking for a
new worker-
placement game
with the chance
to clash with your
friends? Here’s
another with a
nuclear glow.
21/07/2017 15:53

ESCAPE FROM 100 MILLION B.C.
Save Einstein from being eaten by dinosaurs in this rollicking adventure
IDW | £59.99 | Co-op | 1-6 players | 60-90 minutes | Age: 14+ | idwgames.com
Y
ou need only take a look at
the box art for Kevin Wilson’s
Escape from 100 Million B.C.
to know exactly what you’re in for. A
fabulously pulpy illustration showing
a muscly soldier pursued by dinosaurs
as a volcano throbs ominously in
the background and a jumbo jet
materialises out of a lightning storm, it
brings to mind old comics, choose-
your-own-adventure books and
Indiana Jones posters.
Escape nails this escapade tone,
dropping players into the middle of
a sprawling map as one of a number
of B-movie stereotypes, from the
intellectual paleontologist and money-
rich investor to the battle-ready soldier,
each with a set of unique skills and
stats. The adventurers must venture
out into the randomly-generated
land, flipping over hex tiles in a variety
of environments (water, swamp,
mountains, plains) in the search of the
parts needed to repair their broken
time machine – the number of parts
needed varies with the difficulty level –
before the central volcano explodes.
It’s not just Instagram photo
opportunities and sunbathing back
in 100m B.C. Tiles can reveal the
chance to acquire modern equipment
scattered by the crashing machine
103_escapeFrom100MillionBCReview_v2 MJ.indd 103
– from grenades and machine guns
to useless (but delicious) chocolate
bars, which must be recovered to
stop further timeline disruption – but
may also lead to encounters with the
local fauna, which will often attack
if disturbed. In a nice break from
the ‘if it bleeds, kill it’ mentality of
BOX CONTENTS many games, slaying animals messes
◗ Game board with the space-time continuum and
◗ Time machine sheet
brings the volcano closer to eruption,
◗ Six hero sheets
◗ 181 cards meaning running away or scaring
◗ 15 equipment creatures off by exploiting brawn or
crate cubes speed (and lucky dice rolls) is much
◗ 12 six-sided dice
more advantageous – albeit harder.
(11 white, one red)
◗ 203 cardboard tokens Those T-rex don’t frighten easily.
◗ 29 standees Complicating matters is the
◗ Rulebook occasional arrival of famous figures
from throughout history who have
been mixed into the time stew and
will wander around the land until
convinced to join you and returned
home, closing the rifts they tore open.
Leaving with Einstein, Nietzsche or JFK
stuck in the past can mean a game over
even once the time machine is fixed
– plus, they can end up eaten by the
roaming dinosaurs, which generally
isn’t a good thing – meaning it’s vital
IF YOU LIKE ELDRITCH HORROR… TRY ESCAPE FROM 100 MILLION B.C.
Escape features Eldritch Horror-like skill tests and exploration but is far less downbeat
and punishing than the Lovecraftian classic. That doesn't mean it's easy, though!
103
to save them as you romp around. The
celebs in peril are an amusing mix
of obvious icons and slightly more
obscure pop culture references (we
laughed out loud plenty of times),
and cement the goofy but satisfying
premise. After all, who hasn’t wanted
to fight Velociraptors alongside the
real-life inspiration for the Mona Lisa
and the Dude from The Big Lebowski?
Escape is incredibly easy to learn
and massive fun to play – but that
doesn’t mean it will hesitate to kick
your butt. The final trip home once
the machine is repaired is brutal,
pushing the paradox track as high
as it can based on any surviving
temporal castaways or out-of-time
items left in the deck (symbolising
the forgotten chocolate set to destroy
us all) – which often comes down to
little more than pure luck, but does
encourage full exploration of the
map before leaving to reduce the
chance of a last-minute game over.
Much of the players’ success hinges
on dice rolls, offset by the use of will
tokens for additional dice to avoid
things becoming too frustrating or
cruel, and the abundant items keep
things interesting and stop it becoming
a total rollfest. Capping off the jaunty
experience is a series of potential
narrative outcomes to your meddling
in the past based on your final paradox
score, which provides a charming
and comic conclusion to the hugely
enjoyable hour-and-a-half or so.
Escape from 100 Million B.C. doesn’t
boast the tightest set of mechanics to
ever grace the tabletop, but that’s not
what it’s going for. What it does aim
at – capturing the rollicking spirit of
adventure stories in a sub-two-hour
board game, being laugh-out-loud
funny and balancing tense luck with a
dash of involved strategy – it absolutely
accomplishes, and then some. Sit back
and strap in for a heck of a ride. ■
MATT JARVIS
CONCLUSION
As if being gloriously silly, charmingly
comical and easy to learn wasn’t
enough, Escape from 100 Million B.C.
lets you recruit Abe Lincoln and Teddy
Roosevelt to fight dinosaurs. What more
could you possibly want?
21/07/2017 15:54
 VISIT OUR WEBSITE TODAY

@mutantdicegames
tabletop
GAMING.CO.UK
FOR ALL THE LATEST NEWS, EVENTS,
SPECIAL OFFERS AND COMPETITIONS.

Board Games & Hobby Store

tabletopgaming.co.uk

p104.indd 1 20/07/2017 11:19

 PLAYED
PACK O GAME
Give these gum-sized games a
deserving place in your pocket
Perplext | $5.99 (each), $49.99 (set of 8) | 2+ players | 15+ mins | perplext.com
P
acked in boxes the size of
chewing gum and playing
in around 15 minutes, Chris
Handy’s collection of mini games
range from the card-dropping dexterity
of Fly and wordy collaboration of Shh
to the tense deduction of Spy and Lie’s
spin on traditional betting favourite
Liar’s Dice. All of the games feature
striking artwork and make use of the
compact format in ingenious and
innovative ways, with Spy, Shh and
dog-themed bone-collecting race Dig
our favourites. Here are our bite-sized
reviews of all 16 games in the series:
Hue: A colourful tile-layer where
players race to form the biggest
connected areas, with the dynamic
twist that the last card in your hand
determines your score.
TKO: Swaps rock-paper-scissors for
boxing gloves. Smart use of character
cards as variable health bars, but
otherwise a little repetitive – it’s
quicker to use your hands.
Gem: This sparkling game of
bidding is one of the longer micro
105_packOGameReview_v3 MJ.indd 105
■ All of the games games, as you aim to amass the best
are packed in the set of jewels and manage your money.
same chewing The single bid format works best with
gum-sized boxes.
more than two players.
Fly: A very simple dexterity game that
is ripe for cheap laughs as you clumsily
drop swatter cards onto a picnic mat
covered with flies. Harder than it seems!
Taj: Players swap the position of
vibrant rugs in the aim of scoring their
secret colours highest. The presence of
voting and the swapping mechanic can
fall flat with fewer than three players.
Lie: It’s Liar’s Dice, but the dice results
are printed on double-ended cards;
simple as that, but an efficient way of
bringing an outstanding game with you.
Shh: Unable to communicate,
players take it in turns to build words
letter-by-letter using their unique hand
and shared vowels. It’s tough, fun and
the gorgeous letter cards can be used
for plenty of other game modes.
IF YOU LIKE LOVE LETTER… TRY PACK O GAME
Looking for another pocket-sized game that plays in a snappy 15 minutes to join
Seiji Kanai's modern classic of deduction and elimination? Here are 16 of them!
105
Bus: Ideal for kids, this unassuming
but enjoyable entry involves delivering
passengers by moving your bus around
a grid of cards. An optional harder
mode adds a little more depth.
Orc: Factions of colourful orcs go
head-to-head to outnumber their
rivals and take control of territory.
Sharp artwork complements a snappy
two-player duel.
Gym: Draft the best kids in
school to compete at sports, before
positioning them for the best score.
The more complex mechanics dilute
the strong theme.
Rum: Gather sets of bottles to
impress pirate captains, stealing their
affection from rivals before time runs
out. The use of ‘rum trio’ combos
makes it a thrilling clash.
Dig: Charming through-and-
through, each player’s dog sniffs out
hidden bones and tries to waddle
back home with as many as possible,
slowing with each greedy mouthful. A
wonderful hand-management game
that suits the whole family.
Box: The weakest of the lot, this
interesting area control concept is let
down by awkward scoring and a polka-
dot visual design that’s hard on the eyes.
Spy: Best of the bunch is this sneaky
deduction game where players hunt for
safes and top secret plans while avoiding
cartoon bombs in their opponents’
hands. The variable movement and
reveal rules make it more than a random
guessathon, and it’s especially good
head-to-head with two players.
Sow: Inspired by mancala, this
horticultural effort is best with the full
four players as they attempt to grow
seeds into beautiful flowers to collect.
Boo: Ghosts turn each other white
(and black) in this cute directional
take on Reversi that uses a graveyard
gate background as a neat setup aid. ■
MATT JARVIS
CONCLUSION
There are a few weaker entries you
might only try once, yet all 16 of Pack O
Game’s instalments are produced with
such loving attention to detail that both
bundles of eight games are worth picking
up simply to experience the massive
variety of rapid-fire fun and tightly-formed
gameplay on offer. You’ll want to stick
them in your bag and take them with you.
21/07/2017 15:55
 PLAYED
Play. Word. Clue. Fun. Fast. Laugh. Laugh. Laugh.
Kosmos | £32.50 | Party | 3+ players | 45 minutes | Age: 12+ | thamesandkosmos.co.uk
A
t first, Word Slam looks like
an attempt to cash in on the
popularity of Codenames with
a mass-market spin on the one-word
clue-giving format. Quickly after you
begin to play, though, it becomes clear
that Word Slam is an excellent word-
based party game in its own right.
The idea is for one player on each
team to provide single-word clues
and guide their companions to an
answer. There’s only one solution
shared by both teams, determined by
rolling a die to randomly select one
of six answers – the difficulty can be
adjusted from beginner to the tough
expert-level cards. These can be simply
objects or actions – banana, babysitter
– or more complex concepts and pop
culture references, such as Pirates of
the Caribbean or the offside rule.
Whereas Codenames requires
measured consideration of which
single-word clue to give and adopts
a polite back-and-forth turn-taking
format, Word Slam is a chaotic rush:
both clue-givers have a Scrabble-like
holder that they can put as many of the
one-word hint cards on as they like to
try and communicate the answer before
their rivals. This results in a hilarious
rush to cram on vaguely relevant cards,
then trying to re-order, arrange and
swap them in an attempt to help your
increasingly confused teammates.
The hectic nature can make
digging through the 105 word cards
106_wordSlamReview_v2 MJ.indd 106
WORD SLAM
you have a bit of a messy task.
Luckily, clues are colour-coded into
nouns, verbs, adjectives and other
words, making it easier to locate that
vital missing link. Crucially, while
many simple terms are present, many
are absent, resulting in improvised
attempts to deconstruct each part
BOX CONTENTS of the solution. Just try not to laugh
◗ 200 answer cards when ‘toilet seat’ is translated as ‘sit
◗ 210 story word cards
◗ Four card holders wood yellow water container’.
◗ Die As you’d expect, there’s no
◗ Hourglass speaking, gesturing, acting or any
◗ Rulebook kind of extra hinting allowed from
the clue-givers, but they can point at
cards to signify added importance –
which results in plenty of animated
tapping of cards and comically silent
frustration as guessers rattle through
every slight variation of a word. If the
torture of hearing the same clueless
guesses again and again becomes too
much, an optional 90-second timer
can be used to speed things along and
stop any one round killing the fun.
Word Slam can play with almost
any number of people, as long as the
teams remain fair, but it’s especially
good, pure fun with a single clue-
giver and guesser on each side.
There’s also a three-player variant
that involves one player providing the
clues and two people rushing to solve
IF YOU LIKE CODENAMES… TRY WORD SLAM
If Codenames’ clever clue-giving just wasn’t quite quick enough for you, Word Slam
is a fast-paced race with an added dose of extra chaos that never stops being fun.
106
the riddle first, but it’s definitely best
as a head-to-head team game.
The only real knocks we’d put it
against it are very minor. The design
and artwork is pretty run-of-the-
mill compared to Codenames’ spy
dressing, but the generic look is
far surpassed by the outstanding
gameplay. The number of cards is
impressive – there are over 1,000
possible answers and more than 100
clues to combine – but can result in
cards ending up all over the place
during particularly heated rounds
and clue-givers having to re-sort piles
every now and then to keep things
roughly manageable.
Speaking of which, as the game
consists mainly of cards, it would’ve
been nice to condense it into a more
travel-friendly package rather than
sticking it in a rather sizeable standard
square game box – if only so that we
could take it with us to more places
and spend even more time playing. ■
MATT JARVIS
CONCLUSION
Downright hilarious, fast-paced and
near-instant to learn, Word Slam
is a fantastic time and the perfect
complement to thinkier word games
such as Codenames. We only wish the
box was smaller so we could enjoy its
brilliant gameplay in more places.
21/07/2017 15:55
 ARCADIA QUEST: INFERNO
It’s a fast and furious race through Hell in this colourful dungeon-crawler
CMON/Spaghetti Western | £99.99 | Dungeon crawling | 2-4 players | 60 minutes | Age: 14+ | cmon.com
D
ungeon-crawling can be a slog.
The excitement of venturing
into the darkness and going toe-
to-toe with the nasties lurking round
every corner can quickly become a
tiring exercise in endless dice rolls and
frustrating deaths at the hands of an
unlucky result or two. Arcadia Quest:
Inferno cuts through the doom and
gloom like a cartoon sword. Which
also happens to be on fire.
Players’ guilds of three heroes
venture down into the depths of the
underworld (read: Hell) to defeat the
Underlord (read: Satan). Only, the
problem is, they can’t stop squabbling
among themselves. As well as trying
to complete environmental objectives,
players can win each scenario by
killing their fellow heroes, which stops
them having to share the rewards. The
amusing competitive setup makes for
a fun drive to propel each scenario
along and stop the group spending too
much time simply clearing every last
corner of the environment.
Combat is simple and fast. Yes, it
involves rolling a lot of dice, but it’s
so easy to resolve that it’s over in a
matter of seconds. The same goes for
activating enemies, who generally only
attack when provoked (or if controlled
by an opposing player). Turns can
last seconds, rather than minutes,
which lends an air of chaotic energy to
everything, as players blast each other
in the race for an objective. With near-
instant respawns, death isn’t the be all
and end all, but too many demises will
earn you additional curse cards at the
end of a round, which apply potentially
negative effects for future missions – so
it’s worth being at least a little careful,
but it doesn’t impede the manic fun.
Curse cards are also earned by the
new damnation tokens, collected
when certain monsters attack or by
players choosing to boost their own
attacks or abilities at a cost. It’s an
interesting risk-reward mechanic,
that never feels overly punishing
but gives enough pause for thought
in later rounds as the tokens stack
up. Similarly, brimstone cards and
exploration tokens can be revealed
107_arcadiaQuestInfernoReview_v2 MJ.indd 107
BOX CONTENTS
◗ 12 hero figures
◗ Five angel figures
◗ 19 monster figures
◗ Eight attack dice
◗ Six defence dice
◗ Nine double-sided
game tiles
◗ Four guild dashboards
◗ 276 cards
◗ 300+ tokens
◗ 12 colour
plastic bases
◗ Campaign sheet
◗ Campaign book
◗ Rulebook
on certain squares, providing an edge tone, while the plastic models pop
over rivals with special events or items with cartoon-like features and
– or potentially backfiring. expression. It can be a bit of a pain
The campaign is very straightforward, to fit all the components back in the
with little narrative fat left untrimmed. box and a little bit of time to unpack
Players can opt to take one of a number and set back up, but it’s not a total
of paths through the game each time, deal-breaker.
with different missions becoming In short, Arcadia Quest: Inferno is a
available and off-limits depending wonderfully simple way to dungeon-
IF YOU LIKE on previous decisions. Actions and crawl with friends without taking up
DESCENT… achievements during each mission an entire evening – unless you want
TRY ARCADIA
QUEST: INFERNO play a smart role – most notably it to. The competitive aspects and
Arcadia Quest the angels, who can be rescued and more advanced gameplay are light
is a perfect controlled as part of a team, or left to enough to make scrapping with each
introduction to the turn into more powerful foes later in other entertaining while avoiding
world of dungeon-
crawling, without the story. It’s hardly revolutionary, but repetition, but there’s still plenty
making things too there’s enough of a feeling of variety going on to keep things engaging. ■
dark or heavy. and consequence to stop every mission MATT JARVIS
feeling the same – despite the map tiles
having little variation. As you’d expect, CONCLUSION
A perfect dungeon-crawler for those
players can upgrade their weapons in- looking for something lighter and
between scenarios using earned gold, faster to play, Arcadia Quest: Inferno
and a campaign sheet offers a painless is an entertaining ride through the
way to pause and resume each roughly underworld. The branching campaign
and good-or-evil angels mean it’s more
six-hour complete run-through. than just the same old thing time and
The artwork is colourful and time again, while the fast and furious
bright, matching the easy-going competitive gameplay remains a joy.
107
25/07/2017 09:35
 ROUND-UP AND ACCESSORIES
DOUGHNUT
DRIVE-THRU
Grail Games | £16.99 | Dice-rolling
2-4 players | 25 minutes | Age: 8+
grail-games.com/doughnut-drive-thru
J
oining Sushi Go in the
internet-primed ‘delicious
food with cute faces’ genre
is Doughnut Drive-Thru, a tiny
game about rolling dice to cook
smiling baked goods and deliver
them for consumption. Which is
actually kind of dark, when you
think about it.
Players use dinky wooden
doughnuts to perform up to
three actions a turn, rolling
dice to prepare and serve
a variety of confections by
achieving the required result.
Spending extra actions grants
bonuses to rolls, as does using
the ‘recognition’ of previously
baked goods. The first to five
served meals ends the game,
with recipes worth varying
amounts so others have the
chance to swipe the victory.
Despite the gameplay being
as light as pastry, there’s
enough happening in the
background to happily fill
15 minutes or so. Bad rolls
(dice, not bread) can prove as
exasperating as ever, but the
ability to bump up results using
extra doughnuts or recognition
108_reviewsRoundUp_v2 MJ.indd 108
BRUTAL KINGDOM
Kosmos | £13 | Social deception
3-4 players | 30 minutes | Age: 12+
thamesandkosmos.com
B
rutal Kingdom is a mess of ideas that fail to come together into a
cohesive, enjoyable experience.
In essence, creator Michael Rieneck is attempting
to evolve the compact design of Love Letter; there are only 20
anthropomorphised character cards, each with a rank and special
ability that takes effect when it’s placed in front of a player, from
swapping places with another card to assassinating a rival.
This social deception gameplay is crossed with the need to collect
tokens, which dictate the overall winner after four rounds and can
gain or lose value based on how many remain unclaimed by the end
of the game.
The combination results in an unfocused feeling, where neither the
social elements or the points-scoring mechanics properly meet in the
middle – it all feels very disconnected, struggling to engage during
either the moment-to-moment deduction and betrayal or the long-
term acquisition and shifting economy of points.
There is an interesting idea that involves passing cards – and
therefore sharing knowledge – with your neighbours at the start of a
round, which plays into the changing turn order of players each round,
yet it rarely feels crucial to obtaining victory.
The gameplay’s weaknesses are exacerbated by a poorly-written
rulebook and an unattractive art style, plus the extremely limited range
of group sizes supported: you can only play with three or four players.
Taking around 30 minutes to play, Brutal Kingdom lacks the pith
helps to counterbalance a lot and purity of Love Letter, but also can’t quite reach the engaging
of the luck and adds an extra complexity of more involved social deduction titles. There are
layer to the denser-than-you’d- admirable ideas present, but they can’t prop up what is ultimately a
expect mechanics. boring and thoroughly uninvolving game. ■
There’s the option for players MATT JARVIS
to choose a baker during setup
and use their unique talent for
added variety – we’d advise it,
as it helps keep things fresher
for longer, but we also felt that
Gerdt’s ability to draw and keep
extra recipe cards was far and
away the most beneficial skill.
Of course, the irresistible
theme does most of the work,
cashing in on both the adorable
imagery and twee naming to
great effect. It doesn’t quite have
the lasting charm of Sushi Go,
and some of the foods aren’t
nearly as amusing as others,
but it’s still hilarious to cook up
‘Cinnamoan’, ‘Coated Baby’ and
‘General Custard’.
Doughnut Drive-Thru is a
sweet treat: a little messy, and
you know you could be eating
something better with lasting
appeal, but that doesn’t stop
you licking every last bit of
sugar left on your lips. ■
MATT JARVIS
108
21/07/2017 15:57
 CENTURY: SPICE ROAD PLAYMAT
Plan B | $29.99 | planbgames.com

C
entury: Spice Road is a beautiful card game that’s mechanically
involving and fantastic fun to play, if as dry as cinnamon when it
comes to its simple gameplay basics.
This makes its accompanying playmat a divisive addition to the game,
offering a fittingly attractive garnish that helps to give an extra lick of
theme and atmosphere despite being arguably unnecessary.
Illustrated by artist Chris Quilliams, the playmat is a wonderfully
vibrant presence once rolled out across the tabletop, presenting a rich
purple background for the game’s two rows of cards, partnered with a
rich faux-wooden table, four circular spots on which to sit the four plastic
bowls of spice cubes – appropriately coloured with the dried seasoning of
choice – and some sticks of cinnamon, cardamom pods, saffron flowers
and turmeric pods that lend an air of luxury and mood to each match.
The Century series logo is subtly carved into the wooden table and
the spaces for the points cards that offer gold and silver coins, as well
as the leftmost trading card that can be acquired for free, are nicely
embellished to remind you of their extra gameplay rules. There’s extra
room for the remaining orange- and purple-backed stacks of cards. The
whole thing is framed with a tasteful border that adds a little bit of depth
and class to the durable rubber surface.
There’s no doubt it’s a well-produced, good-looking accessory. Yet, with
Spice Road being such a simple, straightforward and relatively quick game
to play in a travel-friendly box, is there any need to have to carry around a
separate rolled mat? Setup and gameplay are simple enough to make it more
of a hassle for most players unless you’re playing non-stop all evening at home
or need to protect your cards against a rougher surface while out and about.
But there’s no denying that if you’re committed to the game, it does help lend
that extra little spice of atmosphere to an already stellar experience. ■
MATT JARVIS

MK3 ADVANCED SERIES BRUSH SETS

Games & Gears | £27.99 (kolinsky), £23 (synthetic) | gamesandgears.co.uk

G
ames & Gears has
expanded its MK3 line of
paintbrushes with two
new sets, the third evolution of
the series: an assortment of size
0, 00 and 000 fine detail brushes
with bristles made of pure kolinsky
hair – a favourite of artists – and a
slightly thicker trio of size 1, 2 and 3
synthetic brushes for more general
painting use, as well as inks and
metallic paints, which will ruin
natural hair bristles. The brushes of
all six brushes are finely crafted and
keep their shape well during use.
Both sets come in a near-
identical form, with black and
green metal handles that handily
split in two, allowing the end brush
to be pulled off and stored inside
the hollow bodies, reducing risk of
damage and allowing moisture to
escape through a small air hole. It’s
a clever design, but the added size
makes the brushes a little clumsier
to handle, especially when painting
fine detail with the kolinsky set.
Despite the more complicated
design, they are mercifully light, with
a slight weight distribution towards
the brush end that we found to be
comfortably stable and reassuringly
solid rather than distracting.
Some of the push-fit sections
were noticeably tighter when
pushing together and pulling apart,
with at least one of the brushes
in each set feeling much looser
when constructed. It was hard
to tell during our time with the
brushes, but the inconsistent fitting
raised the concern of the brush
section accidentally sliding off after
prolonged and repeated use over
multiple months and years.
Each set of three brushes comes
in a leather brush case branded
with the Games & Gears logo, which
detracts a little from the otherwise
premium presentation, though the
protective design of the brushes
themselves would allow them to be
carried loosely in a bag or larger case.
Whether the size of the brushes
is too large for your personal
painting style will vary from person
to person, but the overall quality
and presentation earns these
brushes their premium status. ■
MATT JARVIS

109

109_AccessoriesReviews_v2 MJ.indd 109 21/07/2017 15:58

 PAINTING GUIDE:
WARHAMMER
40 ,000
DARK IMPERIUM
We celebrate the launch of the legendary sci-fi miniatures
game’s eighth edition by tackling the Space Marine and
Death Guard forces included in its latest starter box
Words and pictures by Andy Leighton

F
or this issue’s guide I’ve been working on
something from possibly gaming’s biggest
and best-known universe: Warhammer
40,000. The advent of a new edition has brought
on another great starter box, Dark Imperium.
It has been a few years since I’ve worked on
a Games Workshop kit, enough time, in fact,
to forget what I’ve been missing. After looking
through and constructing the miniatures from
the Dark Imperium box, there is no doubt in my
mind that Games Workshop makes the finest
plastic miniatures on the market.
Every miniature in this box is finely casted,
even with the tremendous amount of detail
involved, and sculpted with a unique character
to them, especially the Nurgle forces.
The more you examine the miniatures the more
interesting details you find. On the Poxwalkers,
for example, I discovered one had a pouch full of
maggots, with a trail crawling up his back. Or the
Malignant Plaguecaster, who features a plethora
of fly charms, cloth flowing from his backpack in
the shape of fly wings and even some tiny flies
within his cloud. These miniatures really tell a
story and feel like they have a history to them.
On the other side, the Primaris Marines
are a welcome addition to the Warhammer
40,000 lore. It’s not until you really
look at the old Space Marines that
you realise how much they needed
an update and these do not disappoint.
A head taller than the old Marines, they
feature an updated armour mark that
doesn’t look too bulky but definitely looks more
armoured. Most importantly, it looks and feels
like Space Marine armour.
The poses are one of the highlights, as usually
the miniatures in a box like this are restricted
to fairly two-dimensional poses. Thanks to
the genius who designed these sprues,
each model has a great, dynamic pose
and sense of movement. Putting some
of the miniatures together is not as
intuitive as you’d think, but there’s
a ‘click into place’ moment with some when
you realise the ingenuity of how they’ve been
designed to go together.
I’ve chosen to paint the Marines as
Imperial Fists, as it is one of the bolder and
trickier-to-paint schemes and I think it will
really show of the power of the new Primaris
models. For the Nurgle I decided on the
Apostles of Contagion to show something
different from the standard Death Guard forces.

WHAT PAINTS WILL YOU NEED?

Abaddon Black Spray Celestra Grey Flash Gitz Yellow Leadbelcher Runefang Steel Thousand Sons Blue
Agrax Earthshade Ceramite White Gehennas Gold Mechanicus Standard Grey Runelord Brass Trollslayer Orange
Averland Sunset Spray Dawnstone Genestealer Purple Mephiston Red Screaming Skull Ulthuan Grey
Abaddon Black Doombull Brown Guilliman Blue Moot Green Sotek Green Yriel Yellow
Auric Armour Gold Dorn Yellow Hormagaunt Purple Naggaroth Night Squig Orange Xereus Purple
Bloodletter Drakenhof Nightshade Jokearo Orange Nuln Oil Steel Legion Drab Waywatcher Green
Blue Horror Druchii Violet Karak Stone Pallid Wych Flesh Stegadon Scale Green Warpstone Green
Cadian Fleshtone Evil Suns Scarlet Khorne Red Rakarth Flesh Sycorax Bronze White Scar Spray
Caliban Green Fire Dragon Bright Kislev Flesh Rhinox Hide Temple Guard Blue

110

111_116_hobbyTips_v2 MJ.indd 110 25/07/2017 09:41

 IMPERIAL FISTS
1 Use some simple 1 Paint the armour 1 Apply a

COMPANY COLOURS & RED MARKINGS

SCENIC BASES

ARMOUR
cork, available with watered-down basecoat of
from most hobby Yriel Yellow in Khorne Red.
stores. I went with several layers from
3mm to build up the edge of the
the bases, but a armour plates to
different thickness about halfway onto
is just as good. each plate.
2 Tear sections 2 Use Flash Gitz 2 Apply a layer of
off and size them Yellow in much the Mephiston Red,
to the base. Use same way as the leaving only the
some superglue to last stage. This very recesses
affix them. time, go from the Khorne Red.
edge to only around
a quarter of the way
onto the plates.
3 Tear off further 3 Finally, add an 3 Apply an edge
sections and again edge highlight to highlight of Evil
tear to size, testing all the hard edges Suns Scarlet to all
them on the base of the armour with the hard edges.
to ensure they Dorn Yellow.
will fit.

4 Build up the 4 Finally, add a

base to the desired fine highlight of
design. The softness Fire Dragon Bright
of the cork makes to the corners.
1 Basecoat the
CHEST ORNAMENTATION

it very easy to cut or

tear away sections chest eagle and
you don't want, or other ornamentation
sculpt it together. with Khorne Red.
Apply a highlight of
5 Once ready, Karak Stone, leaving
superglue the only the recesses
miniature to the base. Khorne Red.
2 Add a highlight of
Pallid Wych Flesh
to the hard edges
of the eagles.

6 Apply some
sand to the base
to fill gaps or hide
the layers of cork.
Apply a mix of one 3 Add a light glaze
part PVA to eight of Bloodletter.
parts water in a
1 Paint all of the
METAL

heavy coat to seal.

metal areas with
a coat or two of
Leadbelcher, until
you have a strong
flat colour.

2 Apply a wash of
For these models I Edge highlighting Nuln Oil.
UNDERCOATING

HIGHLIGHTING

went in a different is adding a very

direction for fine line highlight
undercoating along a hard edge,
than I normally or to add definition
would. The Space to an area. Space
Marines were first Marine armour
undercoated with features a lot of
Abaddon Black hard edges to the 3 Once the
spray and, once this was dry, it was armour and, rather than finely painting wash is dry,
followed up with an undercoat of Averland the edge highlighting on, there is an apply a highlight
Sunset spray. The tone of the resulting easier method. After applying a light of Runefang
yellow can be altered depending on the amount of your chosen colour to your Steel, focusing
previous coat. Abaddon Black gives a brush, carefully draw the edge of the on hard edges.
shadier yellow, whereas White Scar will brush along the hard edge you are
give a much brighter yellow. looking to highlight.
▶

111

111_116_hobbyTips_v2 MJ.indd 111 21/07/2017 15:59

 HOBBY TIPS

1 Apply a 1 Basecoat 1 Plot out the

CLOAK

WHITE DETAILING
GOLD

basecoat of the cloak with area with lines

Gehennas Gold. Naggaroth Night. of Celestra Grey.
Adding a touch
of water will help,
but make sure you
only have a small
amount on the brush.
2 Apply a wash of 2 Add a layer of 2 Fill the guides
Druchii Violet. Xereus Purple, with Celestra
focusing on the Grey, applying
ridges and bottom several thin coats
edge of the cloak. until the colour is
flat and bold.

3 Add a highlight 3 Add a line 3 Add a highlight

to the top and hard highlight of of Ulthuan Grey,
edges with Auric Genesteaer Purple leaving only the
Armour Gold. along the ridges bottom-right
and bottom edge corner showing a
of the cloak. little Celestra Grey.

4 Apply a final 4 Add one part 4 Add a final

fine highlight to Blue Horror to one highlight of
corners and the part Genestealer Ceramite White to
very top tips with Purple, and add a the top-left corner
Runefang Steel. fine highlight to the of the squares.
bottom of the cloak
where it meets the
ridge highlights.

1 Apply a 1 Basecoat the

WEAPON CASINGS

1 Apply a light coat

POWER SWORD

LENSES

basecoat of weapon casing with of Bloodletter on

Stegadon Scale Abaddon Black. the helmet around
Green to the blade. the lenses. Paint
the whole of the
lenses with a coat
of Mephiston Red.

2 Add a small 2 Apply an 2 Add a highlight

touch of Water to edge highlight of Evil Suns Scarlet
Sotek Green, and of Mechanicus along the bottom and
paint a guide for Standard Grey front of each lens.
where the 'lightning' along all of the Add a fine highlight
will be painted. hard edges. of Fire Dragon Bright,
Avoid the lines focusing towards the
looking curved. front of the lenses.
3 Add a touch 3 Add a line 3 Make a mix
of water to some highlight of of one part Fire
Temple Guard Blue Dawnstone, Dragon Bright and
and add clear lines focusing on the one part Ceramite
within the guides. corners where the White and add a
Edge highlight the edges meet. dot to the front of
blade edge and the lenses.
central ridge.
4 Add a light 4 Add a dot of 4 Finally, add a
highlight of Celestra Grey to very small dot of
Ceramite White to the corners where Ceramite White to
the tip of the blade, the edges meet. the back corner of
as well as any each lens.
points where the
'lightning' meets
itself or an edge.

112

111_116_hobbyTips_v2 MJ.indd 112 21/07/2017 15:59

 1 Basecoat the 1 Apply a basecoat 1 Follow the guides
SKIN

HAIR

BANNER
skin using some of Rhinox Hide. for the red markings,
Cadian Fleshtone. gold, metal and
ornamentation.
Basecoat the
halo, stars and
white areas with
Celestra Grey.
2 Add a layer 2 Add lines of 2 Apply a Drakenhof
of Kislev Flesh, Mechanicus Nightshade wash to
leaving the Standard Grey the halo and stars.
recesses showing from the front, Add a Ulthuan Grey
Cadian Fleshtone. tapering to the layer and Ceramite
centre, of the hair. White highlight to
the halo, stars and
white areas.
3 Make a mix of 3 Apply a highlight 3 Apply a
two parts Kislev of Dawnstone basecoat of Karak
Flesh and one part around the edges Stone to the
Pallid Wych Flesh of the hair and scrolls and purity
and apply a line about halfway up seals. Add a layer
highlight to the the previous lines. of Screaming
ridges of the face. Skull, focusing on
the edges.
4 Apply a dot of 4 Add an edge
Pallid Wych Flesh highlight of Pallid
to the tops of the Wych Flesh to
previous highlights. the scrolls and
purity seals.

5 Apply a glaze of 5 Add a little water

Bloodletter around to some Rhinox
the eyes and nose, Hide and, with a
and a glaze of small amount on
Guilliman Blue to a fine brush, add
the recesses. small scribbles for
text on the Purity
Seals and Scrolls.
6 Finally, add an 1 Apply a 6 Basecoat the
PLASMA

edge highlight of basecoat of purity seals with

Pallid Wych Flesh Thousand Khorne Red.
to the ridges. Sons Blue. Apply a layer of
Mephiston Red,
leaving the recesses
Khorne Red.

2 Add a layer of 7 Make a mix of

Temple Guard one part Mephiston
Blue, leaving Red and one
the recesses in- part Screaming
between coils the Skull and apply
base colour. a highlight to the
tops of the purity
seals and red areas.
3 Apply a 8 Basecoat the
highlight of wreath with Caliban
Blue Horror to Green. Add a layer
the 'corner' of of Warpstone Glow,
the coils. leaving the recesses
Caliban Green.

4 Finally, add a dot 9 Add an edge

of Ceramite White
to the centre of the
previous highlights.
highlight of Moot
Green to the top
edges of each leaf.
Finish the banner by
applying the chapter
decal in the centre of
the wreath and halo.
▶

113

111_116_hobbyTips_v2 MJ.indd 113 21/07/2017 15:59

 HOBBY TIPS

1 Basecoat all of

NURGLE ARMOUR
the metal areas
with Doombull
Brown. Apply a
wash of Agrax
Earthshade, then
a lighter wash of
Druchii Violet.
2 Apply a layer of
Rakarth Flesh to
the armour. Line
this layer on, with
the lines going
from the recesses
to the edges of
the armour.
3 Apply a fine
highlight of Pallid
Wych Flesh, slightly
up the previous
lines and along the
edges and any pits
or grooves.

4 Dot Ceramite
White where the
edges meet the line
highlights, and on
the bottom of any
pits or grooves.

1 Apply a coat of
BRASS

Runelord Brass,
almost a heavy
drybrush. Don't
worry about any
of the Doombull
Brown base
showing through.
2 Apply a wash of
Agrax Earthshade
across all the brass
areas. Apply an
edge highlight
across all the
APOSTLES OF CONTAGION hard edges with
Sycorax Bronze.
3 Add a dot of
The Nurgle forces Runelord Steel to
UNDERCOATING

were given an any areas where

Abaddon Black the edges meet.
spray first, this
time followed by a
light coat of White
Scar spray. Spray
this final coat from
a 45-degree angle, 4 Make a mix of
only giving a couple of light sprays from one part Sotek
different angles. This coat gives a little Green to six parts
shading from the get-go, but really helps water and wash
the washing process these models will onto the corroded
go through later. areas, recesses or
gaps in the brass.

114

111_116_hobbyTips_v2 MJ.indd 114 21/07/2017 16:00

 1 Apply a heavy 1 Begin by 1 Basecoat all
RUSTY METAL

ICONS, NURGLINGS & SMOKE

HORNS
drybrush of Jokearo basecoating all of the horns with
Orange across the of the faces and Rhinox Hide.
metal areas. Nurglings with
Pallid Wych Flesh.

2 Add smaller 2 Apply a coat of 2 Apply a highlight

sections of Waywatcher Green, of Steel Legion
Trollslayer Orange Druchii Violet and Drab, lining down
randomly across Agrax Earthshade from the tip of the
the metal. to each of the faces horn and edge
and Nurglings. highlighting any
ridges or breaks.

3 Apply a drybrush 3 Add a line highlight 3 Add a highlight

of Leadbelcher of Pallid Wych flesh of Karak Stone,
across all the metal to each of the faces focusing on the
areas. Apply a wash and Nurglings. same areas as the
of Agrax Earthshade. last stage but leaving
some Steel Legion
Drab showing
towards the bottom.
4 Add a final 4 Basecoat 4 Dot Pallid Wych
highlight of the smoke with Flesh to the tip
Runefang Steel. Rakarth Flesh. and on any areas
Only apply to a where the ridges or
few areas of the breaks join.
chainmail and the
hard edges.

5 Apply a glaze of
Waywatcher Green,
focusing towards
the source of the
smoke and within
any recesses.

1 Apply a 6 Apply a highlight 1 Basecoat all

ORANGE

PURPLE CLOAK, GUTS & TENTACLES

basecoat of of Rakarth Flesh to of the areas with

Jokearo Orange. the topmost areas Hormagaunt Purple.
of the smoke.

2 Apply a wash of 7 Apply a line 2 Apply a wash of

Agrax Earthshade. highlight of Pallid Druchii Violet.
Wych Flesh to the
top edge of each
'section' of smoke.

3 Apply a line 8 Add a final 3 Once the wash

highlight of Averland line highlight of is dry add a layer
Sunset, focusing Ceramite White to of Genestealer
on the hard edges the centre of the Purple, leaving
and folds. last highlights. the recesses the
base colour.

4 Apply a final 4 Apply a line

fine highlight of highlight of one
Dorn Yellow to part Pallid Wych
the centre of the Flesh and one part
previous highlights. Hormagaunt Purple
to the hard edges.

115

111_116_hobbyTips_v2 MJ.indd 115 21/07/2017 16:00

 HOBBY TIPS

1 Over an Abaddon 1 Begin by 1 Basecoat with

GUN CASING

SKIN

CHAOS PLASMA
Black basecoat washing the skin Squig Orange.
add an edge with Druchii Violet.
highlight of three
parts Mechanicus
Standard Grey and
one part Sotek Green
to the gun casings.
2 Add two parts 2 Add glazes 2 Apply a layer
Dawnstone to of Bloodletter, of Trollslayer
the previous mix Guilliman Blue and Orange, leaving the
and apply an Waywatcher Green recesses between
edge highlight to to random areas of coils Squig Orange.
the corners and the skin.
top edges of the
gun casings.
3 Add two parts 3 Add a highlight 3 Apply a spot
Celestra Grey to of Rakarth Flesh highlight of Dorn
the mix and a dot to the ridges and Yellow along the
to the areas where raised areas. 'corner' of the coils.
the edges of the
gun casings meet.

4 Add a final fine

highlight of Pallid
Wych Flesh over the
previous layer, leaving
some of the Rakarth
Flesh showing.

1 Basecoat the

PAINTING THE BASES

bases using
Rhinox Hide.

1 Basecoat the 2 Apply a heavy

SWORD

WASHES & GLAZES

By replacing Druchii Violet and the

sword using glazes with other colours you can drybrush of
Caliban Green. create a wide variety of skin tones and Mechanicus
diseased flesh to better represent the Standard Grey.
many plagues and viruses carried by
the forces of Nurgle. Here are a few
examples and how they were achieved.

2 Add a highlight 1 Casandora 3 Apply a lighter

of Sotek Green, Yellow wash. drybrush of Steel
focusing on the Legion Drab.
ridges of the sword. 2 Guilliman Blue
and Waywatcher
Green glazes.

3 Add an edge 1 Biel-Tan 4 Apply a light

highlight of Temple Green wash. drybrush of
Guard Blue along Screaming Skull.
the ridges. 2 Guilliman and
Bloodletter glazes.

4 Finally, add a 1 Reikland 5 Add a few areas

spot highlight of Fleshshade wash. of static grass
Blue Horror to the with PVA glue
areas where the 2 Lamenters and paint the rim
ridges meet. Yellow, Waywatcher of the base with
Green and Guilliman Abaddon Black.
Blue glazes.

116

111_116_hobbyTips_v2 MJ.indd 116 25/07/2017 09:46

 • Accessories
• Board Games
• Card Games & CCGs
• Roleplaying Games
• Miniature Wargames
• Gaming Room
• D&D Organised Play • WPN Advanced+ Store
• FFG Organised Play • Friday Night Magic

8 High Street, Swansea, SA1 1LE

Tel: 01792 930328
enquiries@thegamersemporium.co.uk
www.thegamersemporium.co.uk
facebook.com/thegamersemporium

Is there
anything we need for
gaming that they don’t
have here? ...pizza?

Board Games, Card Games, Role Playing,

Board Games, Card Games, Role Playing, War Games, In-Store Gaming and Events
War Games,
100 Ballards In-store
Lane, Finchley, Gaming
London, N3 2DN and
| Tel: 020 8346 2327 Events
| www.leisuregames.com

Come and visit our Bricks & Mortar shop

in North London and be amazed at the
range of games we carry in stock!
100 Ballards Lane, Finchley, London N3 2DN
Tel: 020 8346 2327 Email: shop@leisuregames.com

www.leisuregames.com

p117.indd 1 19/07/2017 12:27

 THE DUNGEON MASTER'S GUIDE TO... PAR

BUILDING AN FOURT

RPG CAMPAIGN
Our ongoing column focuses specifically on providing tips, guidance and advice to dungeon
masters as they create their own worlds to run campaigns in. Some of the advice will be specific
to the latest fifth edition of Dungeons & Dragons, but the majority of the concepts are applicable
to any setting, game or ruleset that you prefer. This is the fourth entry in the series and focuses on
both creating dungeons from scratch and balancing them for your party’s size and skill level
Words by David Jagneaux

W
elcome to the fourth entry of
The Dungeon Master’s Guide to
Building an RPG Campaign!
In the previous third instalment of this
column it was all about taking your story
to the next level. We took the ideas from
the back of your mind into a world ready to
be explored by adventurers with real and
specific tips about telling a good story for
players. Together, the first three entries of this
column laid a lot of groundwork. Now, as the
great DM that you are, we need to give your
players something to do inside that world
you’ve made. Somewhere to go, somewhere
to explore… It’s time to finally talk about the
first ‘D’ of D&D: dungeons!
How many times have you found
yourself with the plot getting derailed and
being unsure of where to take the players
next? How often do you realise a quick
dungeon would be a great way to break up
the monotony, but didn’t come prepared?
Or maybe you just want to do a quick one-
off story if you don’t have time for a full
session and are eager to make your own
dungeon from scratch. Then keep reading!
For the sake of this column we’re going to
assume that you build dungeons by drawing
them out using a square-inch grid. We’re
going to have a traditional high-fantasy evil
lair that’s littered with enemies, random bits of
treasure and some booby traps in mind.

118

118_119_dungeonMastersGuide_v2 MJ.indd 118 21/07/2017 16:01

 BLANK SLATE
There are lots of reasons why you might
need to make a dungeon from scratch. If this
is your own 100% original campaign then
you might be building every dungeon from
scratch and if it’s just a one-off adventure
then you have a lot of flexibility. I’ve even
found myself literally making a dungeon up
as I go while the party is exploring it, which
can be a really exciting exercise.
Just like anything when it comes to
being a dungeon master, the importance
of pre-planning cannot be overstated.
Before you ever start actually building a
dungeon you’ve got to establish things like
the theme, size and purpose of it all. Is this
an evil lair where the big baddie hides out
between their excursions of rampaging the
countryside, or is this merely a cave created
thousands of years ago that goblins now call
home for lack of a better alternative? These
are important questions.
Think about how your players are going
to approach this dungeon, as well. Do they
know exactly where it is, or do they stumble
across it? Are you prepared for them to try to
enter it from any conceivable direction that
isn’t the front door? One of the unspoken
rules of D&D for most players is to always
think outside the box – sometimes that
results in climbing on top of buildings and
trying to sneak through windows.
PUTTING PEN TO PAPER
Now that you have a pretty clear idea of the
type of dungeon you want to make we can
actually make it. There are two ways we
recommend building a dungeon from scratch
on your own without any other resources.
The first way is to start by actually drawing
■ Try to create believable areas
that people could actually live in.
118_119_dungeonMastersGuide_v2 MJ.indd 119
out the entire layout and getting it exactly
how you want it, adding in the details after.
The other way is by building it as you go and
as your players explore one room at a time.
The latter option can get really complicated,
so we’ll focus on the former first.
Try to imagine your dungeon as an actual
layout of the thing it’s supposed to be. Don’t
give it more rooms than seems plausible
and make the rooms large enough and
full of standard items and objects. Would
a dungeon just have tons of rooms full of
enemies and treasure and that’s it? Probably
not. Think about adding in a barracks for
henchmen to sleep in, a cafeteria-type room
with a big table and food, training rooms if
the group is known for their fighting, and so
on. How would the leader or occupant of the
area design it to fit their needs?
119
■ Don't be afraid to adjust things
on the fly to suit your group.
Images: Wizards of the Coast.
But if you are just building it on the fly
as you go, like a random cave that doesn’t
serve a real purpose, feel free to add some
twists and turns. Write out a d20 table to roll
on that’s full of possibilities for rooms. For
example, if players open a door and walk in,
roll a d20 on your table and pick something
that happens. Maybe they hear a sound or
see a glimmer of light, or they could even
hear a voice say a riddle quickly or trigger a
trap. Keep them guessing by adding in small
flourishes like that.
BALANCING IT ALL OUT
The best-laid plans often go awry so, no
matter how perfectly you think you’ve built
and balanced your dungeon, there’s a good
chance that things are going to need to
change on the fly. If combat encounters are
too hard then let players kill enemies earlier
than they should. If they’re making quick
work of groups throw in an extra minion or
two. Typically, adding more varied enemies
and environmental advantages makes the
fight better than if you were to just boost
monster hit points.
Coming into a D&D session with a plan is
smart and advisable, but the most important
thing is knowing when it’s time to change
plans and pivot. Making a good dungeon
from scratch or adjusting an existing one is all
about adapting to the unknown. ■
Check back in October's issue for a new entry
in The Dungeon Master’s Guide to Building an
RPG Campaign. In that column we will focus
on giving you specific puzzles, riddles, battles
and other creative setups to pick and choose
for any existing or future campaign. It will be
like a grab bag of DM ideas!
21/07/2017 16:01
p120.indd 1 20/07/2017 09:53

RAIDERS OF THE GAME CUPBOARD
Paul Roberts recalls how the Burton-
on-Trent gathering went from a chat
in a pub to four conventions a year
Interview by Matt Jarvis
When did Raiders start and how has it evolved?
Raiders of the Game Cupboard started after a
conversation with a group of friends in a local pub 2007.
We were trying to find more time to play games but life
was getting in the way. Fortunately or unfortunately,
a couple of people remained sober and remembered
the conversation, meaning we actually had to organise
something. We found a local church hall and booked
our first event which we ran that Christmas – the heating
was broken so everyone was taking it in turns to huddle
around the cooker in the kitchen. Despite that, the day
went really well and the event has had a steady growth
since then.
We are not a show, as such, but rather a community
of gamers who just need the space and time to play
games; we regularly have between 50 and 80 people
attend as the word has spread over the years.
The format has pretty much remained the same since
inception: we rent a hall and layout tables for people to
come along to play games. Occasionally people have
come along who want to playtest a game, so we try and
drum up interest beforehand.
What makes the convention unique?
There is no ‘hook’ as such, nor any drive to be
something unique; we just saw a need for a more
regular, cheaper event locally to enable people to play
games more often.
Raiders is more informal and relaxed than the more
corporate events, making it more accessible to people
who are new to gaming. We have been able to keep our
prices down over the years, meaning our event is more
affordable for those on a limited budget. The event does
have a family feel and attracts a lot of families.
You run multiple Raiders days a year, rather than
a single annual event. Why is this the case?
121_clubSpotlight_v2 MJ.indd 121
We thought long and hard about how regularly we
should hold them. Once-a-month was suggested, but
it was decided in the end to go quarterly as we did
not know at the beginning if it would take off. I think
monthly would be too often – people look forward to it
now, so quarterly works well. We also do that to avoid
the dates that other events are on so we can go too.
What are some of the most popular games?
Originally two of the organisers used to run regular
morning/afternoon sessions of Arkham Horror at the
event, this continued for quite a while. In the end,
though, as this can be a three- to four-plus-hour game,
we thought it was taking up too much of our time which
could be better spent helping or running smaller shorter
games. Some of the old games are regulars such as
Settlers of Catan, Power Grid, Glass Road – everything
and anything really. Scythe is a popular one lately, too.
Other than gaming, what is there to do?
The event is predominately board gaming but we do
get occasional roleplaying, as well as some miniature
gaming such as Wings of War which is popular. As we
provide free tea and coffee, as well as some snacks,
there is a bit of a social aspect to the event as people
congregate in the kitchen during the day to partake of
the refreshments.
What is the local tabletop community like?
Our gaming community is very good and growing. This
is owing to the efforts of our friendly local games store –
they work tirelessly to encourage gamers to get together
regularly. Burton-on-Trent has a long history of gaming,
starting in the ‘60s with a wargaming group that ran until
the mid-‘90s.
What can you tell us about your plans for 2018?
Other than planning and booking the dates, which have
already been booked for 2018, there are no direct plans.
The committee usually meets before and after each
event to go through our checklists, assign tasks and so
on. We have new people almost every event so I hope
we can continue to meet our friends and provide a good
day’s gaming for anyone. ■
121
EVENT REPORT
UPCOMING EVENTS
GEN CON
THURS AUGUST 17TH TO SUN 20TH
One of the two biggest tabletop shows
in the world (the other being Essen),
Gen Con takes place every year in
the US and sees the release and
announcement of countless games.
This year marks its 50th anniversary,
so you can expect plenty of exciting
news coming out of the show floor.
gencon.com
SHACON
SAT AUGUST 12TH TO SUN 13TH
The UK’s most prominent meetup
dedicated to the ENnie award-winning
Savage Worlds series of roleplaying
games, ShaCon will take place in
Sheffield’s Garrison Hotel.
shacon.org.uk
SHADOWCON XI
SAT AUGUST 26TH TO SUN 27TH
Run by West London club Shadow
Warriors, this Bank Holiday gathering
will include games of Pathfinder,
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Call of
Cthulhu, D&D and more.
shadowwarriors.co.uk/shadowcon-11
FIGHTING FANTASY FEST
SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 2ND
Marking 35 years of the iconic game
book series created by Ian Livingstone
and Steve Jackson, the second FFF
will be attended by both co-creators
and feature talks, gaming sessions,
comics, signings, a Fighting Fantasy
exhibition and a trading hall.
fightingfantasy.com/
fighting-fantasy-fest-2
REUNICON
SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 2ND
Held down in Brighton at the Dice
Saloon, ReuniCon is primarily focused
on roleplaying games. The event has
been running for more than 30 years.
reunicon.uk
CONCRETE COW
SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 16TH
Hosted by the Milton Keynes RPG
Club each year, Concrete Cow is all
about RPGs. This year’s event is in
The Old Bath House in Wolverton.
mk-rpg.org.uk/concrete_cow
DRAGONDAZE
SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 30TH
Why not do some good while having
fun by visiting Dragondaze, a Welsh
convention that raises money for
charity? This year’s proceeds will go to
Barnardo’s, a charity that helps young
carers, and Sparkle, which funds a
local children’s hospital and lends its
support to disabled children.
dragondaze.com
TRINGCON XXXV
SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 30TH
Held twice a year, TringCon takes place
in the eponymous town just north
of London and is run by one of the
organisers behind UK Games Expo.
fwtwr.com/tringcon
25/07/2017 09:54
CLUB DIRECTORY
ABERDEENSHIRE WYCOMBE WARBAND CO DURHAM GAME NIGHT @ CARPE
ABERDEEN National Film & Television School, DARLINGTON’S DOGS OF WAR 50, Carpe Diem, North Hill,
WARGAMES CLUB Station Road, Beaconsfield, The Voodoo Cafe and Bar, Skinnergate, Plymouth, Devon, PL4 8EU
RGU Rugby Club, 86 Queens Buckinghamshire, HP9 1LG Darlington, Co Durham, DL3 7LX Monday 6pm to 1am
Road, Aberdeen, AB15 4YQ Thursday 7pm Saturday 11am to 4pm
Tuesday 7pm Wednesday 5pm to 10pm PLYMOUTH ASSOCIATION
CAMBRIDGESHIRE OF WARGAMERS
OLDMELDRUM 2D6 LODGE DURHAM RAIDERS 324, Blindmans Wood Scout
WARGAMES GROUP Queen Ediths Way, Cambridge, 5, Croxdale Community Centre, Centre, Outland Road,
Royal British Legion, Market Cambridgeshire, CB1 8NN Rogerson Terrace, Croxdale, Plymouth, Devon, PL3 5TB
Square, Oldmeldrum, AB51 0AA Friday 7pm to 10pm (summer) Croxdale, Co Durham, DH6 5HJ Sunday 12pm to 5pm
Tuesday 7pm to 11pm 5pm to 10pm (winter) Tuesday 6pm to 10pm
One Sunday in each month Last Sunday of the month 5pm to 9pm DORSET
10am to around 4pm NEWMARKET KNIGHTS SOUTHBOURNE TABLETOP
GAMES CLUB DURHAM WARGAMES & BOARDGAMERS
AVON 2nd Soham Scout & Guide Vane Tempest Hall,, Gilesgate, Tuckton Social Club, Tuckton Road,
WESTON WARGAMERS CLUB Centre, Gardeners Lane, Ely, Durham DH1 1QG Bournemouth, Dorset, BH6 3AA
Unit 9UA, Elizabeth House 30-32, Cambridge, CB7 5HS Wednesday 7pm to late First Sunday of the month 10am to 5pm
Boulevard, Weston-super-Mare, Alternate Saturdays Thursday 7pm to late Third Sunday of the month 1pm to 5pm
Avon, BS23 1NF 6.30pm to 10.30pm First Sunday of the month
Monday, Tuesday and Friday 10am to early evening WESSEX WYVERNS
PETERBOROUGH WARGAMES CLUB
AYRSHIRE WARGAMES CLUB GAMERS@HART The Bridgehouse, 2 Ringwood Road,
NORTH AYRSHIRE 38a, Cowgate, Peterborough, 102, Tea@Hart, York Road, Ferndown, Dorset, BH22 9AN
WARGAMES CLUB Cambridgeshire, PE1 1NA Hartlepool, Co Durham, TS26 9DE Monday 7pm to 11pm
19 Volunteer Rooms, High Street, Monday 7pm to 11pm Friday and Saturday 6pm to 11pm
Irvine, Ayrshire, Scotland, KA12 0BA Sunday 4pm to 10pm WORLDS AWAY
Sunday 11am to 5pm CARMARTHENSHIRE 22, The Triangle, Bournemouth,
CARMARTHEN CO LONDONDERRY Dorset, BH2 5RQ
BEDFORDSHIRE OLD GUARD THE SIEGE BUNKER Saturday 12pm to 4pm
BASEMENT GAMING CLUB 9, The Carmarthen Businessman’s The Bunker Cafe, Northland
Ahh Geek Out, Unit 1-4, Club, Lammas Street, Road, Londonderry, Co DUMFRIESSHIRE
182 Camford Way, Carmarthen, Dyfed, SA31 3AD Londonderry, BT48 7JL ANNAN GAMING CLUB
LU3 3AN Wednesday 6pm Most weekends 11am to 6pm Ednam Street Community Hub,
Friday 7pm to 11pm Ednam Street, Annan,
TOWY VALLEY CO TYRONE Dumfriesshire, DG12 6EF
BOARD GAMES IN BEDFORD TYRANTS (TVT) OMAGH WARGAMES CLUB Wednesday 6pm to 10pm
8, Lacock Abbey, Bedford, Abergwilli Church Hall, Ismyrddin, Omagh Library Headquarters Building,
Bedfordshire, MK41 0TU Abergwilli, Carmarthen, Spillars Place, Omagh, County DUNBARTONSHIRE
Thursday 8pm Carmarthenshire, SA31 2JE Tyrone, Northern Ireland, BT78 1HL DUMBARTON
First Saturday of odd-numbered months First Saturday of the month WARGAMES CLUB
BEDFORD BOARD GAMING 9am to 9pm 9.30am to 4pm 18, Church Street, Dumbarton,
Tavistock Community Centre, Dunbartonshire, Scotland, G82 1QQ
Princes Street, Bedford, CHESHIRE CORNWALL Sunday
Bedfordshire, MK40 2SX ALTRINCHAM THE DICE AND DAGGER
Wednesday and alternate Fridays WARGAMING CLUB GAMING CLUB THE FIVE ARCHES
St George`s Parish Hall, Off Stratton Community Hall, Union Hill, GAMING CLUB
LEIGHTON BUZZARD Albert Place, Altrincham, Stratton, Bude, Cornwall, EX23 9BL 345, Annan Road, Dumfries,
GAMING CLUB Cheshire, WA14 4PG Sunday 5.30pm to 10pm Dumfriesshire DG1 3JR
North Street, Leighton Buzzard, Thursday 7pm to 11pm Wednesday 6.30pm to 10.30pm
Bedfordshire, LU7 1ES DERBYSHIRE
Wednesday 7pm to late CHESHIRE GAMERS DERBY ON BOARD GAMES EAST SUSSEX
Alberts Corner, Prince Albert 21, The Bookcafe, Cornmarket, 1066 WARGAMING CLUB
BERKSHIRE Street, Crewe, Cheshire, CW1 2DF Derby, Derbyshire, DE1 1QH 130, Bexhill Road, St Leonards-
NEWBURY & READING Tuesday 7pm Last Wednesday of the month on-Sea, East Sussex, TN38 8BL
WARGAMES ASSOCIATION 4pm to 10pm Thursday 7pm to 11pm
Fir Tree Primary School, Fir Tree Lane, CONGLETON AND
Newbury, Berkshire, RG14 2RA DISTRICT LIGHT BOARD DEVON EASTBOURNE ELEMENTAL
Monday 7pm to 11pm GAMES GROUP BARNSTAPLE SLAYERS 1, Mana Gaming - The Old
Lion and Swan Hotel, Swan Bank, GAMING CLUB Print Works, Commercial Road,
35-39 London Street, Newbury, Congleton, Cheshire, CW12 1AH Golden Lion Inn, The Square, Eastbourne, East Sussex, BN21 3XQ
Berkshire, RG1 4PS Thursday Barnstaple, Devon, EX32 8LS Monday 6pm to 11pm
Thursday 7pm to 11pm  Monday 6.30pm to 10.30pm
WARRINGTON BOARD FAMOUS COLLECTABLES
WARGAMES ASSOCIATION GAMES CLUB CULLOMPTON BOARD 19 Western Road,
OF READING 33, Church Street, Warrington, GAMES GROUP Bexhill-on-Sea, East
Winnersh Community Centre, New Cheshire, WA1 2SX Pye Corner, Cullompton, Sussex, TN40 1DU
Road, Sindlesham, Wokingham, Wednesday 7pm Devon, EX15 1JX Thursday 6pm to 9.30pm
Berkshire, RG41 5DU First and third Wednesdays of the month
Wednesday 6pm to 11pm WINSFORD WARHAWKS 7pm to 10pm EAST YORKSHIRE
One Sunday a month is an open day for WARGAMING CLUB WOLDS WARGAMERS
all-day gaming 9am to 5.30pm St Chads Church Hall, DARK STAR 5, The Blue Bell, Riverhead, Driffield,
Gladstone Street, Winsford, GAMING PLYMOUTH East Yorkshire, YO25 6NX
BRISTOL Cheshire, CW7 4AT 9, Moon Street, Plymouth, PL4 0AL Last Thursday of the month
HALL OF HEROES Tuesday 7pm to 10pm Monday to Friday 5pm to late
GAMING CLUB Saturday and Sunday 12pm to late EDINBURGH
Beckspool Road, Frenchay, CLEVELAND EDINBURGH LEAGUE
Bristol, Bristol, BS16 1NU REDCAR IRONBEARDS EAST DEVON TABLETOP OF GAMERS
Thursday 7pm 7, Memorial Hall, Coatham Road, & RPG GROUP 11, RAF Club, Hillside Crescent,
Redcar, Cleveland, TS10 1RH 133, The Three Tuns, High Street, Abbey Hill, Edinburgh,
BUCKINGHAMSHIRE Monday 7pm to 10pm Honiton, Devon, EX14 1HR Edinburgh, EH7 5EA
MILTON KEYNES Tuesday 6pm Wednesday 6pm to 11pm
WARGAMES SOCIETY CO ANTRIM
York House Youth Centre, DRAGONSLAYERS EXMOUTH IMPERIAL SOUTH EAST SCOTLAND
London Road, Stony Stratford, Queen’s University, WARGAMES CLUB WARGAMES CLUB
Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, University Road, Belfast, Community Centre, Prince of Wales Royal Navy & Royal Marine Association
MK11 1JQ Co Antrim, BT7 1NN Drive, Exmouth, Devon, EX8 4SW at 1 Broughton Road, Edinburgh
Thursday 7pm to 11pm Tuesday 6pm Wednesday 7pm Thursday 7pm to 11pm

TO LIST YOUR GAMES CLUB FOR FREE PLEASE

122_125_clubDirectory_v3 MJ.indd 122 25/07/2017 09:51
 ESSEX
BASILDON WARBOYZ
Riverton Hall, Bardfield,
Basildon, Essex SS16 4JW
Sunday 5pm to 10pm
Last Sunday of the month
3pm to 10pm
COLCHESTER WARGAMES
ASSOCIATION
Tollgate Hall, Villa Road, Stanway,
Colchester, Essex, CO3 5RH
Friday 7pm to 11pm
ESSEX WARRIORS
18, Writtle Village Hall, The Green,
Writtle, Chelmsford, Essex, CM1 3DU
Twice monthly on Sunday
9.30am to 5pm
SOUTHEND-ON-SEA
ROLEPLAYING SOCIETY
1, Park Inn by Radisson, Church Road,
Southend-on-Sea, Essex, SS1 2AL
Friday 7pm to 11pm
FIFE
DUNFERMLINE
WARGAMING AND
ROLEPLAYING FELLOWSHIP
Dell Farquharson Community Leisure
Centre, Nethertown Broad Street,
Dunfermline, Fife, KY12 7DS
Friday 6pm to 9pm
EAST NEUK TABLETOP GAMES
Dreel Halls (upper hall), High Street
West, Anstruther, Fife, KY10 3DJ
Second and fourth Sundays of the month
1pm to 5pm  Oakmere House (Harvester),
FLINTSHIRE
DEESIDE DEFENDERS
Wings Social Club, Airbus
UK, Broughton, Chester,
Flintshire, CH4 0DR
Thursday 7pm
FGC FLINTSHIRE
GAMING CLUB
The Pavilion, Snowdon Avenue,
Bryn-y-Baal, Flintshire, CH7 6SZ
Monday 6.30pm to 11.15pm  01-03, Royal British Legion,
GLASGOW
ANTONINE BOARD GAMERS
77, Main Street, Torrance,
Glasgow, G64 4EN
Third Tuesday of the month 7.30pm
GLASGOW GAMES ROOM
36, Woodside Hall, Glenfarg Street,
Glasgow, G20 7Q
Tuesday 5.30pm to 10.30pm
UNPLUGGED GAMES CLUB
19, Norval Coffee Co, Skirving
Street, Glasgow, G41 3AB
Sunday 1pm to 5pm
GLOUCESTERSHIRE
GLOUCESTERSHIRE
GAMES BUNKER
Hatherley & Reddings Cricket Club
North Park, Shurdington Road,
Cheltenham, Gloucester, GL51 4XA
Wednesday 6.30pm to 10.30pm
LINCOMBE BARN
WARGAMES SOCIETY
Lincombe Barn, Overndale Road,
Bristol, Gloucestershire, BS16 2RW
Sunday 2.30pm to 6.30pm
PORK CHOP GAMING
Church Street, Cheltenham,
Gloucestershire, GL50 3HA
Thursday 7pm to 10pm
VISIT WWW.TABLETOPGAMING.CO.UK
122_125_clubDirectory_v3 MJ.indd 123
GWENT
GWENT REAVERS
TABLETOP GAMING CLUB
Big Picture Photography, Somerset
Street, Abertillery, Gwent, NP13 3DJ
Monday 4pm to 10pm
HAMPSHIRE
ARBBL
28, Gilliat Scout Hall,
Marlborough Street, Andover,
Hampshire, SP10 1DQ
Tuesday 7pm to 10pm
BLACK HOLE WARGAMERS
St Peter’s Church Hall, St
Peter’s Road, Petersfield,
Hampshire, GU32 3HS
Alternate Saturdays 9.30am to 12.30pm
CHINEHAM BOARD GAMERS
Reading Road, Chineham,
Basingstoke, Hampshire, RG24 8LT
Second and last Saturdays of the month
6pm
DARK WORLDS
GAMING SOCIETY
Northwest Community
Centre, Henry Cort Drive,
Fareham, Hampshire, PO15 6TL
Tuesday 7pm
Sunday 6pm
FIRESTORM CARDS
OPEN GAMING NIGHT
Bell House, Bell Road, Basingstoke,
Hampshire, RG24 8FB
Wednesday 5pm to late
FORDINGBRIDGE
GAMING CLUB
63, Town Hall, High Street,
Fordingbridge, Hampshire, SP6 1AS
Thursday 6pm to 10pm (fortnightly)  THOR’S HAMMER
GARY DONALDSON
Hart Plain Church, Hart Plain Avenue,
Waterlooville, Hampshire, PO8 8RG
Sunday 6.30pm to 10pm
PORTSMOUTH ON BOARD
Portsmouth South, Lucknow Street,
Portsmouth, Hampshire, PO1 1PT
Second and fourth Wednesdays
of the month 7pm to 11pm
RINGWOOD ASSOCIATION
OF WARGAMERS
Greyfriars Community Centre, 44
Christchurch Road, Ringwood,
Hampshire, BH24 1DW
Monday
SOLENT WARGAMERS CLUB
01-03, Royal British Legion,
Portsmouth South, Lucknow Street,
Portsmouth, Hampshire, PO1 1PT
Tuesday 7pm to 11pm
SOUTHAMPTON SLUGGAZ
Priory Road, St Denys, Southampton,
Hampshire, SO17 2JZ
Friday 6pm
Alternate Wednesdays 6pm
WATERLOO TABLE
TOP GAMERS
Hart Plain Church, Hart Plain Avenue,
Waterlooville, Hampshire, PO8 8RG
HEREFORDSHIRE
DICE AND DECKS
St Mary’s Church Hall,
Church Row, Ross-on-Wye,
Herefordshire, HR9 5HR
Friday 6.30pm to 10pm
HERTFORDSHIRE GREENWICH &
HEMEL HEMPSTEAD BLACKHEATH BOARD
GAMES CLUB GAMES AND BEER CLUB
Grove Hill Community Centre, Henry The Royal Standard, 44 Vanbrugh
Wells Square, Hemel Hempstead, Park, London, Kent, SE3 7JQ
Hertfordshire, HP2 6BJ Alternating Tuesdays and Wednesdays
Every Tuesday at 7.30pm to play 7.15pm
board games and run Magic: The
Gathering tournaments MAIDSTONE
The Magic usually starts at 7.45pm and WARGAMES SOCIETY
board games tend to kick off at 8pm Linton Village Hall, Linton Hill (A229),
Linton, Maidstone, Kent, ME17 4AW
HERTFORD BEER & Second and fourth Saturdays of the month
BOARDGAMES 10am to 5pm
The White Horse, 33 Castle Street,
Hertford, Hertfordshire, SG14 1HH MEDWAY AREA
Tuesday BOARDGAMERS
72, Union Street, Maidstone,
HITCHIN HERETICS Kent, ME14 1ED
The Scout Hut, King George’s Playing Wednesday 7pm
Field, Old Hale Way, Hitchin, SG5 1XL
Friday 7pm MERRYCHEST CAFE
GAMING CLUB
NORTH HERTFORDSHIRE Merrychest Cafe, Watling street,
WARGAMES CLUB Dartford, Kent, DA2 8AH
Scout Hall, Old Hale Way, Hitchin, Thursday 6pm
Hertfordshire, SG5 1XL
Alternate Sundays 10am to 4pm MILTON HUNDRED
WARGAMES CLUB
NORTH LONDON Phoenix House, Central Avenue,
WARGAMES CLUB Sittingbourne, Kent, ME10 4BX
YHA London Lea Valley, Second and fourth Tuesdays of the month
Youth Hostel, Windmill Lane, 6.30pm to 10pm 
Cheshunt, EN8 9AJ
Second and fourth Sundays of the month TONBRIDGE
3pm to 7pm WARGAMES CLUB
Lamberts Yard, Tonbridge, Kent, TN9 1ER
POTTERS BAR Second and fourth Mondays of the month
GAMES CLUB
WHITSTABLETOP
High Street, Potters Bar, 61, Oxford Street, Whitstable,
Hertfordshire, EN6 5BT Kent, CT5 1DA
Tuesday Tuesday 7pm
LANARKSHIRE
GAMING CLUB LANARKSHIRE GAMERS
Well End Activity Camp, Well 1st Floor, Masonic Hall, Hope Street,
End, Borehamwood, Hertford, Motherwell, Lanarkshire, ML1 1BS
Hertfordshire, WD6 5PR First and third Saturdays of the month
Tuesday 6pm to 10pm 12pm to 5pm
TRING WARGAMES CLUB LANCASHIRE
Corpus Christie Church BLACK TOWER WARGAMING
Hall, Langdon Street, Tring, Unit 3b, 260, Vicarage Lane,
Hertfordshire, HP23 6BA Blackpool, Lancashire, FY4 4ND
Friday 7pm to 11pm Monday 6.30pm to 11pm
WATFORD WARGAMES CLUB BURNEY WARGAMES
68, Langley Road, Watford, Club Social Centre, Ennismore
Hertfordshire, WD17 4PN Street, Burnley, BB10 3EU
Wednesday 6pm to 10pm  Tuesday 7pm
HIGHLANDS DICED TEA
DINGWALL Holy Trinity Coldhurst Church
WARGAMES CLUB Hall, Crompton Street, Oldham,
Dingwall Community Centre, Lancashire, OL1 2DB
Tulloch Street, Dingwall, Alternate Saturdays 11am to 4pm
Scotland, IV15 9JZ
Monday 7pm to 10pm HARLEQUINS BLACKPOOL
302, Church Street, Blackpool,
KENT Lancashire, FY1 3QA
ASHFORD (KENT) Monday 7pm to 11pm 
BOARDGAMES CLUB
The Rose Inn, Faversham Road, HOUSE LANCASTER
Kennington, Ashford, Kent, TN24 9AJ GAMING GROUP
Sunday 7pm to 11pm The Three Mariners, Bridge Lane,
Lancaster, Lancashire, LA1 1EE
BEXLEY REAPERS First Sunday of the month 7pm
WARGAMING CLUB
Freemantle Hall, Bexley High PRESTON BOARD GAMERS
Street, Bexley, Kent, DA5 1AA 43, Fylde Street, Preston,
Monday 7pm to 11pm Lancashire, PR1 7DP
Wednesday 7pm to 11pm
CANTERBURY CRUSADERS
Spring Lane Neighbourhood PRESTON’S GAMERS GUILD
Centre, Sussex Avenue, The Adelphi, 43, Fylde Street,
Canterbury, Kent, CT1 1RT Preston, Lancashire, PR1 7DP
Tuesday 6.30pm to 10pm Tuesday 7pm
21/07/2017 16:03
CLUB DIRECTORY
SALFORD & MANCHESTER SELWG KINGS LYNN RPG & OXFORD OUTRIDERS
GAMING HAVEN 37, St Laurence Church Hall, Bromley WARGAMES CLUB 17, The Mitre, High Street,
18-32 Welcome Centre, Brentfield Road, Catford, London, SE6 2TS 12th Scout Hut, Beulah Oxford, Oxfordshire, OX1 4AG
Avenue, Salford, Lancashire, M8 0TW Friday 7pm Street, Gaywood, King’s Wednesday 6pm
Wednesday 6.30pm to 9.30pm Lynn, Norfolk, PE30 4DN
TANELORN WAR Sunday 1pm to 6pm SHROPSHIRE
SCYTHE BOARD GAMERS GAMING CLUB BIG ORBIT GAMES
Scythe and Teacup Gaming Harvey Road, London, E11 3DB NORWICH Unit 3-9 Riverside Mall, Pride Hill
Cafe, 61 A Kempston Street, Sunday 2pm to 6pm NORWICH BOARD GAMERS Centre, Shrewsbury, Shropshire,
Liverpool, Lancashire, L3 8HE 16, Charing Cross, Norwich, West Midlands, SY1 1PH
Thursday THE PHOENIX GAMES CLUB Norfolk, NR2 4AL Every day
The Black Lion Pub, High Street, Tuesday 7.30pm
THE LIVERPOOL WARGAMES Plaistow, London, E13 SOMERSET
ASSOCIATION (LWA) Thursday 8pm NORTH YORKSHIRE BATH GAMING GROUP
11, Davies Street, Liverpool, YORK GARRISON Widcombe Social Club,
Lancashire, L1 6HB THE ROLE PLAY HAVEN WARGAMING CLUB Widcombe Hill, Bath,
Thursday, Sunday and most Saturdays 98, Carpenters & Dockland The Folk Hall, Hawthorn Terrace, Somerset, BA2 6AA
Centre, Gibbins Road, London, New Earswick, York, North Tuesday 7.30pm
LEICESTERSHIRE London, E15 2HU Yorkshire, YO32 4AQ
LEICESTER ALL SCARS Tuesday 7.15pm to 10.15pm Wednesday 6.30pm to 10.30pm MID SOMERSET
66, Tabletop Tyrants, Bedford Street, Second Saturday of the month WARGAMES CLUB
Leicester, Leicestershire, LE1 3JR THE ROLE PLAY HAVEN 9.30am to 6pm Seager Hall, Union Street,
First and third Saturdays of the month Upstairs, The Lewis Club - University Wells, Somerset, BA5 2PU
  Hospital Lewisham, Lewisham NORTHAMPTONSHIRE Thursday 7pm
LEICESTER PHAT KATZ High Street, London, SE13 6LH BATTLEFIELD
Ukranian Church Hall, Livingstone Street, Wednesday 7pm to 10.45pm HOBBBIES CLUB PIGMAR WARGAMING CLUB
Leicester, Leicestershire, LE3 0QY 17 Brunel Close, Daventry, Salisbury & Conservative Club -
Thursday 8pm to 11pm MANCHESTER Northamptonshire, NN11 8BR Hawthorn House, London Road,
TABLETOP MANCHESTER Wednesday and Friday 7pm to 11pm Bath, Somerset, BA1 6AB
SECTION 31 6, Slate Wharf, Castlefield, Saturday and Sunday 9am to 5pm Tuesday and Thursday 7pm
01-03 La Vida Italian Restaurant (the Greater Manchester, M15 4ST
function room upstairs), Northampton Monday 7.30pm THE BRACKLEY & THE FROME BOARD
Street, Leicester, Leicestershire, LE1 1PA DISTRICT GAMERS (AKA GAMES CLUB
Wednesday 6pm to 11pm MERSEYSIDE THE BAD GAMERS) 5, The George Hotel,
FORGEMASTERS Bracken Leas Primary School, Market Place, Frome,
SONS OF SIMON GAMING CLUB Magdalen Meadows, Brackley, Somerset, BA11 1AF
DE MONTFORT Brimstage Forge, Brimstage Northamptonshire, NN13 6LF Thursday 7pm to 11pm
Beaumanor Hall, Beaumanor Road, Higher Bebington, Wirral, Tuesday 7pm to 10.30pm All day on the second Sunday of the month
Drive, Woodhouse, Loughborough, Merseyside, CH63 6HD
Leicestershire, LE12 8TX Wednesday 10am to 10.30pm THE PIT GAMING CLUB TRINITY WARGAMING CLUB
Monday and Wednesday The Wesley Centre, College Street, 17, Trinity Street, Taunton,
Regular all-day Sunday games LIVERPOOL LION Irthlingborough, Wellingborough, Somerset, TA1 3JG
BOARDGAMERS Northamptonshire, NN9 5TU Friday 6.30pm to 11.30pm
THE LEICESTER WARGAMES 13, Earle Street, Liverpool, Friday 6pm to 10pm
AND FANTASY GROUP Merseyside, L3 9NS WARGAMING@RADSTOCK
55, West Leicester Conservative Monday 6pm NOTTINGHAMSHIRE Prattens Social Club,
Club, Westcotes Drive, Leicester, NOTTINGHAM BOARD Westfield, Radstock,
Leicestershire, LE3 0QU SOUTHPORT BOARD AND TABLETOP CLUB Somerset, BA3 4BD
Tuesday GAMES GROUP The Ned Ludd, 27 Friar Lane, Wednesday 6.30pm to 10.30pm
347-349 Lord Street, Southport, Nottingham, NG1 6DA Sunday 10am to 4pm
LINCOLNSHIRE Merseyside, PR8 1NH Tuesday and Thursday
GRIMSBY WARGAMES SOCIETY Tuesday 6pm WESTON WARGAMERS
Sixhills Street, Grimsby, WAR & PEACE GAMES CLUB CLUB
Lincolnshire, DN32 9HT MID GLAMORGAN 18, Grasmere Street, Sandiacre, Unit 9UA, Elizabeth House
Every night 7pm BRIDGEND ROLEPLAYING Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, NG10 5BD 30-32, Boulevard,
AND BOARDGAMES CLUB Wednesday 7pm to 11pm Weston-super-Mare,
LINCOLN BOARD 62 Robins Hill, Bridgend, Mid Somerset, BS23 1NF
GAME GROUP Glamorgan, CF31 2PJ WILDSIDE GAMING Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday
6, Upstairs Function Room, Union Wednesday 19-21, Wild Ways, Slaughter 6pm to 10.30pm
Road, Lincoln, Lincolnshire, LN1 3BJ House Lane, Newark,
Tuesday 7.30pm  CASTLE GAMERS Nottinghamshire, NG24 1ER WESSEX WARGAMERS
BRIDGEND Wednesday to Friday 4pm to 10pm WINCHESTER
LOUTH STRATEGY Gilead Chapel, Heol Spencer, Coity, Saturday 11am to 6pm Badger Farm Community
GAMES CLUB Bridgend, Mid Glamorgan, CF35 6AU Centre, Badger Farm Road,
Holy Trinity Community Centre, Sunday 5pm OXFORDSHIRE Winchester, SO22 4QB
Eastgate, Louth, Lincolnshire, LN11 8DB ABINGDON WARGAMES CLUB Tuesday 7pm to 11pm
Sunday 5pm to 9pm MIDDLESEX 59, Neave Room, Ock Street,
BATTLEUX Abingdon, Oxfordshire, OX14 5AG WSM BOARD
LLANDUDNO WARGAMES CLUB Friday 6.30pm GAMING CLUB
CONWY WARGAMES CLUB Battle of Britain Club, Hillingdon Road, Third Sunday of the month 10am 358-360, Locking Road,
Creuddyn Leisure Centre, Uxbridge, Middlesex, UB10 0RY Weston-super-Mare,
Derwen Lane, Penrhyn Bay, Monday 7pm to 11pm AMBROSDEN GAMING CLUB Somerset, BS22 8PD
Llandudno, Wales, LL30 3LB Ambrosden Village Hall, Merton Thursday 6.30pm to 11.30pm
Last Sunday of the month DICE CLUB Road, Ambrosden, Bicester,
12pm to 5pm Battle Of Britain Club, Oxfordshire, OX25 2LZ SOUTH YORKSHIRE
Hillingdon Road, Uxbridge, Monday 8pm (fortnightly) BROTHERHOOD
LONDON Middlesex, UB10 0RY OF THE DICE
CROSS GAMING CLUB Wednesday (except the second NORTH OXFORDSHIRE Wilthorpe & Redbrook Community
68, Borough Road, Southwark, Wednesday of the month) WARGAMING CLUB Centre, Wilthorpe Road, Barnsley,
London, SE1 1DX 7.30pm to late Bowen Room, Dupuis Centre, South Yorkshire, S75 1JR
Tuesday 6pm to 11pm 25 South Bar Street, Banbury, Monthly 5pm to 10.30pm
Thursday 6.30pm to 10.30pm NORFOLK Oxfordshire, OX16 9AF
AFTERMATH GAMING CLUB Wednesday 7pm to 10pm ROTHERHAM
HESTON AND 219, Lazar House, Sprowston WARGAMES CLUB
EALING WARGAMERS Road, Norwich, Norfolk, NR3 4HX OXFORD ON BOARD The Masbrough and Thornhill,
Room 2, Northfields Community Centre, Tuesday 7pm to 11pm Iffley Road, Oxford, Community Centre, College Road,
71a Northcroft Road, Northfields, Second and last Thursdays of the month Oxfordshire, OX4 1EA Masbrough, Rotherham, S60 1JE
Ealing, West London, W13 9SS 7pm to 11pm Monday 7pm Saturday 9am to 5pm

TO LIST YOUR GAMES CLUB FOR FREE PLEASE

122_125_clubDirectory_v3 MJ.indd 124 21/07/2017 16:03
 SHEFFIELD BOARD GAMES
In the room upstairs at The
University Arms, 197 Brook
Hill, Sheffield, S3 7HG
Tuesday 7pm to late
The Red Deer, 18 Pitt Street,
Sheffield, S1 4DD
First Sunday of the month
12.30pm to early evening
SHEFFIELD
WARGAMES SOCIETY
Woodseats Working Mens Club,
The Dale, Sheffield, S8 0PS
Wednesday 7pm
STEEL CITY WARGAMING
St James Parish Hall, Tithe Barn
Lane, Woodhouse, Sheffield,
South Yorkshire, S13 7LL
Friday 6pm to 10pm
ZONE OUT GAMES CLUB
The Workshops, Coopers Terrace,
Doncaster, South Yorkshire, DN1 2PX
Tuesday and Wednesday
5pm to 10pm
Saturday 9am to 4pm
Sunday 10am to 4pm
STAFFORDSHIRE
CHASE WARGAMES CLUB
Burntwood Road, Burntwood,
Staffordshire, WS7 0JL
Thursday 8pm
LIBERAL GAMING CLUB
The Old Liberal, 5-9 Woodhouse
Lane, Tamworth, Staffordshire,
West Midlands, B77 3AE
Tuesday
LICHFIELD GAMERS
AND RPG
Duke Of York, Church Street,
Lichfield, Staffordshire, WS13 6EB
Monday 7pm
STAFFORDSHIRE
WARGAMING GUILD
38, High Street, Stone,
Staffordshire, ST15 8AS
Sunday 6pm to 10.30pm
TAMWORTH GAMES CLUB
Central Methodist Church, Aldergate,
Tamworth, Staffordshire, B79 7DJ
Wednesday 5pm to 9pm
THE VINE INN GAMERS
Sheep Fair, Rugeley,
Staffordshire, WS15 2AT
Sunday and Wednesday
6pm to 11pm
STIRLINGSHIRE
FALKIRK DISTRICT
WARGAMES CLUB
Newlands Community Centre,
Montgomery Street, Grangemouth,
Stirlingshire, FK3 8QR
Mondays 7pm to 11pm.
Last Sunday of the month
10am to 6pm
SUFFOLK
BURY ST EDMUNDS
BOARD GAMING GROUP
The Bennet Arms, Kingshall Street,
Rougham, Suffolk, IP30 9LH
Meet fortnightly on Thursday
IPSWICH BOARD GAMERS
Cult Cafe, University Avenue,
Ipswich, Suffolk,
IP3 0FS
Monday 7.30pm
VISIT WWW.TABLETOPGAMING.CO.UK
122_125_clubDirectory_v3 MJ.indd 125
MID SUFFOLK
GAMING GROUP
Wyverstone Village Hall,
Rectory Road, Stowmarket,
Suffolk, IP14 4SH
Second and last Fridays of the month
MID SUFFOLK WARGAMES
ASSOCIATION
Milden Cricket Pavilion
Church Road, Milden,
CO10 9SG
Wednesday 9am to 5pm
Every third Saturday 9am to 5pm
SURREY
HAMPTON COURT GAMERS
Imber Court Conference
Room, Ember Lane, East
Molesey, Surrey, KT8 OBT
Sunday 4pm to 8pm
GUILDFORD GAMES CLUB
Park Barn Centre, Southway,
Guildford, Surrey, GU2 8DU
Monday 7.30pm to 11pm
STAINES WARGAMES
ASSOCIATION
The Social Hall, Harvest
Road, Egham, Surrey
Friday 7pm to 11pm
STAY ON TARGET
56, Chertsey Road, Woking,
Surrey, GU21 5BG
Thursday 6pm to 11pm
THE WOKING WEIRD BOYZ
Mount Hermon Road, Woking,
Surrey, GU22 7TA
Thursday 7pm
TOLWORTH 1ST FOUNDING
St Paul’s Church Hall, 280 Hook
Road, Chessington, Surrey, KT9 1PF
Friday 7pm to 10.30pm
SUSSEX
BRIGHTON WARLORDS
13-17, Marlborough Place,
Brighton, Sussex, BN1 1UB
Monday 4pm to 11pm
WARWICKSHIRE
BOARD GAME CAFE
SUMMERFIELD
Memorial Hall, Summerfield
Crescent, Birmingham,
Warwickshire, B16 0EZ
Last Monday of the month 6.30pm
DREAMDEALERS
GAMING CLUB
St Lukes Church Hall,
Rotherham Road, Coventry,
Warwickshire, CV6 4FE
Saturday 1pm to 5pm
GRANGE LIVE GAMING
93-99 Holloway Head, Birmingham,
Warwickshire, B1 1QP
Wednesday 3pm to 10.30pm Thursday
9am to 10.30pm
Friday 9am to 10.30pm
Saturday and Sunday 9am to 5.30pm
NUNEATON ALTERNATIVE
GAMES ASSOCIATION
Church Road, Nuneaton,
Warwickshire, CV10 8LJ
Monday and Wednesday
6pm/6.30pm
SCIMITAR WARGAMES GROUP
Christ Church, Frankpledge Road,
Coventry, Warwickshire, CV3 5GT
Wednesday 7pm to 10pm
WEST MIDLANDS
BIRMINGHAM WARGAMES
AND BOARDGAMES CLUB
AKA DRAGOON’S DEN
91, Moseley All Services Club,
Church Road, Birmingham, B13 9EA
Friday 6.45pm to 11.45pm
Second and fourth Sundays of the
month
1.30pm to 11.45pm
PLAY MORE GAMES!
Unit 9 Parkgate, Stratford
Road, Shirley, Solihull, West
Midlands, B90 3GG
Monday 6pm to 11pm
STOURBRIDGE &
DISTRICT WARGAMERS
The Church Hall, V icarage
Road, Amblecote, Stourbridge,
(Opposite the Corbett hospital)
Friday 7pm to 11.30pm
WEST SUSSEX
BOGNOR REGIS GAMING
ASSOCIATION
Greencourt Drive, Bognor Regis,
West Sussex, PO21 5EU
Tuesday 6.30pm to 11pm
CRAWLEY WARGAMES
CLUB
Tilgate Recreational Centre,
Pease Pottage Hill, Crawley,
West Sussex, RH11 9BQ
Friday 7pm to 11pm
DUNGEON CRAWL-EY
GAMES CLUB
1st Langley Scout Hut,
Larks Rise, Crawley, West
Sussex, RH11 7QG
Bi-monthly
SOUTH DOWNS
SIEGEBREAKERS
13, High Street, Storrington,
Pulborough, West Sussex, RH20 4DR
Tuesday 6.30pm to 11pm
WEST YORKSHIRE
AIREBOROUGH
COMMUNITY GAMERS
Trinity Church Rawdon (in the old
hall), New Road Side, Rawdon,
Leeds, West Yorkshire LS19 6AS
Thursday 7pm
Saturday 1pm to late
GAMING CLUB BRADFORD
114, Thornton Road, Bradford,
West Yorkshire, BD1 2DX
Friday 5pm to 10pm
HALIFAX BOARD GAMERS
55, The Old Post Office,
Winding Road, Halifax, West
Yorkshire, HX1 1SJ
Monday
KEIGHLEY TABLETOP
COMBAT
The Venue @ UAK, Green Head Road,
Keighley, West Yorkshire, BD20 6EB
Thursday 6pm to 10pm
OTLEY BOARD GAMERS
The Yew Tree Inn, Newall Carr Road,
Otley, West Yorkshire, LS21 2AU
Monday 6.30pm
WILTSHIRE
CHIPPENHAM BOARD
GAMES CLUB
The Bridge House, Borough Parade,
Chippenham, Wiltshire, SN15 3WL
Thursday 7pm to 11pm
DEVIZES & DISTRICT
WARGAMES GROUP
Scout Hall, Southbroom Road,
Devizes, Wiltshire, SN10 5AD
Sunday 2pm to 6pm
WEDNESDAY KNIGHT GAMERS
Mill Stream Approach, Castle Street,
Salisbury, Wiltshire, SP1 3TA
Wednesday 5.30pm to 10.30pm
BROMSGROVE
BOARD GAMERS
2, Finstall Road, Bromsgrove,
Worcestershire, B60 2DZ
Wednesday 7.30pm
WYRE FOREST GAMERS
St Ambrose Parish Hall, Leswell St,
Kidderminster, Worcestershire DY10 1RP
Third Sunday of the month
2pm to 7pm
WORCESTERSHIRE
POSTAL ORDER GEEK MEET
18, The Postal Order,
Foregate Street, Worcester,
Worcestershire, WR1 1DN
Monday 7pm
REDDITCH
WARGAMING SOCIETY
Windmill Community Centre,
Ryegrass Lane, Walkwood, Redditch,
Worcestershire, B97 5YE
Tuesday 6.45pm to 10pm
YORKSHIRE
BEYOND MONOPOLY
17-19, Blossom Street, York,
Yorkshire, YO24 1AQ
First and third Saturdays of the month
10am to 9pm
Second and fourth Fridays of the month
5pm to 9pm
HEADINGLEY GAMES CLUB
Heart Centre, Bennett Road,
Leeds, Yorkshire, LS6 3HN
Thursday 6.30pm to 10.30pm
HOLMFIRTH GAMING CENTRE
Above the Karate Centre,
Albion Mills - Unit 1 Second
Floor, Miry Lane, Thongsbridge,
Holmfirth, Yorkshire, HD9 7HP
Thursday and Sunday 5pm
LEEDS GAMING
28, Great George Street,
Leeds, Yorkshire, LS1 3DL
Second Sunday of the month
12.30pm to 7.30pm
LEEDS NIGHT OWLS
145-153, Cardigan Road,
Leeds, Yorkshire, LS6 1LJ
Sunday 10am
OVERSEAS
BIELEFELD WARGAMES &
MODEL MAKING CLUB
Building 43, Catterick Barracks,
Detmolder Strasse 440,
Bielefeld NRW, Germany, 33605
Thursday and occasionally at the weekend
THE CENTURIONS
WARGAMING
Source Comics & Games,
2057 Snelling Ave. N
Roseville, MN, USA, 55113
First and third Saturdays of the month
WARGAME CLUB
GIUSEPPE GARIBALDI
San Lorenzo, 17 Genoa, Italy
Wednesday and Thursday
21/07/2017 16:03
p126.indd 1 20/07/2017 09:55

CHAOS CARDS
One of the UK’s biggest online games outlets is making a
break for the High Street with a new shop in Kent. Co-director
Anthony Skinner tells us why the real world is the place to be
Interview by Matt Jarvis
Could you tell us about Chaos Cards’ origins?
Chaos Cards launched in 2011 and was a re-
imagined version of our previous website, The
Card Cellar. I used to play a lot of Magic: The
Gathering, travelling to PTQs [Pro Tour Qualifiers]
around the country. I started off by selling my
personal Magic collection on eBay. Not long after
this, I handed in my notice at my day job and set
off on my mission to build the best trading card
store in the UK.
How has the website changed?
When we started Chaos Cards, we were selling
almost exclusively Pokémon trading cards and
also offered Yu-Gi-Oh! and Magic: The Gathering
cards, but we did not sell board games or
miniatures at all. Once I convinced my brother
[fellow director Timothy] to join the company, he
took over the tabletop section, whilst I specialised
in the cards.
While many High Street shops are moving
online, you recently went the opposite way
and opened a store in Kent. Why did you
decide to move into the physical world now?
It has been a long-held dream to open our own
brick-and-mortar venue. The games we sell have
a large community element to them and, by
building an actual physical community, we are
able to offer events alongside the extensive range
of products we sell.
In our store, we are able to offer customers
access to our vastly superior inventory in the
warehouse, giving the customer greater choice
than a traditional brick-and-mortar-only store.
By having our store and warehouse in the same
town, we don’t need to keep a large stock room
in-house. So the store you see is the culmination
127_ShopSpotlight_v2 MJ.indd 127
of years of hard to work to launch our truly hybrid
business model.
What have you learnt so far about the
challenges and differences between having
an online and physical shop?
We are still very much learning every day! So far,
in terms of challenges, I would say theft is number
one. We unfortunately had a large shoplifting
incident that is now being investigated by police.
Also, with the store being open on some evenings,
this creates complexities in staffing.
We have been around for many years now so
there isn’t much that surprises us and we can
generally predict interest in games and titles
pretty well. The challenge now is in learning our
new real-world community and where our local
customers’ interests lie.
Your gaming centre is based in Folkestone.
Why was it the right first location for you?
The location was subject to some debate but,
ultimately, we live and work in Folkestone and
use the stores and High Street like every other
resident in the area. The only logical option for
our first store was to support our own community
and begin at home. Logistically, it represents a
real benefit as well, as stock and staff are only
five minutes away from the shop so we can react
instantly to any issues or stock requirements.
What was the most important thing for you
to achieve in opening a physical store?
Number one was to provide players in the
South East with a large, bright, fun space with
everything they need to enjoy their hobby. On a
personal note it was important that not a single
grey carpet tile was to enter the building! We
127
SHOP SPOTLIGHT
■ Left: The
newly-opened
Tabletop
Gaming Centre.
■ Right:
Anthony Skinner.
wanted our shop to set a standard for how a
hobby store should be and to transfer our online
reputation on to the High Street.
What events do you have planned for the
centre during the rest of 2017 and into 2018?
Well, we have our Summer of Gaming series of
major tournaments. We recently had our inaugural
Magic: The Gathering pre-release weekend for
Hour of Devastation. We also celebrated the return
of A Game of Thrones to our screens by holding
a huge event for living card game fans at the
end of July. Expect to see more Game of Thrones
tournaments before the year is out.
At the beginning of August, we have our Find
the Truth Android: Netrunner £1,500 open series:
the first of our mega tournaments for Netrunner.
£500 is guaranteed for first place, with the winner
also getting a special prize – that is secret for now!
We will be announcing hundreds of new
events over the coming months on our website
and Facebook page. Our aim is to have one large
event every month, which attracts players from
all over the country to come together for one
weekend of gaming.
The store is now an official store for Yu-Gi-Oh!
and Magic: The Gathering organised play, with
other games in the pipeline, along with a lot of
miniature leagues and tournaments running
all the time. We are also building our Games
Workshop ranges in-store and online following
the brick-and-mortar store opening with
campaigns to come soon.
Do you have plans for future brick-and-
mortar outlets in other regions?
I would not want to give too much away,
but let’s just say if this store is well received,
you may well see more Chaos Cards stores
popping up in the future! If there is anywhere in
particular you would like to see one, please let
us know! ■
CHAOS CARDS GAMING CENTRE
100 Sandgate Road, Folkestone, CT20 2BW
01303 255 522
shop@chaoscards.co.uk
chaoscards.co.uk
25/07/2017 09:53
 Hereward
the search for Harald
III
Peterborough’s own wargames show,
now in its third year! 30 Roneo Corner, Hornchurch Essex, RM12 4TN
Sponsored by • Tel: 01708 475051 • Email: tolehavenuk@aol.com

GRIPPING BEAST All your wargaming needs available through us!

GW, Flames of War, Malifaux, X-Wing, Warmachine/
Hordes, Warlord Games, Army Painter, Vallejo, KR
The Cresset, Multicase, Battlefoam, Mantic Games, Magic: The
Bretton Centre, Gathering, Frostgrave, 4 Ground, Knight’s Models,
Peterborough,
Scribor, Guild Ball, Bushido, Board Games & Living
PE3 8DX
Card Games, Chessex Dice, Perry Miniatures,
Sunday 3rd September 2017 Micro Art Studio’s, Quality Neodymium Magnets,
10am-4pm Airbrushes, Tools, Scenery, Resin bases plus many
more brands and products.
Admission £3 in advance/£5 on door Mail order available • Free demos • Gaming club
www.hereward-wargames.co.uk

Participation games!

Traders including: Mantic, Ainsty Castings, Col. Bills, Lesley’s Bits

Box, PE2 Collectables and many more!

Tournaments including:

official UK Melee www.tolehaven .co.uk

READ TABLETOP GAMING

ON ANY DEVICE ANYTIME!

A PATH
TO THE
STARS
Fantasy RPG Pathfinder is headed
to a new world – actually, dozens of
them – with sci-fi sequel Starfinder.
Creative director James Sutter
shows us around the far reaches
of the roleplaying universe
Words by Matt Jarvis

I
n 2008, Paizo changed the roleplaying
scene forever with the announcement

UK GAMES EXPO 2017

tabletop

of Pathfinder,, its fantasy RPG created

from the DNA of Dungeons & Dragons
3.5,, which initially divided the opinion of
fans then awaiting D&D’s ’s controversial

WERE YOU THERE? PICTURE SPECIAL INSIDE

fourth edition that the ambitious
newcomer purposefully rebelled
against. Pathfinder went on to become
a roleplaying giant of its own, becoming #11 Aug/Sep ‘17 tabletopgaming.co.uk
the first RPG to outsell D&D in more than 30
years and inspiring further adventures, tabletop
spin-offs, video games, tie-in novels and countless
other additions that expanded the universe.
Close to a decade on, Pathfinder’s ’s universe is about
to grow like never before as Paizo prepares to launch
Starfinder,, the first full sequel to the RPG that ditches
its fantasy trappings for the advanced technology and

INCLUDES
interstellar travel of science fiction.
“The idea had been percolating for a long time,
honestly,” reveals creative director James Sutter. “I had
written a book called Distant Worlds that outlined a
solar system for Pathfinder – basically a bunch of little
mini-settings that neighbour Pathfinder’s core planet of
STARFINDER | MIDDLE-EARTH | UK GAMES EXPO 2017

Golarion – and that did surprisingly well with the fans,

showing us there was an audience for mixing science-
fiction peanut butter with our fantasy chocolate. ▶
“In a galaxy of billions of stars, there’s always a new corner
TOLKIEN ON
■ Starfinder takes place in the same universe as Pathfinder,
SWORDS,

MOBILE-FRIENDLY
but is set a long time in the future. (Artist: Setiawan Lie) you can carve out for whatever crazy idea you have.”
THE TABLE SEX AND
22 23 MIDDLE-EARTH’S
LASTING LEGACY
SCI-FI
AS THE HOBBIT HOW CYBERPUNK
TURNS 80 AND THE WITCHER
BROUGHT STYLE
TO ROLEPLAYING

EDITION – SAY
22-23

WARHAMMER REDISCOVERING
40,000
DISCWORLD

GOODBY TO
CENTURY: STEP BACK INTO
SPICE ROAD TERRY PRATCHETT’S
SIDE-SPLITTING RPG
SECRETS

SAGRADA

SUB TERRA

ENERGY EMPIRE

ZOOMING!
THE CAPTAIN IS DEAD

STARFINDER
A FEAST FOR ODIN

THIS WAR OF MINE

WORD SLAM
PAIZO REVEALS ALL ABOUT ITS INTERSTELLAR
#11 AUG/SEP '17

DICE FORGE PATHFINDER SEQUEL + WE GIVE OUR VERDICT

Display until 04/10/17

ANALOGUE TO DIGITAL HAVE A GOOD WAR

£5.25

MEET THE TECHNOLOGY CHANGING THE INSIDE THE WELCOMING

FACE OF PHYSICAL GAMING FOREVER WARGAMING COMMUNITY

VISIT POCKETMAGS.COM

p128.indd 1 26/07/2017 10:19

 SHOP DIRECTORY
ONLINE

Scotland’s leading online retailer

of speciality games. We offer a
range of board games, collectable
card games, miniature games &
other gaming products. The Gallery Level, The Market Hall,
FIND US AT: Shrewsbury, SY1 1HX
Red Dice Games Tel: 07804 687884
@RedDiceGames
e-collecticagames@hotmail.co.uk
reddicegames
www.e-collecticagames.co.uk
@ecollecticagame
reddicegames.com
ONLINE BERKSHIRE DEVON

excellent gaming
experience guaranteed

A KR ACK INGLY GOOD 12 Buckwell Street, Plymouth, PL1 2DA

CA STLE DEFENCE Phone: 01752 604414
Facebook: G.I. Games
CAR D GAmE The UK’s best boardgame-focussed Email: gigamesinc@gmail.com

FOR THE Friendly Local Games Shop, dedicated to Boardgames • Roleplaying

YOUNG TO finding you exactly the right games and • Tabletop Battle games • Collectable
card games • Miniatures • Paints
THE MIDDLE supporting the gaming community. • Dungeon Saga • Warmachine
• Star Wars X-Wing • D & D
AGES • Cthul hu and much more...
5 Union Street, Reading RG1 1EU
@eclecticgames / shop@eclecticgames.co.uk /
KASTLESCARDGAME.com www.eclecticgames.co.uk / Tel: 0118 9598250

GUERNSEY SOMERSET MIDDLESBROUGH

mag-ad-56.5x40.indd 1 eclectic games.indd

02/06/2017 12:22 1 04/02/2016 10:55
SUPPLYING THE WORLD’S GREATEST TABLETOP WARGAMES

COMICS & GRAPHIC NOVELS

TOYS & ACTION FIGURES
RPG & BOARD GAMES
MAGIC THE GATHERING
GAMES WORKSHOP & WARHAMMER
YU-GI-OH & POKEMON
A new and exciting centre for many different types of STAR WARS & DR. WHO
gaming in Guernsey. Come and discover for yourself FUNKO POP! & KIDROBOT
ALIENS & PREDATORS
what’s in store and join in many events and activities! NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS
MOVIE MERCHANDISE
Stockists of Board, Card, Computer, RPG & Video Games. & MUCH, MUCH, MORE!
MUM’S FAVOURITE SHOP
1 Church Square, St. Peter Port, Guernsey, GY1 2LD
Tel: 01481 712240 Facebook: Facebook.com/JustGamesGsy
www.justgamesgsy.co.uk
www.asgardwargames.co.uk
WARGAMING AND
HOBBY SUPPLIES:
CHEAP AND FAST!
15% off rrp discount on
all Warhammer and
Warhammer 40k products
Up to massive 25% off
GW pre-orders
At least 10-15% off everything
else on our website!
71 Gilkes St, Middlesbrough
TS1 5EH | 01642 913460

HErtfordshore Wales

Friendly Local Table Top Game

Store specialising in Pokemon,
Magic, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Games
Workshop and Board Games
based in Rhyl North Wales.
Wrexham’s independent Small but well stocked and
games shop friendly atmosphere!

Open Tuesday Visit us on

to Sunday 6 Russell Road, Rhyl, LL18 3BU
just off the High Street
Phone: 01745 360415
11 Bank Street LL11 1AH Email: sales@portalgames.co.uk
Find us on Facebook for more details
01978 357713

p129_shopDirectory.indd 129 24/07/2017 11:58

 Tabletop Time Machine
MOUSE TRAP (1963)
■ The box artwork showing a
Rube Goldberg-style machine.
■ A blueprint of the machine
makes up the board.
Words Phil Robinson
Phil Robinson is a game
historian and the founder
of the Museum Of Gaming
(www.museumofgaming.org.uk),
an organisation that explores
and documents the history of
gaming through its collections,
exhibitions and research.
130_tabletopTimeMachine_v2 MJ.indd 130
P
erhaps one of the largest amounts of random
plastic items to be put in a box and called
a game, Mouse Trap is famous for its crazy
machine that gets built over the course of a game –
and for the disappointment when that machine fails
to work.
I have to admit having a little fondness for Mouse
Trap. It’s a nostalgic memory of childhood family
gaming that saw so many anti-climatic moments due
to the over-complicated mechanism employed. That is
kind of the point of the game, though: the communal
building of a machine so over-the-top in complexity as
to be comical. That complex machine of pure plastic is
also where the game’s greatest controversy lies.
Ideal Toy Corporation had been around since 1903
and was an established toy and game producer by the
time it licensed Mouse Trap in 1963. While there were
several updates and new versions to follow later, the
original edition of Mouse Trap was its greatest success.
Ideal attempted to capitalise on this success by
publishing its next machine building game in 1964,
called Crazy Clock. There was no board involved –
instead, Crazy Clock employed a deck of cards to help
build the device. This was not so popular and, in 1965,
Ideal published a game called Fish Bait which was even
more closely related to Mouse Trap. This was still unable
to match the success that Mouse Trap had brought.
In the UK Ideal’s assets were eventually bought by
Hasbro in the late ‘90s. Mouse Trap received another
update in 2004, including changes to the machine’s
design to include three traps.
130
■ Above: The ball
bearing ladder.
■ Left: The
completed machine.
■ Right: The larger,
more troublesome
ball and diver.
The game itself is not great and uses the old
mechanic of rolling a dice and moving a plastic
counter the number of squares shown. You get to add a
piece to the trap if you land on a particular square and
attempt to catch your opponents with the trap once it is
built. It’s an elimination game, so the winner is the last
mouse standing.
For many the game was irrelevant, and building
and setting off the trap just for fun was more common
than playing through an entire game. The magic was in
being able to build and use a Rube Goldberg machine,
something that was only usually seen in drawings.
Reuben ‘Rube’ Goldberg was an American-born
cartoonist and author who became famous for inventing
machines that performed a simple task through an
excessively large number of steps. The illustrations
created by Rube depict the working of these machines
for entertainment purposes. They were a popular, iconic
and unique style of art that was instantly recognisable as
the work of Goldberg.
Mouse Trap is a prime example of a Rube Goldberg
machine. The game’s designer was Harvey Kramer, who
was working at Marvin Glass & Associates at the time
and was clearly inspired and influenced by Goldberg’s
work when he created Mouse Trap. Goldberg never
started legal proceedings as the case was never clear-
cut and Glass claimed Goldberg’s drawings were only
inspirational. The concept and recognisable style of the
artwork were not enough to claim intellectual property
rights and Goldberg never received anything from Mouse
Trap except perhaps a lasting tribute to his work. ■
21/07/2017 16:05
 IN THE NEXT ISSUE...

PANDEMIC LEGACY
SEASON 2
Matt Leacock and Rob Daviau return with their ambitious
sequel to the legacy game that changed the world

EXCLUSIVE
CUSTOMISABLE
WHEN I DREAM
DOUBLE-SIDED PROMO
CARD WITH NEW ARTWORK
FREE WITH ISSUE 12!

PLUS!
LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTIONS: A LOOK AT MOVIE BOARD GAMES | INSIDE GAMING COMICS
LOVECRAFT’S TERROR ON THE TABLETOP | RISK TURNS 60 | AND MORE!

AVAILABLE OCTOBER 5TH

131_nextIssue_v7 MJ.indd 131 21/07/2017 16:06

Unlock Mystery
p132.indd 1 Advert.indd 1 12/07/2017 16:52:53
20/07/2017 09:57