Paper Time Machines.

A recent Victory Point Games newsletter referred to their games as "Paper Time Machines".  I don't know who first uttered those words, but they are brilliant.  They really got me thinking.  Those three words perfectly encapsulate what historical wargaming is to me.  I play them to be transported back in time, and be put in a position where I can see why history unfolded the way it did.  Where I can experience what commanders had to deal with, and why they made the choices they did.

Zulus on the Ramparts Review

Zulus on the Ramparts has been on my wishlist for a long time.  I love the States of Siege series, and Zulus' has gotten great reviews.  But it looked like it strayed quite far from the formula, and I wasn't sure how I felt about that.  I got Zulus for Christmas however, and I've played it nonstop since then.  It's not as easy to get 6 games played in a row, like Soviet Dawn.  But if I play one game, I'm incredibly likely to at least play a second.

Zulus on the Ramparts was released in 2009 by Victory Point Games, and was designed by Joseph Miranda.  It's a single player wargame, based on a battle at a mission station in Africa.  It's 1879, and an enormous hoard of Zulus is descending on the British troops there, who are hopelessly outnumbered, 4000 to 140!  Your goal is to hold out through the night until help gets there.

First Impressions for January

I've been branching out into a few more games over the past month or so.  Games which I haven't had the opportunity to work on a full review for, and may not for some time.  But I really wanted to say something about them, so here are my first impressions.  I'm expecting to have a full review again next week, and am aspiring to an every other week schedule on full reviews this year.

Red Winter

I got this wargame mostly because of it's solitaire potential.  What I found was a game that easily ranks up there with No Retreat in terms of simplicity, and relatively reduced counter clutter.  It is a far more deterministic game however, with slightly less of a resource management aspect.  It is tactical after all.

Star Realms Review

Star Realms is a Kickstarter project that ran in October, and went out to backers in December.  Personally, I almost didn't back it because that just seemed to wildly impossible.  But it arrived the day after Christmas, and I've played it constantly since it got here.

Star Realms is a sci-fi themed deck building game, most closely related to Ascension.  It was designed by Robert Dougherty and Darwin Kastle and published by White Wizard Games.  Robert Dougherty in specific put a lot of work into the Ascension series, which explains how closely related the two games feel.

Taking a Break for the Holidays

Hey everybody.  There's no updates this week or next.  I'm going to be taking until January off to spend time with friends and family, and hopefully get lots of games played.

I'm hoping to get a few more plays of Sekigahara in, so I can finalize my review of that.  I'm also expecting a few Kickstarters, including Star Realms and The Agents.  With any luck they'll show up soon.  I especially want to play Star Realms, and hopefully start a review for that as well.

2013 was a good year for this blog I think.  It was my New Years Resolution for 2013 to begin blogging about games, and I think it's gone well.  The positive feedback I've gotten has let me know I'm on the right track.  But over the break, I'm going to be thinking a lot about what my goals will be for 2014.

I definitely want to get into a better rhythm of having reviews twice a month.  Weekly reviews just aren't realistic for me.  I just don't have enough time in a week to satisfy the level of familiarity I want with games when I write a review.

So I'm going to be looking at different types of content.  More play sessions of solo games.  More first impressions or what I've been playing type articles.  I'm tempted to stray into strategy articles for games I'm extremely familiar with.  Or perhaps just Commands & Colors: Ancients.  But if there are any types of content I've done before that you'd like to see more of, let me know.

So Happy Holidays everybody.  And try to get some games in if you can.

Best and Worst of 2013

With 2013 coming to a close, it's as good a time as ever to look back over the games I've played, and decide on the ones I loved the most.  These won't necessarily be games that came out in 2013.  Just games that occupied the greatest mindshare over the year.  The games I was most excited about getting to play, or puzzling out new strategies for.

Of course, there are also the games that were most of a let down.  Games I got extremely excited for, that almost immediately flopped.  I've played them once or twice, and they've since sat in a drawer, unlikely to ever emerge again.  Or I was very excited to try them at a convention, and immediately hated them.

Forbidden Desert Review

I had just gotten Forbidden Island right when Forbidden Desert came out.  So despite the fact that Forbidden Desert was the new hotness, I knew I couldn't justify getting it for a while.  Well a while passed, and a friend of mine gifted it to me for my birthday.  Man did I get a lot of games played that day.

Now I love Forbidden Island, but it is not without it's problems.  It was a slimmed down, streamlined version of Pandemic.  But in the process of shedding excess rules and mechanics, it's quarterbacking problem became more pronounced.  Quarterbacking referring of course to one player instructing all the others what to do with their cold, ruthlessly correct logic.

So Forbidden Desert is Matt Leacock's third cooperative game, published by Gamewright in 2013.  It's another iteration of the same fundamental design he's been molding since Pandemic.  After escaping from the Forbidden Island by helicopter, you crashed straight into the Forbidden Desert.  You must reassemble an ancient Flying Machine who's parts are scattered, buried in the sands.  Only once you've done this can you escape before you die of thirst, or are buried in the sands yourself.  Today I'm going to look at how it's changed from previous iterations, and how well it handles the quarterbacking problem.