Review: Francis Drake | A Voyage Worth Repeating

When you first look at Francis Drake fully set up, the massive amount of beautiful components may make the game seem overwhelming. Don't be fooled; while there is a lot of deep strategy and interesting choices to be made, the gameplay is very straightforward.

In Francis Drake, players take turns advancing down the street of Plymouth, collecting various resources--like crew members, guns, trade goods, etc--you'll need in order to go on your voyage; however, once a player advances down the road, they cannot backtrack to a location they skipped--I really enjoy this aspect of the game. For example, if I desperately need to upgrade my ship from a frigate to a galleon and the Queen space is the only spot left to do so, I'll have a tough choice to make if she's a few locations down; do I skip over acquiring other resources I might need, or wait and hope the other players don't take the Queen before it gets back to my turn?

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PSP #193: Board Gaming with Nautilus Industries and More

In today's episode, Marc focuses on one game, Nautilus Industries, from Lamp Light Games--which is just about to wrap up a very successful campaign on Kickstarter--and, if y'all are wondering if it's good or not, well, it's not everyday that Marc talks about one game and (almost) only one game for an entire episode. Anyway, that's it and that's all, folks, and, if you're feeling extra generous, donate a little money or subscribe to show your support for the site and show(s); it's not free to host the site, the show, to make and record videos, and everything in between, so, anything would be greatly appreciated, even if you just tell a friend or two about the site and show(s). You can also support the site by shopping at Amazon. Cheers, and have a lovely rest of the day. And if you're looking for solutions to the often horribly lacking internal storage inside board game boxes, Robert Searing creates some great-looking foam inserts y'all should check out (foam > wood).

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PSP #192: Board Gaming with Dead of Winter, King's Forge, The Battle at Kemble's Cascade, and More

In today's episode, Marc talks about one of the hottest new board games, Dead of Winter from Plaid Hat Games, a surprisingly fun dice game called King's Forge, and the incredibly disappointing, The Battle at Kemble's Cascade. Anyway, that's it and that's all, folks, and, if you're feeling extra generous, donate a little money or subscribe to show your support for the site and show(s); it's not free to host the site, the show, to make and record videos, and everything in between, so, anything would be greatly appreciated, even if you just tell a friend or two about the site and show(s). You can also support the site by shopping at Amazon. Cheers, and have a lovely rest of the day. And if you're looking for solutions to the often horribly lacking internal storage inside board game boxes, Robert Searing creates some great-looking foam inserts y'all should check out (foam > wood).

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Recently Launched: Kickstarter Picks for the Week of July 18, 2014

So, what is this post all about? Well, it should pretty straightforward, but, if there's any confusion, this is where I'll be talking about a handful of Kickstarter projects each week, focusing on a few projects that recently launched (what a surprise, eh!). Will I be focusing only on projects in need of funding? No, I will simply be focusing on projects that interest me, regardless of whether they've only raised $5 or raised ten times that of their original goal; though, most projects will likely not be funded in 24 hours unless it's coming from an established publisher/Kickstarter-er. Anyway, I think it's about time I got to the actual projects, eh.

*Note: Some of these were launched over a week ago, but it's been a while since I wrote up anything about Kickstarter, so I'm including some campaigns that are relatively recent, but not brand new.

• Recently launched Kickstarter campaigns...duh.
  

But Wait, There's More!

• Ends Fri, Sep 5 2014 10:59 AM CDT.

I know what it's like to pitch an idea to a company, trying to condense so much into a few minutes, and it's usually pretty stressful; however, it can also be a lot of fun to test your creativity and I'm hoping But Wait, There's More!--a game about being the best TV pitch person you can be--is more fun than stressful. The setup is simple; you select a product and then select two features--one selected by you and one selected randomly--and, after you (and everyone else) give your 30-second pitch, y'all secretly vote for your favorite one of the round. That's it and that's all...really, there's nothing more.

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Review: Euphoria: Build a Better Dystopia | An enjoyable, original, and, well, euphoric worker placement game

Euphoria: Build a Better Dystopia, a game that asks players to build a better dystopia, offers an uncommon thematic experience. As a mid-level boss in a dystopian society, you must try to keep your workers dumb and happy, while also embedding your authority around the city; this is a task to which there is no small measure of luck involved. The goal is to be the first player to successfully place all ten of your authority tokens on the board.

You’ll achieve said goal by building markets, gathering commodities, infiltrating rival territories, collecting artifacts, and completing secret agendas, all with the use of dice that represent your workers. To accomplish these tasks, each turn, you’ll either place a worker (multiple workers if the die values are the same), retrieve any/all workers and immediately re-roll them, or, if you want, you can reveal your ethical dilemma card, which given out at the beginning of the game. In contrast to most worker placement games where you place workers to block others from taking actions and gaining perks, in Euphoria, anyone can gain the full benefits afforded to certain locations on the board by bumping the current player’s worker back to their owner; most locations allow for any number of workers, while only a few locations follow the traditional rule of one worker per spot.

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PSP #191: Board Gaming and Whatnot at Gen Con 2014

In today's episode, Marc talks about Gen Con 2014, including a number of games played--like Machi Koro from IDW Games, Five Tribes from Days of Wonder, and more--miniatures ogled--Cool Mini or Not knows how to make, well, cool miniatures--and great people met--like Chevee Dodd and Spencer Reeve. Anyway, that's it and that's all, folks, and, if you're feeling extra generous, donate a little money or subscribe to show your support for the site and show(s); it's not free to host the site, the show, to make and record videos, and everything in between, so, anything would be greatly appreciated, even if you just tell a friend or two about the site and show(s). You can also support the site by shopping at Amazon. Cheers, and have a lovely rest of the day. And if you're looking for solutions to the often horribly lacking internal storage inside board game boxes, Robert Searing creates some great-looking foam inserts y'all should check out (foam > wood).

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PSP #190: Board Gaming Prep for Gen Con

In today's episode, Marc talks briefly (very briefly) about Gen Con as he leaves his humble home in Chicago for the interesting(?) Indianapolis, home of Gen Con and the number, 500. Anyway, that's it and that's all, folks, and, if you're feeling extra generous, donate a little money or subscribe to show your support for the site and show(s); it's not free to host the site, the show, to make and record videos, and everything in between, so, anything would be greatly appreciated, even if you just tell a friend or two about the site and show(s). You can also support the site by shopping at Amazon. Cheers, and have a lovely rest of the day. And if you're looking for solutions to the often horribly lacking internal storage inside board game boxes, Robert Searing creates some great-looking foam inserts y'all should check out (foam > wood).

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PSP #189: Board Gaming with Rush n' Crush, Dungeon!, Descent: Journeys in the Dark, TKO, GEM, and More

In today's episode, Marc talks about the battle-filled racing of Rush n' Crush, the ridiculous randomness of Dungeon!, the D&D nature of Descent: Journeys into the Dark, and the pocketability of the micro games, TKO and GEM. Anyway, that's it and that's all, folks, and, if you're feeling extra generous, donate a little money or subscribe to show your support for the site and show(s); it's not free to host the site, the show, to make and record videos, and everything in between, so, anything would be greatly appreciated, even if you just tell a friend or two about the site and show(s). You can also support the site by shopping at Amazon. Cheers, and have a lovely rest of the day. And if you're looking for solutions to the often horribly lacking internal storage inside board game boxes, Robert Searing creates some great-looking foam inserts y'all should check out (foam > wood).

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PSP #188: Board Gaming with VOLT: Robot Battle Arena, Formula D, Miniatures, and More

In today's episode, Marc talks about what it's like constantly getting rammed from behind in Formula D, the joys of pushing fellow robots into pits in VOLT: Robot Battle Arena, and why he thinks Zombicide was a horrible game to start with when it comes to painting miniatures--which has nothing to do with the actual game or quality of the miniatures. Anyway, that's it and that's all, folks, and, if you're feeling extra generous, donate a little money or subscribe to show your support for the site and show(s); it's not free to host the site, the show, to make and record videos, and everything in between, so, anything would be greatly appreciated, even if you just tell a friend or two about the site and show(s). You can also support the site by shopping at Amazon. Cheers, and have a lovely rest of the day. And if you're looking for solutions to the often horribly lacking internal storage inside board game boxes, Robert Searing creates some great-looking foam inserts y'all should check out (foam > wood).

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PSP #187: Board Gaming with Probe, Dungeons & Dragons, and More

In today's episode, Marc talks about a bunch of random nonsense and people you don't know, an old word game called Probe--if y'all never heard of it, keep it that way--and his first time playing a little tabletop RPG some of y'all may have heard of: Dungeons & Dragons. Anyway, that's it and that's all, folks, and, if you're feeling extra generous, donate a little money or subscribe to show your support for the site and show(s); it's not free to host the site, the show, to make and record videos, and everything in between, so, anything would be greatly appreciated, even if you just tell a friend or two about the site and show(s). You can also support the site by shopping at Amazon. Cheers, and have a lovely rest of the day. And if you're looking for solutions to the often horribly lacking internal storage inside board game boxes, Robert Searing creates some great-looking foam inserts y'all should check out (foam > wood).

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