The two of us were strolling along the beach. We could feel the damp sand underneath our feet. We stopped for a moment to dig our toes in and take a look around. There were plenty of beautiful objects just waiting to be found: driftwood for sculptures, sea glass for earrings and many other things. So we followed the Tides by Mike Berg from Button Shy.
Oliver KinnePost read time 8 min readLeave a Comment on Tinners’ Trail (Deluxe Edition) (Saturday Review)Cornwall, the early 19th century. Tin and copper mines are popping up everywhere. These metals are so important for the Empire. Tin is used in many alloys and copper to clad the ships of the Royal Navy. Both industries attract more and more people and lead to new developments and inventions. The growing demand for efficient water pumps leads to the development of the steam engine, which in turn allows the building of the first steam trains. However, it is the people who are at the heart of all of this activity and their daily walk from their homes to the mines becomes known as the Tinners' Trail by Martin Wallace from Alley Cat Games.
It was soon time for the most anticipated festival at Death School, whose motto was "Soul to win". According to legend, there was an accident at the school many years ago. Somehow numerous souls had been able to escape, and the teachers and students raced to recapture them all. Every year hence, Papa Death, Osiris, Hei and Bai Wuchang lead the students into a race of reaping souls, the Soulaween by Shi Chen from Play With Us Design.
Oliver KinnePost read time 5 min readLeave a Comment on Alien: Fate of the Nostromo (Saturday Review)The Nostromo was returning to Earth with a seven-member crew in stasis. Detecting a transmission from a nearby moon, the ship's computer awakens the crew and they land on the moon. While one part of the crew tracks down the source of the signal, the rest decipher part of the transmission and discover it's a warning - but it's too late! Despite protestations, the returning crew brings with them an Alien: Fate of the Nostromo by Scott Rogers from Ravensburger.
Oliver KinnePost read time 4 min read2 Comments on Two players – how games change in 2-player modes (Topic Discussion)I often play games with my wife. We have a fair few two-player-only games, but mostly we play games that were designed for two people or more. Some games do it really well and the experience is no different to higher player counts. Other games introduce two-player-specific setup or other rules and that can work too. In this article, I want to look at how games, that weren't specifically designed for two people, change, or don't change, when played with two people.
We had just landed in Normandy. It was the summer of 1944, but it was relatively cold. We were thousands of miles from home and the landscape was unknown to us. Yet, we had to push deeper into a country we didn't know in our goal to push the German forces out of France. There was regular machine gun fire and mortar bombardment. It was really scary, but we remained Undaunted: Normandy by Trevor Benjamin and David Thompson from Osprey Games.
Oliver KinnePost read time 4 min read4 Comments on Face-off – interactions in two-player games (Topic Discussion)I love playing board or card games with my wife. Spending a little, or a lot of time together focused on the same activity is a wonderful way to connect. It started as a date night, but now we might play a quick 5-10 minute game or two over lunch or we play a longer game. Co-operative games tend to be our favourite. Working together to solve the puzzle that the game presents is a lot of fun. That's why we also love solving the Sunday crossword puzzle together. There are very few two-player competitive games that we enjoy and in this article, I want to explain why.
Oliver KinnePost read time 6 min readLeave a Comment on Adventure Games: The Dungeon (Saturday Review)Waking up from an uneasy sleep, you look around. You aren't quite sure where you are or how you got here. There is moonlight streaming through the small, barred window. It looks like you're in some sort of cell, but you're not chained up or otherwise restrained unlike the skeleton opposite you. There is only one thing for it. You have to find a way to escape Adventure Games: The Dungeon by Phil Walker-Harding and Matthew Dunstan from Kosmos.
Waking up from years of hibernation, all of us were a bit dazed and confused. Temporary amnesia was very common and while we all knew our names, we only had some basic memories of what had happened before or what we were meant to do. We weren't even sure which ship we were on, let alone its layout. When we saw that one of our colleagues was dead and had a gaping hole in their chest, we knew something was seriously wrong. Nobody was sure what caused our colleague's death. We knew we had to work together to get out of this nightmare, but the trust in each other had evaporated. So we set about exploring the ship and finding our Nemesis by Adam Kwapiński from Awaken Realms.
The game, it's a test of sorts, for determining whether something is a machine or a human being. There's a judge and a subject. The judge asks questions and based on the subject's answers they determine who they are speaking with - what they are speaking with. All you have to do is ask a question. So, now it's your turn to ask Turing by Glenn Ford from Man O' Kent Games.
