Very nice!
It reminds me somewhat of a game called “Escape from the Planet of the Robot Monsters”
There aren’t many pictures online
2 Likes
That reminds me of Commander Keen 
4 Likes
Over the weekend we found a used but pristine copy of Munchkin Treasure Hunt for $2 at a library we were visiting. My daughter had played it a few times in the past at another library. It’s easy to play, introduces the negotiated cooperation seen in other Munchkin games, but absent is the “take that!” element people loathe most about the main titles.
The game is alright. It doesn’t overstay its welcome and works well for kids. It was not a game that I was necessarily looking to buy, but the price and the fact that it can supposedly be played by someone as young as 6 sold me. My youngest is that age and constantly needs new games. Hopefully it goes over well with her. We need more games the whole family can and is willing to play.
2 Likes
After the complete and miserable failure that was Palladium’s Robotech RPG Tactics Kickstarter, I’m surprised anyone would trust them too run a Kickstarter with another IP. Granted, all that seems to be involved here is updating the art and overall design of the contents. Still, there are ways to screw things up. I’m not saying this as someone anti-Palladium. I want to see them succeed like I would and other Michigan business.
Is there even a market for Palladium’s ruleset anymore?
1 Like
Rifts stuff at least seems to still sell for them, but I’d be shocked if they’re getting many, if any new players in.
1 Like
We gave my younger daughter a copy of King of Tokyo for her birthday yesterday. She’s only just turned 6, but is pretty obsessed with kaiju and wanton destruction in general. We had a fun first playthrough with me (40s) and her older sister (8). It was really their first foray into gaming beyond chutes and ladders and their own made-up games and they seemed to really enjoy all the mechanics, especially currency mechanic with the energy cubes.
Of course an immediate house rule emerged that you could choose who you dealt damage to, primarily so that they could deal all their damage to me and not each other. The dynamic shifted slightly once I was so pitiful that underdog syndrome kicked in.
This morning they’re incorporating the props, rules and ideas from the game into their regular character play. I’m curious to see how it changes their ongoing homebrew Paw Patrol game they play on the gridded whiteboards.
And then we opened grandma’s late-arriving gift, and it was a copy of Catan Jr…should be seeing me on this thread more!
4 Likes
Our 7 year old is obsessed with cats. Some friends bought her Magical Kitties Save the Day. We’ve only had time to do one session, but it seems well done. Hard to tell how much was the game itself and how much was my spouse’s expertise and talent as a DM. But she had fun and it introduced her to the basics of D&D.
Will have to check out King Tokyo. For a low stake, cooperative, and easy to play at age 6, we’ve have good success with IceCool and Wildcraft.
2 Likes
It really is an awesome time when there’s a game for everyone’s obsession. Even if many share similar mechanics, the peripherals really are fun. I used to play a game called “Screaming Eagles” endlessly as a kid, because I was obsessed with jets (my poor dad, but he can blame his dad, a navy mechanic).
My older daughter loves cute animals and is burning to be a GM (on the bossy side, but at least in part because she takes narrative and worldbuilding VERY seriously) I will definitely check out Magical Kitties. Strangely I haven’t been able to even get her to consider the My Little Pony RPG, even at the height of her Pony obsession, but I think that’s because, like me, she loves the absolute control of homebrewing.
Similarly, I’ve been looking at trying to get a copy of the 1968 sailing game Regatta for my wife, a sailing instructor. I wonder if it would be the thing that pulls her in. Watching some playthroughs on Youtube to see if the mechanics follow the physics of sailing enough for her exacting tastes.
All that said, thanks for the recommendations for coop games, I think they would thrive on that, seeing how they “cooperated” to slaughter my Ice Penguin 
2 Likes
We’ve found coop games good for the times when the pressure of a competition is too much for whatever reason. Like when she feels she needs to bond or it’s been a rough week. I misspoke about IceCool. That isn’t cooperative. It does have a nice physical aspect to it though. We typically play standing so we can reposition around the table.
2 Likes
If you ever get to a point where you want even more kaiju play but less competitive, King of Monster Island is in the same family of games but cooperative. It’s an off-and-on popular game in our household, especially with my 6 year-old. Kids may need a little guidance in making choices beyond “run away” and “stand in place and hit,” but it’s almost always a good time.
I look forward to hearing how that goes for you. My kid used to love it, but only as a 2-player game. 3 or 4 forces harsher competition like original Catan does. If anyone wants to build out more, it cuts people off. As soon as that happened, she checked out.
I have to remember that a theme means a lot to kids, more than gameplay. Next time one of the kids is interested in a game with different graphics but is mechanically similar to something we already, I should just go with it. Anything to encourage family time.
3 Likes
For our kid, theme and stuff matters. My spouse sank a bunch of time into creating a campaign she could play but she got bored. No physical objects. Give her a map, some dice, and a small cat to move around and she is all in on the story. Suddenly my spouse’s gaming-story telling was great.
Yes! We are lucky that we can do dinner together almost every night. But board games encourage a different kind of bonding. Very different from multi-player video games.
3 Likes
For people looking for resources to help them get kids into D&D, this article points to a series of guides that aim just to do that. It’s the sort of thing I look at and wish was a resource for every game, and not just at the kids level. I doubt it could be broken down to a template a DM could use as a starting point for every adventurer for every game, but it’s a nice goal to have. RPGs can be intimidating to the uninitiated.
3 Likes
If you’re not disinclined to shop Amazon, they have some pretty good Black Friday deals going right now.
1 Like
Not really a game, but I’ve been greatly enjoying a book about games: “Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground” by Stu Horvath – a historical guide to tabletop RPGs from 1974 to the near-present. I haven’t finished this yet – I’ve only just barely started the 1980s – but this is already one of the most fun books I’ve read this year.
Horvath doesn’t just post lists of game – every game he includes has gotten at least one to two pages describing it and its impact – which ones were particularly innovative, which ones were especially fun, which ones just didn’t work. And it’s not just D&D and imitators – just flipping through it, I’ve seen Toon, Honey Heist, Microscope, and even the “Dallas” roleplaying game.
It is pretty much just roleplaying games, though – I don’t think I’ve seen any card games or board games, and there aren’t any writeups focusing on game creators (though creators are often discussed within the writeups of the games they created).
Horvath got bonus points from me for saying in his introduction that he wasn’t going to cover “Empire of the Petal Throne” because fuck Nazis. And he also didn’t deadname Jennell Jaquays.
Honestly a little surprised it hasn’t been featured on the main BB page, as it seems like the kind of book the frontpagers often enjoy…
6 Likes
This quote…
“Having to say goodbye to our valued colleagues is an unfortunate consequence of the program, and we will do our utmost to carry out this with respect, integrity and compassion.”
The folks losing their jobs aren’t feeling the respect, integrity, and compassion because there’s none in these layoffs. The company is doing well and heading into what is usually a high earnings quarter. So this is just some business bullshit.
2 Likes
Scythe is a really cool looking and interesting game, but it takes up too much space, runs longer than I would like, and is honestly more complicated than it needs to be. It constantly amuses me that I prefer My Little Scythe over the original because it fixes all of those issues. It goes a little too far in fixing the complexity, though.
Now this sequel, Expeditions? I might be able to get into that. I don’t have high hopes about its relative simplicity compared to Scythe, but it’s a step in the right direction. I’ve found myself really preferring games that are quick to learn/teach, with systems that feel surprisingly intuitive after a few rounds. I don’t know when I’ll ever get around to playing this one thanks to its $75 price tag, but I’m intrigued.
2 Likes
2 Likes
Major layoffs at another major company during “the most wonderful time of the year.” Not that many of us expect much from Hasbro.
3 Likes
What a wonderful article. One of my favorite things about board games is the kind of people that I have connected to, grown closer to, or just found an excuse to spend time with through gaming. There’s a special kind of person that is ready to get into the nitty-gritty of new mechanics-oriented board games.
I have a copy of Gloomhaven, mentioned in the article, in the closet right now, which I last played with my brother, lost to COVID, three years back already. Now I’m living in a new town and I hope that I meet some folks here eventually that will be thrilled to adventure forth. I’ll pull off the old stickers and reset the game. Start fresh and make some new connections. Like my brother would want me to.
4 Likes
