Ed Note: It seems that any discussion of works, or works inspired by H.P.Lovecraft require a disclaimer, a sort of preemptive dismissal of Lovecraft as a person. So I’ll do that here. Lovecraft was tremendous racist. Those elements populate his stories, and their tropes.
Looking at his legacy, I also frankly feel a sense of pity. It’s hard not to feel such a thing for someone who found existential dread in the concept of air conditioning.
Whenever I want to illustrate how different types of stories lend themselves to different gameplay experiences, I tend to compare Dungeons and Dragons, and Call of Chtulhu. Both are tabletop RPG’s, generally about a group of characters working together, often to try to save the world. In modern DND characters can get hit with swords, fireballs, poison and spike traps and keep trucking.
In Call of Cthuhlu, it’s a incredible victory if everyone is even alive after a given session, regardless of how many limbs they have left. Or if they now have extra! Both are possible.
In that sense then, Arkham Horror: The Card Game felt fairly reflective of the brand. I played through the intro campaign with a friend, and by the end both of our characters were worse for wear, and we only just barely stopped Arkham from being leveled via throwing someone else into a wailing mouth of tentacles.
A classic.
It’s also a bit muddly to try to summarize the mechanics. The players do all the normal things that Lovecraft protagonists do, but now with cards. They travel from location to location (cards), equip gear (cards), fight enemies (cards), and take damage (not cards, tracking chits).
The most re-used mechanic then is the idea of the skill check. There are four skills, and players will be given a number to try to beat. This is done by drawing from a bag of numeric modifiers. Some are positives, most are negative, and a few are conditional. There’s also an instant failure! Some of these checks can be quite high, necessitating either burning cards from your hand to pump the check, or having a friend help you by doing the same.
Notably, cards are burned before the modifier is revealed. As such, playing cards directly into a automatic failure is possible, and does not feel good.
Skill checks are used for attacking enemies, interacting with locations, and searching for clues. It’s the first situation mentioned above that causes the most problems, as enemies remain attacking you until dealt with, either by you or a friend.
Enemies, by the way, do not use random checks. Their attacks will always connect. Their dark plans always tick forward. Luck is only a factor for the player, not the grand things that dwell in the spaces between space.
I don’t know if I like the Arkham Horror card game. My primary experience of it is a sense of disappointed relief after completion. I was a alive, but those I had sacrificed were not. I feel no call to purchase the expansions and add-ons, to delve ever deeper into a world of mysteries, unpleasant secrets, and cosmic horror, not because I lack curiosity, but because I will never truly win. Because victory is not victory, it is a mere delaying of inevitable death, because I cannot kill the un-killable, because a stat block for the things that lurk is the dark is a cruel joke, numbers that can only at best sketch a foolish outline of inconceivable majesty.
There is a mountain called Path of Exile 2. There are a lot of ways up this mountain. Some ways are faster. Some ways are slower.
Some paths simply do not lead to the top.
The first step in climbing is deciding at all that you want to climb. It’s an invisible choice, in the context of the game, but it’s a choice. It is one of many choices, and it is the first step, but it is not the first choice. That choice was made back when you first made your character, and selected which class you wanted.
Path of Exile was also a mountain, but it was a slightly harsher one. Maybe not more difficult, but less accepting of certain types of mistakes. Path of Exile 2 is kinder than its prequel. Respeccing is much easier—but there is no option to change class.
If you decide that as a monk, you simply cannot climb this mountain, I’m sorry. Leave the base-camp. You’re going to have to make a new character and walk there again.
You don’t give up everything though. You’ll still have all the items and currency you got on the way up, so your second trek to endgame will be faster. More importantly, you’ll have the knowledge.
Let’s talk about that knowledge. Path of Exile 2 is a very popular mountain. There are a lot of maps of the mountain, and it’s your choice if you want to use them. Frankly, it can seem foolish not to. The mountain is big, and there are a million terrifying choices to make. What equipment should I bring? What path should I take? What skills, what support skills, what meta support skills? How do I manage the trees, specifically the passive skill, atlas skill, and sub-atlas skill trees?
Personally, I haven’t looked anything up yet. That doesn’t mean I haven’t learned anything from the community. Sometimes on my trek I’ll encounter fellow hikers, far further along than I am, and I’ll glean information about what they’re doing from observation.
I ran into a lot of players also playing Witches with 50% of their health reserved, telling me that they picked certain nodes on the ascendancy class. Those nodes seemed to be working well for them, so I decided to try them out.
I witnessed their entourages of arsonist skeletons, ascending the mountain beside them. So I turned off some auras, and called up some more shambling pyromaniacs of my own.
Sure, I’m not looking up a guide. But I’m using the trade websites, swapping my exalted orbs for alchemy orbs at favorable rates. I’m climbing by myself, but I’m absolutely not alone.
The result is that progress is slow. By numerical standards, I’m maybe a third of the way to the top. By practical standards, I suspect I’m less than a tenth of the way there. Map tier 6/15, after 80 hours.
But I’m still climbing.
Perhaps calling it the top is a bit of misnomer. Maybe it’s just a peak.
My “biggest” achievement in the original Path of Exile was getting a single kill on the end game boss called Uber Elder. It took probably dozens of hours to get there, and a massive number of attempts (less than 20, so mechanically, not the hardest boss I’ve ever fought). But probably the most hours to actually do the fight.
That’s because while Path of Exile wasn’t an incredibly hard game, it was an incredibly punishing one. Die, and you lose 10% progress to the next level. In the endgame, you got six attempts at each boss or fight and then it’s game over.
As a fight, Uber Elder was incredibly punishing in many ways. You have to fight the two hardest bosses in the game at once. But the main reason it took dozens of hours was because getting to that fight required a specific set of items, and getting those items required another specific set of items, and getting those…
You get the point. It’s turtles all the way down. And to be clear, once you use those items to start the fight, they’re gone, win or lose.
I don’t know how rare beating that boss even is. I beat it once. There are probably folks who have done it hundreds of times.
Path of Exile 2 is even more punishing, at least right now. You get one attempt. Die a single time, and you’re kicked out, back to your hideout with chunk of experience gone, and no recourse.
Better luck next time.
Except… luck probably isn’t the reason you died. Not really. When I die, it’s usually because I’m less cautious than I should be. I was a little too greedy, a little too reckless, not paying quite enough attention. Then, a slip, and suddenly I am tumbling back down the mountain, the last 30 minutes of progress wiped out.
It’s then that I’m tempted to look up a guide, to find a map. But I don’t really want to. A math quiz when you’ve been given the answer key is an exercise is scribing, and nothing more. For better, or more likely worse, I want to earn my success. When my enemies fall, I want it to because I outplayed them. More realistically, I want it to be because I solved the puzzle the game developer set in front me.
I want to climb the mountain myself. If that means I never reach the peak, so be it.
The Path of Exile 2 beta is out. I got a demo a few months ago, but now that I’ve fully played through it, I have even more thoughts. I’m going breaking down my thoughts on it into two writeups, one on the campaign, and one the endgame. Technically, they are the same game, but mechanically they are very different experiences.
Now, before I get into that, there’s some brief background that is necessary. Path of Exile 2 is a sequel to my 2nd most played game of all time, Path of Exile. (about 3000+ hours?) My thoughts are going to be at least somewhat in comparison to it’s predecessor.
As a brief filter, I offer the following phrases: “juicing maps” “6L” “Farming blood adqueducts for a Tab”
If you know what any of these mean, just click here to skip ahead. If you don’t, you are likely to find the following background information helpful.
ARPG’s in Brief
Path of Exile 2, hereby abreviated to PoE 2, is a isometric ARPG from Grinding Gear Games.
For those who might not know, ARPG stands for “Action Role-Playing Game.” ARPG’s are defined by having virtually no roleplaying elements, and the action parts dominated by spamming your abilities every second you have the mana/rage/potato points to do so.
Here’s a less cynical definition: ARPG’s are traditionally top-down or isometric real time action games defined by extensive skill trees, character customization and itemization. Combat generally has two modes, fighting against trash mobs, which are pinatas for stacks of loot, and fighting against bosses, which are also pinatas, except this time they have a baseball bat.
Trash mobs are fairly brainless and just rush the player, while bosses tend to be more correographed experiences, closer to something from a Bullet Hell, or Hades.
The first Path of Exile differentiated itself from other ARPG’s by making everything into game an item, and making those items tradable. Skills are items, (skill gems) which got socketed into other items you wore, and those sockets had colors determining which gems could be socketed.
The ability to refund skills points was an item. To enter endgame areas, specific items were needed. Same to fight endgame bosses. To buy items from vendors, it was necessary to have more items to trade them.
It’s other big differentiator was a skill tree so massive that one of my favorite things to do is pop it out as a joke, just to mess with people, who did not believe it was real.
Finally, there was the gem system. Gems could be supported by other gems. Take a fireball, link it to a multiple projectile gem, and now it shoots three fireballs. Link it to a piercing projectiles gem, and now they penetrate. Link it to a faster cast speed, make a few more tweaks, and now your character is a Fourth of July fireworks display.
Changes between PoE and Poe 2
PoE 2 makes a lot of changes to the above underlying systems, most of which serve to make the campaign much less punishing for inexperienced players. Gold exists as a flat currency to use with vendor NPC’s. This makes getting leveling gear a much easier process.
Gold can also be used to refund skill points. This is possibly the biggest change between the two games, because in PoE, a badly built skill tree would softlock a character. This would make it impossible to get the items needed to respec, and pretty much force the player to make a new character.
Sockets on items and their associated colors are also gone. Skill gems are socketed into a general skill gem menu. The types of support gems that can be used are limited by primary stats. There are even more small tweaks to make suggestions to players on what gems to use, and to prevent them from making choices that simply don’t work.
The skill tree is still massive. There’s now a dodge roll. Movement is a much more flowy thing then it previously was.
The general changes though result in much easier on-boarding experience with the games initial systems, instead of purely being thrown into the deep end, like the player was with the first Path of Exile.
Does all of this mean the game is easier?
Well, yes and no.
The Campaign
Generally I like the campaign. There are some incredibly sloggy bits, notably a single map in Act 2 that just goes on forever, and three or four of the Act 3 areas really tested my patience for just wanting to see the next few things.
That said, outside of these, I really didn’t have many complaints. The bosses feel far more diverse and interesting then their PoE 1 counterparts, and also much harder. The final boss of Act 1 in particular killed me about 10-20 times before I finally defeated it. It’s worth noting that I actually killed it right as it killed me, but that still counts, so on I went.
They’re also just much more fun as a general visual spectacle. My personal favorite is probably Crowbell, a giant crow-man thing that tries to beat the player to death with a bell. The fight isn’t particularly hard, but does have a fun transitions, with Crowbell running around, powering up, wrenching a bell off it’s stand, then using it as a bludgeon.
The trash mobs… well, they’re ARPG trash mobs. The nicest thing I can say about them is that they did in fact contribute to my /deaths count.
Finally, there’s the story elements. I generally quite liked these, even if the current content kinda ends on bit of a cliffhanger. I’m also the only person I know who cared about the lore of PoE, so maybe take that with a grain of salt. There are some callbacks to PoE, but I don’t think missing them will have any impact on your enjoyment.
I will say that I personally experienced a moment of glee getting to fight a character whose only ever been hinted at in flavor text from PoE, but another friend of mine who played the game before me didn’t even realize he was a recurring character, and thought he was someone new.
If you’re playing through the campaign without a build guide, or information about the game, I’d estimate it’ll take about 12-20 hours to play through? There’s a good chunk of game here. That said, the campaign does not currently conclude the story, as that’s planned for the games full release, so if you’re playing the game just for the campaign, I’d hold off.
Overall Thoughts
I like PoE 2. I have problems with the game, but they’re not present during the campaign. It changes a lot of esoteric bullshit that was required to play, made the boss fights more interesting, and is just generally more friendly, if not easier.
Some parts are a bit of slog.
That said, I think the main reason to currently play the campaign is to get to endgame. The campaign is not a finished game yet, with a complete story, and the beta is currently $30.
If the full campaign maintains it’s current level of quality for the remaining acts on full release, Path of Exile 2 will be worth playing purely as a standalone ARPG just for that. But for players who aren’t in a rush, or want a new ARPG, I would say to wait.
Ed Note: This article uses a few specific bits of terminology related playing limited Magic: The Gathering, mostly the acronym B.R.E.A.D. If you’re not familiar with the term/acronym, a brief read of this Stack overflow paragraph defines them well.
I participated in the first Regional Championship Qualifier at The Fourth Place over the weekend. As this is one of the more competitive events I’ve ever done, I thought I’d talk about the experience.
This was a Limited RCQ, starting with 5 rounds of sealed, and then cutting to Top 8 for a draft. The set for both was Foundations. But before I get into the event, let’s talk about prep!
Prep
I…. did not prep much. I prepped more than I have for most other sealed events I’ve done, but much less than I could have. I reviewed a fair number of sealed pools, I looked at some articles, and I did two drafts of the set prior. The first draft was on Arena, and I lost every single match quite badly. The second was a smaller in-person event where I won.
I do think the prep made a difference, but I also think especially in the draft, I could have done much better with my picks. More on that later.
Sealed
For the sealed portion of the event, this was the deck I ended up building.
After opening all my packs I was pretty confident I would end up in green. I had bombs in Scavenging Ooze, Mossborn Hydra, Sylvan Scavenging, and Ghalta, Primal Hunger. I also had removal in Bushwhack and Bite Down, and and a few giant growths.
My secondary color wasn’t as clear.
Looking at the rest of the pool, I scratched off white and blue as secondaries. They didn’t offer the bombs of red or black, and had limited amounts of mediocre removal.
Red had two big bombs in Shivan Dragon and Twinflame Tyrant, but it didn’t have any targeted removal before 5 mana, and even then, it wasn’t instant speed.
Black won out as a secondary color on the strength of its removal (Eaten Alive, and 2x Bake Into A Pie), and the fact that it still provided a very solid bomb in High-Society Hunter. My read at the time was that I had plenty of bombs in green, and more removal would serve me better in the sealed Environment.
Looking back at the pool now, I do think there was a strong argument for green/red, but that wasn’t choice I made at the time.
I made two spicy decisions in the deckbuilding. The first was not splashing for Twinflame Tyrant, despite having a Campus Guide and three Evolving Wilds.
I think this was the right choice. Twinflame is two red pips, and my deck has 8~ (more on this in a moment) double pip cards. It was much more important to fix my base so that I could drop my double pip bombs, than it was to enable a single additional bomb at the cost of less consistency.
The second decision was including Cackling Prowler over Dwynen, Gilt-Leaf Daen. This was a mistake, and it was a mistake that I would proceed to fix the entire night, swapping the two after pretty much every game 1. I thought that the ward 2 on Prowler was more important than reach on Dwynen. I was very wrong. There are a lot of flyers in this set, and something that can deal with the birds was more important than something that took an extra two mana to blow up.
Matches
Generally speaking, this is where I would talk about matches. Unfortunately, after playing 9 hours of magic in a row, I don’t remember my opponents’ decks, and I did not take notes.
So instead, here are a few fun moments!
One opponent got out Extravagant Replication. This didn’t worry me, until suddenly they had four copies of Spitfire Lagac.
In another game, I was forced to burn 3 cards in Ambush Wolf, Giant Growth, and Bushwhack and seven life just to deal with Sire of Seven Deaths. I still lost somehow. Maybe it was the 3 for 1 and 14 life differential. Who can say.
Finally, in my last set of games, despite mostly being deadweight every other match, Revenge of the Rats finally did some work, giving me enough fodder to sac into Vampire Gourmand to push through, and get enough cards to recover from an incredibly bad situations.
Ultimately, I finished with a record of 3 – 1 -2, which was enough to put me into the top 8.
Deck
1 Authority of the Consuls
1 Bake into a Pie
1 Day of Judgment
1 Exsanguinate
1 Felidar Savior
1 Healer's Hawk
1 Infestation Sage
1 Macabre Waltz
3 Make Your Move
2 Marauding Blight-Priest
2 Midnight Snack
9 Plains
1 Sanguine Syphoner
1 Skyknight Squire
1 Stromkirk Bloodthief
8 Swamp
1 Vampire Soulcaller
3 Vanguard Seraph
1 Youthful Valkyrie
Sideboard
2 Aegis Turtle
1 Archmage of Runes
1 Ashroot Animist
1 Bigfin Bouncer
1 Cackling Prowler
1 Consuming Aberration
1 Fleeting Distraction
1 Good-Fortune Unicorn
1 Grappling Kraken
1 Lightshell Duo
1 Mossborn Hydra
2 Run Away Together
1 Slumbering Cerberus
1 Sure Strike
If you are looking at this list with some level of confusion and profanity, I promise you. There is an explanation for why there is so much blue, when I am not even in the color. It is not a good explanation, because it was not made via good decisions. But there is an explanation, and it’s Consuming Aberration.
I have a bad habit, one that I may now be cured of purely as a result of how horrible this draft went. If the rare in the first pack looks like a bomb, I will take it. And then I will continue to try to pick into those colors, even if I really, really shouldn’t.
As a result, there are a lot of blue cards in this pool, instead of anything remotely useful or good.
There is a second card in this pack that tells a story, and it’s this.
This was not a first pick. It was a much later pick. And should probably have been a sign to me that not a single person at the table was going green/red. Did I listen to this sign? Did I pick the two Mossborn Hydras that were passed me to me, and the other strong red cards?
No. Of course I didn’t.
Instead, after, picking up a Day of Judgment and an Authority of Consuls, and proceeded to try to force Black/White as hard as possible in packs 2-3 to salvage the situation.
Top 8 Matches
I don’t know if the universe took pity on me, or if everyone at the table was having a rough time, but I did in fact manage to squeak through round one before being eliminated handily in round 2.
For round 1, I had an incredible stroke of luck, getting Authority of Consuls early into a blue/white go-wide deck in both games. This was an incredible bit of bad fortune for them, as it pretty much single-handedly turned off their deck’s ability to flash in Resolute Reinforcements to stall me. It also allowed me to get extra turns of ping in, as even when they got their larger flyers, they came in tapped.
Round 2, however, was the buck finally stopped. My opponent was playing midrange Grixis, with a fair amount of threshold dependent cards, and I just got stomped. While the games were slogs, they managed to both get board presence with a bunch of fairly useful cards, and even Day of Judgement couldn’t save me from Sphinx of Forgotten Lore, and Kioara, the Rising Tide, resulting in me going down in two consecutive losses.
While I didn’t stick around to watch finals, it did look like both players were playing three color decks, something I thought was interesting.
Tone and Overall Thoughts
My goal for the event was to get into the Top 8. This might sound intimidating, until you realize it was capped at 20 entries, meaning it was really more of a “Finish in the top 40%”.
I made a lot of mistakes. By my count, I’d put it at something like 4-5 misplays, and that’s not even counting missed triggers. Arena has made me very good at spotting play options, and outs. But it’s made me very bad at keeping track of my own triggers, and asking to hold priority at turn end.
My prep did help. I don’t know how much, but it did make a difference in some of the deck building, and knowing that certain cards I would have otherwise written off were actually bombs.
My draft was terrible. I had exactly 23 cards in my colors, and no fixing.
Generally speaking, this was a pretty chill and polite event, and I hope even the more competitive events at The Fourth Place stay this way. There was no shouting, and no real issues/conflicts, with players generally being polite but firm on various rulings.
This was a good event, and I wish I was more excited about the top 4 finish, but as I’m me, anything other than complete victory will always feel like a bit of a wash. I do think I’d try another Sealed RCQ though, as long as the set was good.
PS. The counts on this sealed pool look wonky at first, but this pool does not include 6 lands I opened, and the also the system doesn’t seem to like to count lands. But was 84 cards, as I’ve spent all morning double checking to make sure I got it right. It’s a similar case for the draft pool, as I didn’t include the lands.
Boston FIG 2024 was pretty good! It’s the first time the event has been held in person for quite a while, and it was held at the Boston Cyclorama.
Fun Fact: The Cyclorama was used to hold a giant 3D painting of the Battle of Gettysburg. There’s a incredible history to this building, but this is a gaming blog. So instead of talking about the history of the Boston Flower Exchange, let’s talk about games.
As with previous write-ups, I’ll mostly be talking about the games I saw and liked.
Being entirely indie games, there were a lot of games I didn’t find fun, or didn’t particularly speak to me this year. I won’t be talking about them. There’s no value in ripping into a small project that’s just not for me. There were also a pretty decent number of games I didn’t get a chance to play, including a bunch of the award winners, so those also aren’t on this list.
In no particular order, here are some things I saw and liked!
Abracabattle
Abracabattle is a clever tableau builder where you build a set of spells to attack your opponent. Those spells trigger off dice rolls, and the last wizard standing wins.
I didn’t play Abracabttle at Boston FIG, mostly because I got a chance to sit down and play it last weekend at PAX Unplugged. My opinion hasn’t changed since then. I did, however, spend a fair amount of the show sending folks to Abracabattle booth to give it a shot.
Here’s my take from PAX Unplugged:
“Last year Abracabattle was a game with strong core elements, that didn’t quite have the right cards for its gameplay. Now, it feels like a full game, with a few reworked systems, new items, and a MUCH stronger set of cards. I’m really excited to see where it goes.”
TLDR: If you can play Abracabattle, you should.
Also, Abracabattle won the Best Game in Development award!
Cappy & Tappy
My notes for Cappy & Tappy read “Place Tetrominos to build routes for your friend, 2D platformer” and honestly, I think that’s all you really need to know for this one.
It’s clever, it’s interesting, and I’d have stronger feelings on it if I’d played more. As is though, I’d suggest just going and playing the version on itch.io if you want to give it a shot.
I didn’t see this during my play time, but it looks like at higher levels the pieces have obstacles and boons on them?
Oasis Blitz
Oasis Blitz is a 3d platformer with the gimmick is the ability to do a sort of “dolphin dive” through dirt. It feels incredibly smooth, and if my description of the movement doesn’t quite make sense, their itch.io page does a much better job of getting the idea across with a few choice GIFS.
It gave me sort of Sonic the Hedgehog/Neon White vibes. If this sounds neat, I’d just go play the demo.
Mushroom Kid’s Big Grass Sword
Mushroom Kid’s Big Grass Sword is what you’d get if you combined Getting Over It and Deepest Sword. It’s an interesting, if somewhat frustrating mechanic. Unlike Getting Over It, though, Mushroom Kid’s Big Grass Sword seems more focused on sets of puzzle rooms, and less focused on being a rage game.
Rage Games aren’t quite my favorite, so I liked this change of pace. Controls felt a little wonky, but that’s probably to be expected with this genre.
Breaking News
The best way I can think to describe Breaking News is as sort of weird WarioWare style style game where you primarily interact by smacking a TV with your arrow keys. Frankly, it feels rude to try to simplify the mechanic to that extent. But the short version is that you are watching television, and by smacking the television different directions, you change reality.
See, that sounds more confusing then the WarioWare thing.
Regardless, it’s interesting, and quite weird.
Murder is Game Over
I have a sort of perverse fascination with RPG Maker from a technical perspective. The trade off of being able to make something very quickly, while being unable to get the engine to do exactly what you want is interesting. The result is that when I see full, completed projects made in RPG Maker, like Murder Is Game Over from HitherYon games, I’m always curious ask how they did it.
There’s actually a whole series of Murder is Game Over games. The game they had at the show was the demo for their most recent release, the Blackinton Curse. From what I understand, they’re a series of murder mystery adventure games.
Someone’s Y
I love social deduction games. I loathe word games.
Someone’s Y, a social deduction game about determining who at the table has the hidden role of being the dangerous not-quite-vowel Y, puts me in a bit of a bind.
The result is a game whose structure I enjoy, but whose mechanics I can’t really interact with effectively. I don’t do a good job when it comes to keeping track of letters in words.
It has a print and play version, and is part of a set of 6 other games from MILLRAT Studios. Even if this wasn’t for me, it makes me excited to see the other 5.
Between Realms
I’ve talked about games that demo well at conventions before. Between Realms is not one of those. In fact, it might be the sort of game that demos really badly. Its creator describes it as “Magic: The Gathering meets Everdell“.
It’s strangely themed, complex to play, and uses cards for everything, and I would have never heard about it if I hadn’t gone to Boston FIG.
I’m going to keep an eye on this one, because I think I’d like it better if I had more time to sit down and really play a full game of it. That said, trying to play it after a few hours of other demos, it kind of just fried my brain.
Starline Hill
Starline Hill is interesting. It’s a semi-abstract piece placement game about trying to create patterns by placing stars. Its selling factor is its unique manner of repopulating space on the board once you’ve removed your own pieces to score patterns.
I’m ambivalent on Starline Hill. I think it’s a very solid game, but it’s not a game for me. I would both play more it, but I’m not rushing to back the Kickstarter.
For folks who really enjoy abstract strategy games like Othello, Go, and Connect 4, I would recommend taking a look. There’s something very clever here. It’s just not quite my cup of tea.
Rock Paper Smash
Rock Paper Smash was actually the first game I demoed at the show, and it’s probably the one I’ve thought about the most since then.
The short version is that it’s Super Smash Brothers, but all attacks are coded to either Rock, Paper or Scissors, and when attacks clash, the winning item attack resolves.
I want to make two quick notes here. First, the game has been updated significantly from the version up on the Steam marketing page, and two, it’s much more interesting than its premise might imply. Many of the characters have unique movement abilities completely unrelated to the RPS mechanics.
It’s just a very fun, very clever little game, and I’m really excited to see the full release.
Co-Operatives Puzzle Room
Co-Operatives is a bit of an odd one. It was in the tabletop section, but it isn’t really a traditional board game. Instead, it’s a Boston based set of escape rooms. The catch is that the team is split and placed on either side of a wall, and each side has information the other side needs.
I had a great time playing through one with a set of very kind strangers, and would absolutely do another one. If you’re in Boston, and looking for something to do, here’s their website. This is the sort of thing I recommend if you like tactile puzzles and fiddling about.
Tumblesteeds
Quick disclosure on this one: I was helping demo at the booth, so I’m not exactly a neutral third party here. I’m not involved in development or anything, but I have playtested this a few times at the Upper Valley Game Designers meetups.
Tumblesteeds is a roll-and-write about filling up your pastures of horses before your opponents do. It’s an in-development title from Resonym, and while it’s not finalized, I think it’s neat.
Wrap-Up
This was only a small subsection of the games at Boston FIG. I didn’t get a chance to play a bunch of the final award winners, including Sent By The Gods, Sincerely, Robin, or Thar It Rolls. There were also some award winners like Skydiver that I actively did not enjoy. And that’s fine! Not every game has to be for me.
I’m hopeful that Boston FIG can continue to run events. It’s a good space for smaller projects, and to see things I’d otherwise never quite get a chance to look at.
