It's New Game Friday! And David Wiley (Cardboard Clash) is here to tell us about the new games.
Here’s what is new this week:
- Iron Helm
- It Was This Big
- Tortuga 1667
This week's new games are all available at https://www.pnparcade.com/collections/new-games
Iron Helm
Your withered hand grips the handle of your sword. Blood mixed with sweat drips down your brow and finds its way into your eyes, stinging for just a moment. Pounding footsteps shake the ground and you attempt to find a way to steady your aching feet. You turn to face your foe as you mutter to yourself, “I’m getting too old for this sh--.”
In Iron Helm you are an aging adventurer out on one final quest to obtain as much gold and treasure as you can so you can finally retire from your dangerous lifestyle. You will venture one level at a time deep into a perilous dungeon, battling nasty monsters, acquiring useful items and powerful artifacts, and learning new skills. Your ultimate goal is to stay alive long enough to take out the main boss lurking deep within the earth. Survive and you win, die and you become just another corpse that future adventurers will step over.
Who doesn’t like a classic dungeon crawl? This one is really interesting, as you are an older warrior going out for one last hurrah so to speak. With interesting exploration mechanics - each turn you have two face-down cards to choose from, pick one to flip, and then can either encounter that face-up card or discard it to take the remaining face-down one - don’t worry, there are plenty of nasty effects that can happen depending on how said card is encountered! Combat is simple, with the enemies usually getting the first hit on you. There is loot and skill progression. And I imagine tons of expansion packs that will slowly make their way into the Arcade in the future.
It Was This Big
After a long day out on the water, you want to brag about your day’s catch. No one believed your last elaborate tale about landing the largest fish, so you decide to try again. The question remains: how big was it?
I thought Jason was crazy when he announced the contest for the identical card game challenge. But It Was This Big takes the restriction and makes a game that is interesting and challenging all at once. You take two cards and place one as the head and one as the tail of your fish. Then you start to fill in the space between them, starting from the tail, without moving those cards and without overlapping or leaving too large of a gap. Can you accurately gauge how much space you need to fill in the fish, or will your tale all fall apart when they realize that you didn’t know, really, just how big that fish was. With a vague player count of 1+, this can be challenged alone or with large groups of friends in a fast game of trying to see who is better at gauging how big that fish could be. For an extra challenge, make the fish in Landscape mode on the cards, which will make a far longer fish that is worth double the points if you get it right!
Tortuga 1667
The year is 1667 and you are a pirate sailing the waters of the Caribbean. A Spanish Galleon floats nearby, and you’ve talked your crewmates into working together to steal all of its treasure. What you haven’t told your fellow pirates is that you have no intention to share the treasure once you have it. You are still loyal to your native country, and keeping the treasure for yourself will finally buy you some respect back home. Some of your crewmates have told you that they share your loyalty and that they’ll help you maroon the greedy pirates on your ship to the rocky island of Tortuga. But you’ve seen your friends’ loaded pistols and heard their whisperings of mutiny. You know that nobody can be trusted…
Keep your friends close and your enemies closer in this game where you are playing the players as much as the game. Move your pawn throughout the map, changing roles based upon your position as you jockey with your supposed teammates to grab the most gold you can before the Spanish Armada card appears. This game plays a vast range: 2-9 players, and is sure to generate a lot of excitement - and tension - as players try to jockey themselves into position for victory through the manipulation of other pawns, the treasure on the ships and island, and the all-important voting cards. Even those who aren’t big fans of social deduction games in general might find plenty to enjoy here, as there is enough game on these planks to keep you satisfied.
For all of the new games, visit https://www.pnparcade.com/collections/new-games
Game of the Week: Pocket Kung Fu
Pocket Kung Fu transforms your tabletop into an arena of Kung Fu warriors. Objects like books or drinking glasses becoming active game elements. Take this super portable game with you to play while waiting for your food to arrive at a restaurant or while in a convention line.
Have you ever wanted to turn a boring old table into a battleground? Do you fondly remember playing games as a child where random objects serves as part of your play area? Pocket Kung Fu will strike a chord with your inner child, transforming any surface into a playable arena and utilizing items such as books, cups, or bowls as obstacles to maneuver around. This is a combat dexterity game without the dexterity, as you move to position yourself to strike opponents in vulnerable areas, to shift into a defensive stance, or to use obstacles to your advantage for additional actions on your turns. Watch your cards move around the arena, scooping up training cards and dealing out damage to the opponents’ chi. A game that can play up to 6, this is sure to be fast and exciting fun on your table.
Check out Pocket Kung Fu here: https://www.pnparcade.com/collections/game-of-the-week
See you next week with more information on our newest print and play games!