It's New Game Friday! David Wiley (Cardboard Clash) is here to tell us about the new games.
Here’s what is new this week:
- Forest Sky
- Forest Sky: Open Air
- Spell Write
- InTENse
https://www.pnparcade.com/collections/new-games
Forest Sky
Hawks, crows, eagles and owls wheel and whirl above the forest. The constant motion highlights the shifting balance of power that determines who really rules these skies.
This game is inspired by Fantasy Realms, a game that is all the rage right now. The gameplay here is simple, having you either draw a card, take one from a forest, or lock a card in the forest. At the end of the game, you score your 3-card hand and one of two 3-card forests (your choice) - and only the cards in your hand have their special scoring abilities trigger. The nuance of when to lock cards in the forest, which is also part of the end game trigger, is delightful. Few things are more satisfying than locking down that last card in a perfect 3-card forest to go with your hand, and I think you’ll enjoy this one too.
Forest Sky: Open Air
Whether it’s the intimidating vulture or the imitative mockingbird, most birds still pair off when it’s time to build a nest.
A delightful expansion that can be added in its entirety, or just mixing in some of the pairs and not others with the base game to change up the experience. Vultures are nice, since they score either cards from the discard or from the forest which helps pivot when that card you really wanted for your hand ends up locked down elsewhere. Mockingbirds provide wild abilities to let them count as another bird type or value. And nests score bonus points if you have exactly two birds of the same type in your chosen forest. These are fun, solid additions to the game and exactly what you want to see from an expansion.
Spell Write
Spell Write is a light and fun roll and write game for infinite players. Your objective is to fill in the Play Grid with 2-4 letter words, as well as earn bonus points along the way. The player with the highest score by the end of 14 rounds wins the game!
A quick grid-based roll-and-write game that is all about making short words of 2-4 letters in length in order to score points. Based on the die rolls, you’re choosing from several options for the letter you can use and, when doubles are rolled, there’s a chance to reroll one of the dice in order to keep multiple options for your use. If you loathe trying to make the biggest words, or ones that sound intelligent, then you might enjoy this one where the focus is on the small and getting things lined up well in your grid so you can make words both vertically and horizontally with your placed letters.
InTENse
inTENse is a light and fun roll and write game for infinite players. Your objective is to fill in the grid with dice rolls to create sums of 10, as well earn bonus points which are added to your score at the end of the game. The player with the highest score after 10 rounds, wins!
A quick die-rolling game where you’re filling in a grid of squares with numbers rolled to try and create sums of numbers that equal 10. The neatest thing here is that you’re only using numbers 1-4 for some of the boxes, meaning you have some tougher decisions to make about placement of those numbers to get sums to add up. If you want a fast little game with plenty of decision space in a small grid, this game is sure to be nice and intense.
https://www.pnparcade.com/collections/new-games
Game of the Week: Count of the Nine Estates on sale for just $2!
As the Count of the small territory of the Nine Estates, you must build up the county into a powerful economic and cultural center. However, limited nearby resources force you to make difficult decisions. Can you earn the favor of the King?
If you haven’t played anything by Scott Allen Szysz, you are missing out on a wonderful designer who creates some really fun and unique solo games. This one is no exception, taking the premise from Count of Nine and cranking it up a few notches and adding in extra cards to concern yourself with. Cards flip and rotate throughout the game, and provide both your resources to build structures as well as the structures you’ll be trying to build to score points. If you ever wanted to see a euro game of construction done in just a handful of cards and in a short span of time, this is the game that you’ll want to check out.
Check out Game of the Week here: https://www.pnparcade.com/collections/game-of-the-week
See you next week with more information on our newest print and play games!