New games for May 29, 2020 - Still Alone In The Burrow

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:

• Alone Against Fear
• Iron Helm: Blackened Burrow
• Leviathan
• Still In Business

This week's new games are all available at https://www.pnparcade.com/collections/new-games

Alone Against Fear

There are monsters out there, and you walk alone. Alone against the walking dead. Alone Against the demons, alone against vampires and werewolves. Alone Against shapeless monstrosities and devil worshipers and witches and maniacs and evil clowns. ALONE AGAINST FEAR. This is a stand-alone horror solo game using a variation of the popular Four Against Darkness engine. All the rules are in this 104 page book. You create a character and explore a town invaded by monsters. Read forbidden books, learn dark rituals, learn new skills, fight zombies and vampires, and manage your resources (Life, Sanity, Food, Ammo) in a desperate struggle against time to close the Seven Gates of Hell on Earth. Included: 6 scenarios, hundreds of monsters, 22 weapons, 2 pregenerated characters, character sheet, map sheet. NO MINIATURES NEEDED - THIS IS A PEN-AND-PAPER GAME. You need 2d6, pencil, and paper.

Always looked longingly at Four Against Darkness and wished it was, well, not fantasy adventure? Invading aliens on the planet in your hometown leave you unsatisfied as an alternative? Well, you could be in luck because this is the 4AD engine but in a horror solitaire game. While there probably aren’t any Ancient Old Ones to encounter along the way, I’m sure the Lovecraftians among you will come up with some of them to add into the mix - just make sure to keep your sanity in check or you might become the creature in that mirror. There’s plenty of source material out there, so it is pretty much a lock that if this goes over well, we’ll see more content to expand this game!

Iron Helm Expansion: Blackened Burrow

Blackened Burrow is the 2nd Adventure Pack for Iron Helm that adds all new Loot, Skills, Trappings, Plots, a new Boss to fight, and a new Character to play as. You will need to own the base game of Iron Helm to play this expansion.

Blackened Burrow is a level three Adventure Pack meaning it is to be incorporated with the base game as your third adventure if you survive the base game and a level 2 Adventure Pack.

Like the previous expansion, this pack of cards can integrate right into the base game of Iron Helm with minimal effort, expanding the variety and replay value of an excellent game. Swap out a few of the base cards, sub in the new ones, and off you go with a chance to experience something a little different than before. Which is exactly what I want in an expansion for a game of adventure and exploration like this one: don’t change the game, just give me new challenges!

Leviathan

Players take on the roles of two of literature’s most famous monsters in this asymmetric tabletop card combat game! Captain Ahab hunts the teeming seas for his singular foe, but Moby Dick is not without his own tricks.

Who will be the hunter and who the hunted in this tense, tabletop skirmish?

As an English Major, I am always drawn toward a literary theme like this one. Add in the word asymmetric and make it a 2-player affair and, well, now you’re hitting a sweet spot. With 18 cards, this is an easy build, and it makes use of the actual table space for movement to try and defeat the other player by accomplishing your objective first. It looks and sounds really promising, and my bet is that it’ll be a lot easier to learn to play this game than it would be to read the unabridged version of Moby Dick.

Still in Business

Still in Business is a game about making and selling the most moonshine, while outgunning your competition and steering clear of the Feds!

A simple game in terms of understanding the actions and the flow. I’ve grown to appreciate the pacing that comes from games where you perform a single action on your turn and play moves along. This one has a relatively unique theme, with some slight randomness involved when you attempt to make, or sell, the moonshine in this game (on a 1, the action fails). With some opportunity for take-that elements, this will definitely catch the interest of those who like that player interaction feature...and hopefully you won’t catch the interest of those Feds.

Check out the new games here: https://www.pnparcade.com/collections/new-games

Game of the Week: STEW

Stew is a tasty medley of bluffing, deduction, and press your luck gameplay. As a farmer, you will add items to a collective pot, or feed the vermin lurking around. When a player calls “Stew”, the pot is checked and points are scored.

A little bit of mental math might be required here to keep track of where the Stew is at because you are all adding ingredients here. A clever game where you either feed unfed wild animals, add to the stew, or call out “Stew” - and if the stew has 12 or more points after unfed animals trigger, you’ll get 2 points (out of 5 needed to win). However, if you are wrong everyone else scores a point. This game plays 2-4, but sounds like it would be best with more players, much like Mint Julep and some of the other great Button Shy titles out there, and this definitely has a theme you won’t see often!

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!