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:
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Avant Carde: Londoners and Singaporians
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Pass the Pips
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GRIMLORE Case File #17: Mirielle Dupont, Oceanologist
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Place the Pips
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Battle Pages: Kingdom of Vilot, Marching Order 1
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Dangerous Space: Arthur, Deliver Mission
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Power Creep: Charlemagne, East ‘Burg, 2100
https://www.pnparcade.com/collections/new-games
Avant Carde: Londoners and Singaporians
Your eccentric collection of avant-garde art needs a public show! Replace the Patron card powers with either of these two 6-card micro-expansions to completely shake up the Avant Carde experience!
I love micro expansions, because they just feel so easy in isolation to be able to integrate into the gameplay. In this bundle you have two different mini-expansions, each providing their own unique special abilities to try and make use of during the game. For the Londoners, you’re playing art face-down to be able to flip them later. With the Singaporians, they tend to upgrade art over and over, letting them build a little at a time into something grand by the end. If you’re already a fan of Avant Carde, you won’t want to pass this one up. And if you’re new, this is a perfect time to dip into this game!
Pass the Pips
Players roll 4 dice (red, yellow, green, and blue) and choose two to keep before passing two to other players. The dice are played on the players' scorepads in sections corresponding to the colors on the dice. Completing sections scores points while unplayable dice increase the player's overflow. When one player's overflow is filled, the game ends and scores are tallied.
A simple game of dice rolling, choosing which to use, and passing to the next player for them to use your leftovers. There’s real simple concepts at play here, enough so that the rules will take minutes at most to read through before you can start rolling dice and playing! If you enjoy light dice-chucking fun in your games with friends, then there’s plenty of room for you to find enjoyable moments with Pass the Pips, providing a perfect pre or post gameday session to pull out, or something to play while waiting on others.
GRIMLORE Case File #17: Mirielle Dupont, Oceanologist
Mireille Dupont, 32, is an adventurous marine biologist with a deep affinity for oceanic mysteries. Born in Marseille, her fascination with the sea grew after a childhood encounter with a washed-ashore bioluminescent organism. A scholarship to the Sorbonne followed, with her thesis on deep-sea ecosystems earning acclaim. She is currently stationed on an isolated island in the South Pacific. When seismic activity reveals an ancient underwater ruin, Mireille embarks on an unauthorized dive into the forbidden depths.
You would expect oceanic opponents for this one, and you won’t be disappointed! I love the interaction here between the Lithr’Ran Maw boss and the weakling Amphibian Drones. The Maw triggers on 2+, but that number increases for every drone you kill in the scenario so you have a strong reason to clear out some of those threats on your way through the map. Add in her oceanic equipment and artifacts, and you have a lot of thematic delight going on in this week’s installment!
Place the Pips
On your 10x10 grid, your job is to place the dice based on the layout of their pips. (For example, a 6 is placed in the shape of a 2x3 rectangle and a 5 is placed as an 'X'.) Players attempt to fill rows quickly to score points while managing their grid, preventing it from becoming overcrowded. Unplaced dice result in penalties.
When players can no longer place dice, the game ends and scores are tallied.
Similar to the game about passing pips, this one is easy to learn and start rolling the dice. You’re filling in squares on a grid, using the die pip shapes to determine how you fill in the squares as you place them. This one also has you rolling dice, using some of them, and the others taking the unplayed dice rolled for their own grids. If you enjoy fast and fun dice-chuckers, you’ve got a LOT to be excited to try out this week!
Battle Pages: Kingdom of Vilot, Marching Order 1
Traders in secrets and spices, the inhabitants also enjoy a good song or story.
Here we are: the kick off of some Battle Pages in this space and you’re sure to find some really interesting twists on familiar mechanics if you’ve played any of the previous weekly games offered the past few years. I love the variety of spawning enemies, and the need to balance your forces to take out looming threats while also needing to juggle those which are nearing your kingdom. Whether you’re more excited to take on Lord Rath and his armies of Skeletons and Red Dragons, or to take up arms as Teyden the hero and deploy Knights and Warhorses, you will find plenty of fun decisions on how to best juggle your actions to survive and win.
Dangerous Space: Arthur, Deliver Mission
Arthur would prefer his fellow divers measure him by his record and prowess, instead of his lineage as heir to the moon Khiro.
Now here’s a threat that Arthur can handle, delivering the kit while absorbing extra damage. Sure, his health bar isn’t abnormally large, but he definitely has some strong benefits from his Leadership skill allowing him to fill in a hit point of a threat when he enters a room for the first time. So long as he continues to hit them on his way through the map, he’ll be likely to eliminate them a little quicker and thus absorb a little less damage…
Power Creep: Charlemagne, East ‘Burg, 2100
So many years into the new world, with water rising in some locations and fires burning in others.
Okay, so I promised we’d talk Blueprints for Charlemagne, which are things you get when finishing a structure. Each character has a unique one, and for him it is the Den. This lets you gain (or regain) an item by circling four equal numbers adjacent to an item. Hard to pull off? Perhaps. But how cool would it be to get something twice? You’re going to need it to deal with the pesky Nummin’ Birds in this one, as they circle numbers adjacent to themselves when they trigger - and of course nearly every item is close enough to be affected by this trigger. Darn birds!
Game of the Week: Avant Carde on sale for just $5!
Your eccentric collection of avant-garde art needs a public show! Hone your collection by purchasing art that attracts patrons with special powers to help you assemble the best exhibition! Every piece in your collection means more strategies to use each round. Great exhibitions earn awards! Each turn that you earn $6 or more, you’ll get an award. The game ends when the awards run out, and whoever has the most awards wins!
An interesting little card game, filled with colors and numbers on cards, and with certain numbers having unique special powers. The basic concept, of trying to play as many cards matching in color or number to the previous card you played, is interesting enough. But you add in the layer of buying new cards for your deck, allowing you to try and add more synergies while using some card powers to filter out the cards which don’t gel with what you’re buying. The more you can play, the more money you’ll have to spend for new cards and the more awards you’ll be able to win. If you enjoy deckbuilding or card-based gameplay, you will want to check out Avant Carde.
Check out Game of the Week here: https://www.pnparcade.com/collections/game-of-the-week
Shallow Regrets - Kickstarter Preview
Steel your nerves and set sail on the worst fishing trip of your life! Catch as many horrifying things as you can, but push your luck too far and remorse might take the wind out of your sails!
Get excited. Get very, very excited for this little preview. Shallow Regrets is on its way in the semi-near future, and this is a simple yet satisfying game that plays really well at its 2-3 player count for the base game. The choice is yours as to how risky to be in trying to catch bigger fish before you max out your skill - sometimes you might get lucky and land something good, but you could also be left getting nothing. And with all the fish coming with special abilities to make use of during the game, this is a quick yet crunchy, very interactive game that you won’t want to miss!
Shallow Regrets is coming to Kickstarter on Tuesday May 6th. It's a new pocked sized game of Deep Regrets from Button Shy Games, with design and art by Judson Cowan.
Follow along the Kickstarter here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/239309591/shallow-regrets/
Check out the new Button Shy releases here:
https://www.pnparcade.com/collections/new-games