New Games for October 27th, 2023 - Phantom Samson vs the Grim Kraken

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:

• Samson and Delilah

• What’s Kraken

• Dungeon Pages: Gloria, Grim Warrior

https://www.pnparcade.com/collections/new-games

Samson and Delilah

Samson and Deliliah is a fast, asymmetric, social deduction and drafting game for two players. Samson and the Israelites are fighting the Philistines. Delilah stands in the middle with the power to assist Samson or betray him to the enemy. Should Samson trust Deliliah or can he win this war on his own?

I know, you’re asking yourself how an asymmetric, social deduction, drafting game can possibly function…much less with only two players. Well, this one sounds really promising, as there’s some interesting ways this can all play out. Part of it will be knowing how well you know the Deliliah player, and how they might decide to position themselves on a particular round - she needs to have at least two locks of Samson’s hair in order to be helping him…and you need to, as Samson, choose correctly as to whether she is on your side or not. There’s a clever color-matching mechanic that can really help Samson turn the tide in his favor if he has to win against the Philistines. With only a few cards and some relatively simple rules, there’s a surprising amount of innovation packed into this small package.

What’s Kraken

The kraken wakes! Unfortunately for your pirate ship, it has its sights set on a crunchy hull snack. Do you have the wits and luck to defeat it and come away a wealthy victor? Or will you join Davy Jones at the ocean floor? Attack the kraken, dive for treasure and resources, repair your ship. Survival is required, wealth is the goal.

A roll-and-write game where you are racing against time, so to speak, in order to defeat the kraken before it destroys your ship. But that would be too straight-forward, so you also need to dive underwater and collect treasure in order to earn points and materials to help repair your ship as it inevitably sustains damage. Featuring an interesting use of polyomino shapes based on die rolls, this one will have you juggling a few things and trying to do them well in order to not just survive, but to win!

Dungeon Pages: Gloria, Grim Warrior

Every day Gloria asks Aila, God of Serenity, for patience, compassion, and understanding. The young warrior has learned that she needs this focus to find her parents’ killers. When the day comes that she’s found her quarry, then she’ll pray to Qoth, God of War.

If you like a challenge where dice are being bumped and manipulated as you take on the challenges, then you won’t want to skip Gloria’s venture into Kaeron’s Obilisk. The trap makes you reroll dice before marking, Splatter Bats mark a 1 when you roll doubles on good dice, and the Corrupt Vampire bump evil dice for each space you mark in its row and column. All is not as grim as it seems, though, as Gloria has a few tricks of her own to bring to bear against this week’s dungeon. 

Game of the Week: Phantom Ink on sale for just $4!

Renowned Mediums race to figure out a secret object that their teammate - a Spirit - is trying to communicate. Mediums take turns asking their Spirits questions about the secret object.

If you love puzzling out clues with limited information, you’ll enjoy this one. Dividing into teams, players will be either Mediums (trying to guess the word) or Spirits (trying to get your team to guess a word). This is done through passing question cards to the Spirit, of which they keep one to answer and discard the other - and then start writing the answer one letter at a time until the Medium tells them to stop (or they finish the word). Since the other team might not know the question asked, the information written may or may not be valuable to helping them also uncover the correct word. See how in tune with your friends you are while playing a game that is certain to be a lot of fun to get to the table.