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:
- Constellations
- Endangered
- Tides
https://www.pnparcade.com/collections/new-games
Constellations
Explore new universe and mark constellations…
Roll and writes are going to where no one has gone before - to explore the vastness of space via the charting of constellations. This one provides incentive to fully trace the path of a constellation if you can, and the ability to add the value of multiple dice means that even though you’re all using the same values, you could follow some drastically different strategies to the end of the game. Beyond that, there are ones which score points - obviously you want these - but also ones that provide power-ups. And who doesn’t like the adrenaline kick you get from earning and using a new power up? However, it also causes your map to shrink when you unlock one of these and if you haven’t finished scoring that constellation yet...well, it’s gone.
Endangered
The march of human progress threatens the survival of many vulnerable species. Work together as conservationists trying to save just one species from extinction. It will take everything you’ve got to stay ahead of environmental collapse and a variety of other dangers, while also enacting plans to win your species a chance at long-term survival. It’s a tricky balancing act that brings to life the complex challenges that conservationists face in trying to protect our vulnerable friends!
If you like working together with your fellow gamers, you’ll really enjoy Endangered. This game has you trying to help a species of animal survive in its habitat, working to encourage mating pairs, avoiding devastating environmental effects, and more. You’ll be using dice to take actions, and ultimately try to survive long enough to earn the votes needed from ambassadors - whom you can help influence with some of those actions. Yet every influencing action is one not spent helping that species thrive or overcome the current threats, providing some delightful decisions on how to maximize, as a group, what you need to accomplish. Not only will you be playing a fun game, but you’ll also learn more about these animals, their environments, and the challenges they face in the real world. This game is also modular by design, so there’s bound to be more content - probably a little more endangered than Four Against Darkness - but hey, I had to find a way to bring that one up this week, right?
Tides
Take a stroll along the beach. Feel your toes digging into the sand. Discover a world of beautiful objects just waiting to be found. Whether you’re picking up driftwood for your sculptures or sea glass for earrings, let Mother Nature be your muse as you follow the tides.
Roam the shore, searching for objects to score points. This game has an interesting concept with the two phases: low tide and high tide. In each of them you can take cards and score cards. However, the cards you can draw vary based on the tide, and once taken they are stuck in your hand until you score them. If you like making smart choices with your limited actions each turn, and a race to a set number of points to end the game, then you won’t want to miss out on this little 18-card game - complete with a solo mode.Pick up all the new games here:
https://www.pnparcade.com/collections/new-games
Game of the Week: Skulls of Sedlec (base game is free this week, usually $3)
Expansion Collection on Kickstarter now: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/239309591/skulls-of-sedlec-expansion-collection/
The Black Plague and Hussite Wars have overcrowded the graveyard. Help the Bone Collector, a half-blind monk, by exhuming graves and arranging the skulls inside the crypt.
You are novice monks, competing to create the best arrangement of skulls. Dig up graves from the graveyard to reveal cards, take cards into your hand to collect skulls, and arrange the cards from your hand into a stack. Whoever better honors the deceased’s last wishes will score more points. The Bone Collector will then declare one player's stack as the most exceptional.
This one I can speak to the fun inside the game’s package, as I tried out a preview PNP earlier this year. You’re making a pyramid with the cards, each card having a top skull and a bottom skull, and different skull types have varied scoring conditions that center around things such as adjacency in relation to other skulls. For instance, the Lovers’ skull scores when two are adjacent to each other - wherefore art thou, Romeo? Dig up graves, assemble some skulls, and have a ton of fun in 15-20 minutes with 1-2 other players.
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!