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:
- Paper Pinball: Ski '93
- Skulls of Sedlec
- Skulls of Sedlec: Executioners
- Skulls of Sedlec: Monstrance (Solo Expansion)
- Surrealist Dinner Party
This week's new games are all available at https://www.pnparcade.com/collections/new-games
Paper Pinball: Ski '93
Paper Pinball is a dice game that tries to capture the feeling of playing pinball. All you will need is a pencil, three dice, and about five minutes.
Each round, roll two dice and fill in one of the scoring zones. Some zones need to be filled in a certain way, and most will cause some sort of effect, so the order you fill them in is important. If you ever can't fill a zone, you'll lose a ball. Lose three balls and the game is over. Try to fill as many scoring zones as possible while triggering multipliers, opening tunnels, and getting the coveted multiball.
What do you get when you mix Pinball, Warhammer 40K, and Descent? Something that might look a little like this pinball machine. Check out the latest from Paper Pinball, a fun and fast-paced roll-and-write game playable in a handful of minutes using a handful of dice and a writing utensil. This one definitely features some of my favorite artwork from the series of Paper Pinball games, which says a lot since they all are great to look at.
Skulls of Sedlec
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.
Skulls of Sedlec: Monstrance
The Bone Monstrance is one of the ornate sculptures that decorate the inside of the Sedlec Ossuary. As a monk, you will toil away at exhuming graves and arranging skulls into stacks. As an artist though, you will need to be very creative to sculpt a truly original piece that will please the royal family!
This little gem of an expansion adds a much-desired solitaire experience. Instead of just building a pyramid structure, you now get a secondary structure to assemble as well - and a special card that can alter the game’s scoring conditions. I’ve tried it and loved it, and I think you will too. While I don’t particularly prefer beat-your-own-score games as a solo experience, this one has enough thinkiness between the base game cards and the additions from the Monstrance conditions that I found myself playing it again and again.
Skulls of Sedlec: Executioners
In life, the Executioner's duty was to protect society by delivering the death sentence of the condemned. In death, Executioners wish to be surrounded by their handiwork, the abundant skulls of Criminals that they undid.
Some of my favorite expansions are those easily integrated into a game, and this one is no exception there. Compatible with the base game and with the solo rules, this adds an extra 6 cards into the mix to allow a 4th player or just bring about variety through a new skull type: Executioner. Oh yes, you know that is going to be as awesome as it sounds. Those Criminal skulls will be shaking in their...erm...teeth when the executioners come into play.
Surrealist Dinner Party
Currently on kickstarter at: https://bit.ly/2O8uZcG
You’re hosting a dinner party! You’ve each invited your six favorite Surrealist artists and writers, and you are responsible for keeping your guests happy and sending them home sated. That’s easier said than done, though, because these Surrealists are colorful characters, and each one has a different checklist of things they need out of the evening.
A dining delight full of writers and artists with varying tastes. Turns are simple, choosing from one of four actions to conduct, and you are trying to collect as many tokens matching a guest’s card as possible - each one banking a point when they get sent home. Sure the please dinner guests and wine & dine folks alike, this game for 2-4 players has ample room for interacting with opponents, a simple set collection mechanic that isn’t going to be as easy to execute as you’d like, and plenty of guest abilities to make the experience unique as you parse through what you can trigger this game.
Check out all of the new games here: https://www.pnparcade.com/collections/new-games
Game of the Week: Fences
Fences is a print and play tile laying game where you and your opponents are farmers trying to fence in animals. You score points by having your claimed fields closed, or by closer your opponents’ fields that match your Farmer profile. The player with most points when the last tile is played is the best farmer!
Have you ever played Carcassonne and wished the farmers were, well, actually farming something? Just me? Okay, well, this game will delight the agriculturist in all of you because you’ll be placing tiles down to complete a shared landscape, which will definitely remind some of you of great pioneers in the genre like Carcassonne. The unique thing here comes from the fences on the tiles, which restrict some of how you place tiles. Once a fenced-in area is completed, the farm is scored. A player with one of their hen-houses in the farm scores one point per animal pictured...unless the animals are all the same, in which they cleverly reward you with two points per animal. Take heart, dear farmers! Even if you close an opponent’s area you’ll get to possibly score points because each player has a Farmer card, which adds bonus points for scoring areas based on certain things, such as points for every pig in an area. I should probably also mention, for those that dislike the Carcassonne approach of draw a tile and place it, that you have a hand of 2 tiles and place 1 of them on your turn, giving you options on your turn. There are no fences high enough to contain the fun you’ll have with this tile-laying game.
Check out Game of the Week here: https://www.pnparcade.com/collections/game-of-the-week
We launched the Prototype Zone a few weeks ago,. If you are interested in trying some upcoming games and giving feedback to the designers, check it out.
Check out all of the new protoypes here: https://www.pnparcade.com/collections/prototype-zone
Also, reminder of our New Heroes Scholarship - intended to recognize a standout member of the board game community who is among an underrepresented group.
For full details, including how to enter/nominate someone, check out our page at: https://www.pnparcade.com/pages/new-heroes-game-industry-scholarship
See you next week with more information on our newest print and play games!