Game Hype August

A few days early, I didn’t think I’d have one for this month, but, turns out I found some time between all the work life imbalance to look at game stuff outside of my ongoing games.

CASE & SOUL

A Forged in the Dark mecha game still in the early Alpha Stages. This looks like it might hit some of my itch for mil sim giant robot combat. (Can I say how happy I am about the number of mech games in the last few years?) You have options for both pilot and non-pilot characters, some simple but solid mecha building rules and so on. I think it’d be a good game to try and then compare to Michael Prescott’s Too Good to Be True. I feel like we’re seeing sort of a parallel to how a lot of indie games sought to capture the spirit of the D&D family of games while ditching the simulationist chasing mechanics, except in this case, it’s branching from Battletech.

Balatro’s Phased Battle Maps

Balatro draws classic grid battlemaps… except each map is “phased” – it’s designed for you to change the map over the course of battle – whether that’s a building that’s collapsing each round, producing a new, more precarious version of the map as it goes, or a collossi smashing it’s way through the city with each map showing it’s progress. For $3 per map, you also get access to the past maps, which include stuff like a boat going downstream or a very busy street full of carriages.

(Also, much older but still worth hyping, if you are into battlemaps, Two Minute Tabletop has GREAT hand drawn maps, also worth checking out.)

The Shape of Shadows

I talked about this before, but now after the first week of play, I can say it feels partway between a journaling game, an ARG, a Telltale Game, and interactive fiction? When the live game ends in a month, the PDF will be available for people to purchase.

In this game, you are the assistant of magician – who teaches you the art of stage magic… and real magic. Until they go missing. And you will unravel what happened along the way. It’s giving me a lot of Mage the Awakening, Unknown Armies, and Gaiman vibes. I’m really curious to see how it turns out.

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July 2021 Game Hype

This is a quiet month. The expected rush around work has been happening, but on the other hand, my GMing has lightened up. I may run a short game on the weekends for some friends I haven’t gamed with in a few years, but we’ll probably stick to something we know well – Primetime Adventures, since we have a deadline of availability.

So, while the links are light this month, just go look at the past game hype posts this year – I haven’t gotten to play most everything on those either, a giant backlog, sigh. If I can get a more reasonable work schedule, we’ll see what can happen there.

Gunbare!

A lightweight anime game about robot/alien tech weapon android girls who fight other alient tech android girls as humanity tries to survive. Sort of halfway between Knights of Sidonia, Magical Girl anime, Nier:Automata, and ship-girl media like Arpeggio of Blue Steel or Azur Lane minus the hypersexualization. I’m really interested in how the combat loadouts and the randomized upgrade system works in play and whether it holds up under the 6-12 session range.

Apocalypse World Central Tool Site

Found this site, which has some great tools for character tracking, etc. It’s still missing some of the functionality, so we’re still using Roll20 for our AW game but I think this has a lot of great stuff for anyone looking to play Apocalypse World.

Gender is a Game

Although I haven’t really used this space to recommend articles, Jamila R. Nedjadi’s absolutely fantastic article on their journey in gaming and the space to explore identity, gender and self is something I recommend for everyone to check out.

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