Dice Tower West Report (March 23 Newsletter) (Patreon)

Hey folks! As you may have noticed, the On Mars tutorial went live today! I put a lot of work into this one, and the process is still ongoing. I usually like to have the base game and tutorial videos up at the same time, but I've been especially busy this month, so that just hasn't been possible. The Alien Invasion early access video should go up next week though, so hopefully there won't be too big of a delay.

Of course, the thing that kept me so busy was of course Dice Tower West. Definitely one of my favorite conventions, this five day board game marathon was a blast. I played 32 different games, which I'm fairly certain is a record for me, and while I won't cover all of them here, I will give a taste of some of my favorites and honorable mentions, like the one at the top of the post: Deal With The Devil. 

You may have heard about this traditional euro with a hint of social deduction (or if you haven't, it's that), where two players are regular folks, one is a cultist, and the fourth is the literal devil. I was skeptical about how well a four-player only game would come together, but man is it good. The social deduction part is present but significantly less arbitrary than games like Secret Hitler. I played it with Nick Murphy and he won as the devil despite all of us figuring it out half way through. If you've got a regular four player group, it could definitely be a hit, though if you don't, I'd just recommend trying it out at a con if you can.

What might be my favorite game of the con though was Earth. This one has been sitting on the BGG hotlist for a while now and it deserves the attention. It's an engine builder game where you are...man, I don't know. God? You're basically seeding an island (or planet, if you prefer) with plants and animals and trying to create combos to score points in a bunch of different ways. The thing that sets it apart is that when you place your cards into a tableau, they will form a 4x4 grid, and when you activate abilities, they go from left to right, top to bottom, so where you place cards really matters. The cards all have nature photography on them, but unlike Ark Nova or Terraforming Mars, these pictures are all stunning. If you like engine builders, I highly recommend this one.

Now Horseless Carriage is not a game that I would say I loved, but I definitely think that there are people reading this who will. I don't have a ton of experience with Splotter games (though I'm excited to dive into Food Chain Magnate soon), so I went in expecting that I'd be in over my head and boy was I right. If I played again, I know I'd do better, but the first playthrough spun me for a loop. If you don't know, this is a game about running a car factory and trying to upgrade and sell your cars. Thing is, that description makes it sound in any way simple, and it just isn't. Tom at SUSD did a great review of it, so I'd check that out if you want an actual description of the gameplay. I'll just tell you that after playing for something like 3-4 hours, my brain was a puddle.

Jumping to the exact opposite end of the spectrum, Dorfromantik is a lovely cooperative tile laying game where you and your friends just have a nice time building out a bucolic countryside. It feels very similar to the video game, but the thing that surprised me most was the campaign element to it. Every time you finish a game you record your score and check to see if you've unlocked anything new. I didn't try much of the unlockable stuff, but there's tons of little boxes with new mechanics to add to your game. Which is good, because while I enjoyed the basic set up, I don't think it would have a lot of staying power as it is. With all the additions though, it seems like a charming little box.

I've mentioned before how much I like Star Realms and the new Star Wars Deckbuilding Game is very much following in their footsteps. Enough that I don't think you really need both, but if you want a pure deckbuilder, I might recommend this over basic Star Realms. This is a bit more accessible to new players, with less of a focus on culling out your starting cards, and faction synergy is also considerably downplayed, but there's still plenty of opportunity to come up with huge combos.

And while this wasn't at DTW, I did get to play Fractured Sky with Becca Scott, Paula Deming, and Banzainator, which was a ton of fun! It's an area control game where you secretly place different powered ships in different areas, trying to bluff and deduce your opponents' motives. It also looks gorgeous, which is no surprise with this company. IV Studios is doing a massive media campaign for this game (I'm also playing it on Rahdo and with the Bros Murph), so come April 11th you're gonna be seeing a ton of coverage.

And lastly, while I don't have any pictures to show about this just yet, something very exciting is in the works with a new channel called Above Board. It's a comedy focused channel about board games, card games, ttrpgs, cosplay and all kinds of nerdy stuff. I've joined their group as a writer and host (one of many) and we just had our first meeting yesterday. It's hard to convince people that a new venture is going to succeed, but I feel pretty confident about what we've got in the works. That channel is going to go live around the end of April, so I'll definitely be sharing quite a bit more next month.

In the meantime, what y'all been playing?