Pulp Detective — a review

Pulp Detective is a solo card and dice game set in the mystery/detective genre of the 1930-40s  The art work is very thematic and reminds me of comics like The Shadow. The setup is easy.  You pick a detective from a list of characters.  Each detective has a unique special power that you can use during play.  You have two other cards: one tracks which item is in your inventory and the other tracks stamina (aka health) and how many clues you have found. You have a set number of hours to collect enough clues to confront the villain and …

Photosythesis – a review

The abstract tree growing and harvesting game from Blue Orange is not something that I would have normally picked up. It’s a game about growning trees. Every once in a while I find a game that is outside my normal fare (pirates, Cthulhu, space conquest, fantasy combat) that I find fun and fresh. Photosythensis is in this club.

Steampunk Rally review

Steampunk Rally is a drafting/dice-rolling and placement/racing game from Roxley games.  The main idea of the game is that you are a turn of the century inventor building a contraption to race other inventors around the Swiss Alps (or on a track in Paris.)  You draft cards to get parts for your machine, dice to power your machine, or cogs to help repair your machine.  You roll dice to see what part of the contraption you can activate.  The contraptions moves along the track.  Finally you check to see how much damage you take. It sounds like a lot of …

The final GenCon shopping results

The exhibit hall at GenCon was a chaotic whirlwind of retail bliss.  We found several new and exciting board games.  The “scores” aka those games that sold out) that we managed to grab up are:  Halo Fleet Wars from Spartan Games, Star Trek 5 Year Mission from Mayfair, Legendary Encounters Predator from Upper Deck.  The one that got away was Mysterium. The final list here is: Halo Fleet Battles Star Trek 5 Year Mission Sheriff of Nottingham Super Dungeon Explore (1st edition and expansions) Munchkin Steampunk Mage Wars Dark Seas Nautilus Medieval Academy Dominion Adventures Takanoko (w/ expansion) 7 Wonders …

Sails of Glory review

Sails of Glory is a miniatures based naval combat game from Ares Games that is a great way to fight ship to ship in the age of sail. The game has similar mechanics to Ares airplane game Wings of Glory or X-Wing from Fantasy Flight. Each player selects actions in secret and reveals what they are planning to do at the same time.  Movement resolves at the same time and then players get to make a shoot/no shoot decision.  Damage is resolved at the same time as well, so there’s always a risk you’ll take damage if you are within …