Daily deck review day 155 - Bestcardistalive playing cards
https://bestcardistalive.com.
https://bestcardistalive.com.
• Capstone Games has partnered with German publisher Spiolworxx to release new releases from that German publisher in North America, with the first three titles to appear being Raising Chicago by Matt Wolfe, EPOS: A Gentes Game by Stefan Risthaus, and Dolcissima Vita by Giansimone Migoni. • What's more, Capstone Games will release Uwe Rosenberg's Tangram City in North America in April 2024, with Pirates of Maracaibo from Ralph Bienert, Ryan Hendrickson, and Alexander Pfister debuting at Gen Con
<div>Monkey Business is a bit of a mash-up of the classic games of charades (where you pantomime something) and werewolf (where you’re trying to discover the odd person out in the mix. All but one player (or all but two, … <a href="https://opinionatedgamers.com/2024/04/24/monkey-business/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a></div>
<div>Boardgame Geek has just announced the nominees for their game awards for the 2023 calendar year, the Golden Geeks. As usual, these were determined by selections made by the BGG community. With 15 different categories, there are too many citations … <a href="https://opinionatedgamers.com/2024/04/23/golden-geek-nominations-for-2023-announced/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a></div>
unveiled the newest effort to solve homicide and missing persons cases through a deck of cold case playing cards, the first set printed in the state. The cards will be utilized by inmates in ...
A Mississippi organization is trying to solve cold cases with a special deck of cards. The Mississippi Coast Crime Stoppers created "cold case" playing cards that have information about various ...
MISSISSIPPI, USA — A Mississippi organization is trying to solve cold cases with a special deck of cards. The Mississippi Coast Crime Stoppers created "cold case" playing cards that have ...
A Mississippi organization is trying to solve cold cases with a special deck of cards. The Mississippi Coast Crime Stoppers created "cold case" playing cards that have information about various ...
In total, 2,500 decks will be distributed inside jails and prisons across the Mississippi coast. The project cost around ...
The Evening Standard's journalism is supported by our readers. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Yet before black mirrors stole our leisure time ...
<div><p>by <a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/blogger/15691/jeremy-ducret">Jérémy Ducret</a></p> <div style=""><a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/image/7606716"><img src="https://cf.geekdo-images.com/DKK9vrt0pAkNPvoh1hb1GQ__small/img/V8qoZZpJxy6gyI7jBGnVM0o8jxo=/fit-in/200x150/filters:strip_icc()/pic7606716.jpg" border="0"></a></div><b>1. The General Idea</b> <br> <br>February 2021: My game <a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/237145/daimyo-rebirth-of-the-empire"><i>Daimyo: Rebirth of the Empire</i></a> comes out in stores, which paradoxically leaves me with a big gap in my schedule. I need to quickly find a project that excites me to occupy my free time. Unfortunately, no old prototype seems worthy of interest to me now. <br> <br>Starting from a blank sheet, I'm going to try to make the game I want to play: <br> <br><b>Idea 1</b>: Deck-building with alternating activation. <br> <br>I want to offer confrontational deck-building (<a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/147020/star-realms"><i>Star Realms</i></a>-style) but more strategic in the way of playing the cards. I don't want to "empty" my hand every turn, but the order of play of the cards has great importance and is strongly influenced by the actions of my opponent. This naturally results in the idea of creating an alternating action system in which after drawing five cards, each player plays one card alternately until their hand is exhausted before drawing again and starting a turn again. This should bring about the desired action/reaction feeling. <br> <br><b>Idea 2:</b> A very tactical game in which each action is a strong dilemma. <br> <br>I want to get closer to the feeling of the <a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1887/legend-of-the-five-rings"><i>Legend of the Five Rings</i></a>-style confrontation TCGs, one of my best gaming memories. I try to remember what I liked so much about this game: a constant tension that came from managing timing and priorities. I want a game in which timing is essential, in which we will delay an action in order not to be countered, a game in which we will try to offer a target to an opponent to make them play actions that could counter us in order to be able to play our showpiece quietly. Also, I would like us to be able to use the cards in different ways to offer choice and dilemma. The card will necessarily be of interest for its power, but it must be able to be used in other ways at the same time. I don't know yet how... <br> <br><b>Idea 3:</b> Not a deck-building game, but bag-building. <br> <br>One day, I ordered some coin capsules, thinking it would make interesting hardware for a game. I wondered whether this hardware would be relevant for this new prototype. What is initially a material desire quickly influences the game design because using round 2cm tokens allows me to quickly consider having a board and different locations that take up little space. I wrap this concept up quite quickly with the previous idea: these locations could offer an action or a bonus, a bit like a worker-placement game. I am therefore going with the idea of having several colors of tokens (in place the cards), colors that will mainly be used to define on which location they can be played. It’s taking shape... <br> <br>Well, I don't have a game, but I know precisely where I want to go and the main idea is very clear: <br>confrontational bag-building with alternate activation, timing management, and priority management. <br> <br><b>2. From the Idea to the First Tests</b> <br> <br>I gave birth to a first prototype quite quickly. I'm going with a space opera atmosphere. (Who knows why? It's not at all a theme that fascinates me.) The goal will be to conquer planets (plateaus) to dominate the galaxy. The planets will have to be conquered over several turns to create the feeling of "I lost the battle but not the war", while allowing players to abandon positions for a while, then return to them later. To take the planets, I will use a tug-of-war mechanism. Whoever has the most strength at the end of the turn wins the effect of the planet, then advances the conquest marker, and at a certain level, the planet is definitively mine and a new planet opens. There must always be several battlefields simultaneously. <br> <br>I'm going on the principle of having three types of ships (tokens/cards). Each color has a specialization: combat, technology, and purchase. That's good as it comes full circle with the idea of locations that allow effects to be triggered, and it allows strategies to be combined. <br> <br>I grind it all out and get a first prototype: <br> <br><center><div style=""><a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/image/8156039"><img src="https://cf.geekdo-images.com/2jx9K8Raouzqos-JgNf8hA__small/img/GqzVdkhaF-1m2SnUVPkFoNK_fU8=/fit-in/200x150/filters:strip_icc()/pic8156039.jpg" border="0"></a></div></center><center><i>First test at the end of May 2021</i></center> <br>I am excited about the test! The feeling I want is already quite present... <br> <br>...but everything is heavy/complex, there are lots of useless powers, the development part is poorly integrated into the game, and the balance is obviously very random. Also, my partner hates the theme — a bit like me in the end! I do a huge cleansing and switch to a classic medium/fan theme, which is important to be able to put the design through the dozens of tests to come. <br> <br><center><div style=""><a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/image/8156040"><img src="https://cf.geekdo-images.com/07RhpO8mKzT-OiQS3x8zWw__small/img/Ub40tXVjmo5Zm_kn2KmJfEdLun8=/fit-in/200x150/filters:strip_icc()/pic8156040.jpg" border="0"></a></div></center><center><i>Second test on June 1, 2021</i></center> <br>The test is super conclusive. There are obviously plenty of flaws, but what I'm trying to check at this moment is the overall feeling, the feeling of how it plays and the interest in the game — and on these points, I am more than satisfied. If only all my prototypes were like that... <br> <br>At this level, we will say that 80% of the game's mechanisms are present: The bag-building, the four different locations, the tug of war, and the deploy/activate/recruit action triptych. The game now needs to have better balancing to start seeing the flaws more deeply. In any case, we're already having a lot of fun playing it. <br> <br><b>3. The "Improbable" Signature and the Final Edition</b> <br> <br>It turns out that at the end of June 2021 I have to see Benoit from <a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamepublisher/27121/la-boite-de-jeu">La Boîte de Jeu</a>, publisher of <i>Daimyo</i>. I'm curious to show him this work-in-progress to get his feelings, to know whether I'm imagining things or I actually have something promising. As a <i>Magic</i> player, his advice will be invaluable. At this moment, I'm not thinking about publishing; I'm just happy to have a project that motivates me. <br> <br>Anyway, at the time, I knew almost no one else in the gaming world. The fact is that the day before seeing Benoit, after a few balancing tweaks and a pretty cool last game, my brain said: "And if he likes it?" <br> <br><center><div style=""><a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/image/8156041"><img src="https://cf.geekdo-images.com/ZX9wO6oyq-5THyFuTPY3Kg__small/img/OWsnPTOKnDe7dIneC6eBAC89RE0=/fit-in/200x150/filters:strip_icc()/pic8156041.jpg" border="0"></a></div></center><center><i>The presentation to Benoit at the end of June 2021</i></center> <br>We test the game, and as it progresses, I think I can see interest in Benoit's attitude. We don't finish the game for some reason, so we play it again the next day. Quite a good sign to want to play again... <br> <br>After the second playing, Benoit shows a real interest in the game, editorially speaking. We talk a lot about the design, how it could be published, the possible artistic directions, and (obviously) the points to work on. There is no commitment, but we still went very far in the discussion. <br> <br><div style=""><a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/image/3365460"><img src="https://cf.geekdo-images.com/WT-qqcRjLWjG22Vx0_6PTg__small/img/7Zz5_rkMZ5QQiA4K2QSmV6XKv_w=/fit-in/200x150/filters:strip_icc()/pic3365460.png" border="0"></a></div>A few weeks later, La Boîte de Jeu comes back to me to validate this interest and offer me a contract. I am very satisfied to be setting out again on an editorial adventure with a team for whom I have a lot of respect, both personally and professionally. <br> <br>We found the artistic direction of the game early after deciding to reverse the roles. We will play the "bad guy", and our goal will be to terrorize human villages, with a little quirky side. It takes around three months of intensive work to complete the game's development. During this period, I was able to benefit from the expertise of the publisher to remove all the blocking points in the game. Changes will mainly occur on three major points: <br> <br>• The beginnings of turns are too often identical => We add the chests to loot and the power stone. This allows for more varied openings and adds tension and rhythm between the players. <br> <br>• Magic poses a lot of balancing problems => Its management was personal, so we implant the demons to stabilize the balancing and once again bring tension thanks to a "race" effect on their activation. <br> <br>• The game's increase in power is too slow => We go to eight monsters in the bag (instead of ten), and we reduce the purchase cost of all the monsters to make the game more explosive from turn one. <br> <br>Most problems are therefore resolved within three months. Game balancing and micro adjustments will then be made throughout the edition, which will last more than a year. I would like to take this opportunity to thank La Boîte de Jeu, who did some crazy editorial work — and a big thank you to <a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgameartist/45899/jean-baptiste-reynaud">Djib</a> and <a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgameartist/107535/olivier-derouetteau">Olivier Derouetteau</a>, who brought the game to life with superb graphic work! <br> <br>A very striking anecdote: <a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/393975/evil-corp"><b><i>Evil Corp.</i></b></a> was the strict opposite of <i>Daimyo</i> on all points. <i>Daimyo</i> took seven years between the idea and its release, whereas <i>Evil Corp.</i> was signed three months after the idea in a version quite close to what the game is today. In short, day and night... <br> <br><center><div style=""><a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/image/8047742"><img src="https://cf.geekdo-images.com/Q9d6Cx7GoO_rb2-wpBDmhg__small/img/9sb_UER_jEyDPLka1AJAgBiHlXA=/fit-in/200x150/filters:strip_icc()/pic8047742.jpg" border="0"></a></div></center> <br><b>Now It's up to You!</b> <br> <br>I hope you like the game. From now on, the game is in your hands; it no longer belongs to me. How will you welcome it? In which configuration will you play it the most? <br> <br>In any case, for my part, it is a satisfying feeling to be able to offer you a game which is the exact feeling of what I had in mind on the first day. <br> <br><a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamedesigner/103636/jeremy-ducret">Jérémy Ducret</a></div>
Asmodee is a leading international publisher and distributor of board games, trading cards and digital board games with 23 fully owned studios and 300+ IPs and constitutes the Tabletop Games operating segment of Embracer Group. As per LTM December 2023, Asmodee generated net sales of SEK 14.8 billion, with Adjusted EBITDA of approximately SEK 2.3 billion, EBITDAC of approximately SEK 2.0 billion, Adjusted EBIT of approximately SEK 1.9 billion, and free cash flow after working capital of approxim
<div>Flashback Lucy Designers: Baptiste Derrez, Marc-Antoine Doyon, Gabriel Durnerin Publisher: Scorpion Masque Players: 1-4 Age: 7+ Time: 30 min per chapter, 4 chapters Played with review copy provided by Hachette USA Flashback is back in a scary universe that will … <a href="https://opinionatedgamers.com/2024/04/22/dale-yu-review-of-flashback-lucy-spoiler-free/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a></div>
Munchkin Big Box is due out in late 2024, and it will contain the Munchkin base game, Munchkin 2: Unnatural Axe, Munchkin 3: Clerical Errors, Munchkin 6: Double Dungeons, Munchkin Bosses, Munchkin Side Quests, Munchkin Side Quests 2, and fifty new Munchkin cards, not to mention a game board, a side board, dice, standees, stickers, Kill-O-Meters, and other bits? Non-final component design. • In March 2024, Eagle-Gryphon Games crowdfunded Baseball Highlights: 2045 – Bases Loaded Edition, a collect
A Mississippi organization is trying to solve cold cases with a special deck of cards. The Mississippi Coast Crime Stoppers ...
In total, 2,500 decks will be distributed inside jails and prisons across the Mississippi coast. The project cost around ...
<div><p>by <a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/blogger/15693/jorge-zhang">Jorge Zhang</a></p> <div style=""><a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/image/7528296"><img src="https://cf.geekdo-images.com/JgrrDxZibskhNT2TLoZF4A__small/img/Pf-OhUog3ck_Cre9GrgJFY0gKl0=/fit-in/200x150/filters:strip_icc()/pic7528296.jpg" border="0"></a></div>Hi there, designer of <a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/382241/chroma-mix"><b><i>Chroma Mix</i></b></a> here. <br> <br>Today I am discussing my game and my experience designing and self-publishing it, but first, a bit about me: Over the past six years, I have designed roughly twenty board games. That sounds like more than should be possible, but many of them are compact games, some of which fit on a single card! A large part of my design journey was creating these small games primarily for <a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/forum/974620/bgg/design-contests" target="_blank" class="postlink" rel="nofollow noreferrer noopener">BGG Design Contests</a>, and participating in these contests is the first thing I recommend to any aspiring designers. <br> <br><center><div style=""><a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/image/7577131"><img src="https://cf.geekdo-images.com/GQdAyrmrXPMFEYsKDRnf4A__small/img/3Lon7_t3ReW9j3Eqc926oZbqkUo=/fit-in/200x150/filters:strip_icc()/pic7577131.jpg" border="0"></a></div></center><center>Chroma Mix <i>five years ago</i></center> <br>I bring up my experience designing small games because it caused a fundamental shift in the way I approach game design. As you can see from the image above, five years ago <i>Chroma Mix</i> had a lot going on: individual player boards, a player action auction system, a main board, three different types of resources, individual decks for each player, and more. <br> <br>This isn't a knock on heavy games, but on how I arrived there. Game design requires a lot of problem solving, and whenever I encountered a problem, I solved it by adding more components and rules. I knew I was probably onto something, but it wasn't working the way I wanted it to — and ultimately I stopped working on it. <br> <br><center><div style=""><a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/image/7541759"><img src="https://cf.geekdo-images.com/A122lthXjC7R1BUTet53mg__small/img/jKspgcIf-LaJNcFFtGSuKwc87FE=/fit-in/200x150/filters:strip_icc()/pic7541759.jpg" border="0"></a></div></center><center>Chroma Mix <i>now</i></center> <br>Four years and many designs later, I decided to revisit <i>Chroma Mix</i>. The game came together at a lightning-fast pace: I started seriously working on the game in February 2023, <a href="https://gamefound.com/en/projects/jayzee-games/chroma-mix" target="_blank" class="postlink" rel="nofollow noreferrer noopener">launched on Gamefound</a> in June, and delivered the game to backers in October of the same year. <br> <br>The secret? While there were several near-disasters — including a last-minute graphic overhaul: shoutout to artist and graphic designer <a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgameartist/148343/nikolaj-jesper-cyon">Nikolaj Cyon</a> for his wonderful work — years of designing smaller games had taught me how to let go of mechanisms. Instead of adding, I ruthlessly cut. I decided to focus on mixing, a mechanism in which you give up two cards and "fuse" them together to make a single stronger card. <br> <br><center><div style=""><a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/image/8157867"><img src="https://cf.geekdo-images.com/bhD-ftEMtexXVKX8s7p4aw__small/img/eZpCMcghdISCSEDtBCt6paDKowA=/fit-in/200x150/filters:strip_icc()/pic8157867.png" border="0"></a></div></center> <br>The fused card is determined using CMYK. In the above example, Cyan and Jungle (made up of Cyan and Yellow) creates Turquoise. The mix mechanism is fun because it presents an interesting decision space. Do you give up your two cards or save them for something else? Which two cards do you mix together and which ones do you save? <br> <br>Once I knew to focus on mixing, it instantly became clear which mechanisms should be cut. For each mechanism, I could simply think about whether it enhanced or distracted from the mixing mechanism. The central board mechanism was all about preventing mixing, so that had to go. Auctions took the focus away from mixing, so that was also cut. A "mix" card that you would play to mix, then had to recover with an action in order to mix again slowed the pace of mixing so that also got cut. <br> <br>As a side benefit, <i>Chroma Mix</i> was a card-only game after all was said and done, making it much less risky to publish. <br> <br><b>A Solo Mode in which You Play Against Yourself as Badly as Possible</b> <br> <br><div style=""><a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/image/7191118"><img src="https://cf.geekdo-images.com/3ydYgM3iA51SmHuagZl-3Q__small/img/LSlkkU9Eyrgc23mQhr_OMF-I2Hw=/fit-in/200x150/filters:strip_icc()/pic7191118.png" border="0"></a></div>The solo mode of <i>Chroma Mix</i> sort of happened by accident. During the design process, I would frequently playtest <i>Chroma Mix</i> solo by playing against myself as if I were two different players. I found this fun because I felt that I was playing against someone with a real strategy. The downside is that it was not terribly satisfying to "win"...if you can even call it that. I'd often have a side that I would want to win, so I'd then feel incredibly weird playing as the other side and trying to prevent myself from winning. I realized that I wanted to play the other side sub-optimally. This led me to an idea: What if the solo mode was a two-player game in which you played against yourself with one side playing normally and the other side trying to lose on purpose? <br> <br>The obvious issue was that when one side is trying to lose, they'd always succeed. I needed to create rules to guarantee that given enough time, the opponent would eventually win the game even when trying to lose. I needed to prevent frivolous mixing, so I settled on a simple rule: The opponent cannot mix for something they already have. <br> <br>I also needed to force mixing, so I came up with a deck system in which mix cards would be shuffled with the opponent's other cards and force a mix when drawn. I didn't want the opponent's turn to be too involved, so I greatly simplified it and made it so that they didn't use any card effects. Finally, the opponent would need something to overcome this player-introduced suboptimal play, so now the opponent's average turn progresses them farther than the player's average turn. <br> <br><b>What's Next?</b> <br> <br>A few distributors have agreed to carry <i>Chroma Mix</i>, so you may see it pop up at your local game store. As for me, I am still designing games, but as an actual job because I am now a game designer for <a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamepublisher/538/z-man-games">Z-Man Games</a>. Who knew that <i>Chroma Mix</i> could help me get a job? <br> <br>I could say more about <i>Chroma Mix</i>, but given that I spent a good chunk of this post writing about how less is more, I'll leave it at that for now. Thank you for reading! <br> <br><a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamedesigner/112177/jorge-zhang">Jorge Zhang</a> <br><a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamepublisher/52831/jayzee-games">Jayzee Games</a></div>
• In early April 2024, Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks was interviewed on WBUR's "Here & Now" about what's happening with Dungeons & Dragons, why the company laid off more than a thousand people in late 2023, and whether the Magic: The Gathering market is being flooded. • Speaking of people leaving Hasbro, on April 17 the company notified the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that on April 15, "Cynthia Williams, President of Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro Gaming, informed the Company
Its previous releases consist of Sign: A Game About Being Understood, which is based on the history of Nicaraguan Sign Language, which was created in the late 1970s by deaf adolescents who had essentially been left without a means to communicate with one another, and Dialect: A Game About Language And How It Dies, which was crowdfunded in 2016 and which won a silver for "best game" in the 2019 ENnies. Here's an overview of that design:. Dialect is a tabletop roleplaying game about an isolated co