It's New Game Friday! And David Wiley (Cardboard Clash) is here to tell us about the new games.
Here’s what is new this week:
- Big Easy Busking
- Big Easy Busking: French Quarter Expansion
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Cardweaver
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Fences
This week's new games are all available at https://www.pnparcade.com/collections/new-games
Big Easy Busking
New Orleans, The Big Easy, is known for many things: Creole cuisine, a unique dialect, annual celebrations and festivals, and its distinctive music.
Do you have what it takes to travel to the birthplace of Jazz, show off your skills, and be named King or Queen of the Buskers?
Big Easy Busking is a competitive area control game about playing music, matching the mood of the crowd, and knowing when to push your band members to their max.
If you have ever wanted to be a musician but had no time, or talent, to do so then this game could be your wish fulfillment. Here you are controlling a small group of street musicians, known as Buskers, who play songs for various crowds. Choosing what song to play, when to learn a new song for your repertoire, and where to play your songs are all important decisions you’ll get to make. Striking the right balance will allow you to leave more area control cubes on that particular crowd, maximizing your payout. With a vibrant, color art style and an interesting twist on area control, this game is one that should delight game groups. Like all fantastic titles from Weird Giraffe Games, this one also comes with a solo mode...and there’s even a Spotify playlist to help you get the group in the Big Easy mood.
Big Easy Busking: French Quarter Expansion
This includes 3 additional Song Cards.
Well, I could not put it more concisely than that. But let’s try to sell this a little bit, shall we? Yes, it is an easy-to-integrate expansion. It changes absolutely nothing about the base game, and instead adds three new song cards into the mix. Big deal, right? Wrong. One card allows you to return all of your song cards to your hand. Action efficiency right there. Another one allows you to put down an energy on the crowd if you have no tokens there yet - immediately. When you snag that card, your opponent needs to plan for that potential boost! And if you like mind games, the last card is for you because it lets you move up to two other Energy tokens of yours from other crowds onto this crowd - meaning you can suddenly bolster one card while pulling off cubes from cards you aren’t likely to win. There’s your expansion pitch, friends, and if you have the base game there is no reason not to grab these great cards as well. *mic drop*
Cardweaver is a Deck-Building Card Game that focuses on player interaction in a one versus all setting. Each player will have their own unique Dreamscapes that they can buy cards from based on the Characters they chose. As they play the game, they will be able to buy cards, gain Experience to unlock special Skills, and fight each other until only one side remains.
Like deck-building games such as Star Realms and Dominion? Do you also like games where you’re trying to defeat your opponent via life totals? Then you might want to give this game a look, because it offers something a little different than most deck-building games. First off, you have the concept of 1 vs many in here, having one player be the Nemesis and the others trying to take down the Nemesis - although it can also be played solo or cooperatively against an AI-operated Nemesis. Second, each player has their own unique decks to purchase from, so you have your own specialized market of cards in a manner, allowing you to tailor things via cards designed to function strongly with your own deck. Gaining experience mid-game also allows you to upgrade your character, giving access to stronger abilities - and you can even donate the experience you earn to another player to help them ramp up to deal with the threat of the Nemesis. This promises to be a unique experience with mechanics that will feel familiar.
Fences
In Fences, the players place land tiles one at a time, each turn. The farms grow with each tile placed and, after many tiles have been played, are closed in completely by fences. The players earn points by having animals in farms which they claimed by building a henhouse. Completing a farm, even one you don’t own, can also score points from your profile card. The player with the most points at the end of the game is the most successful 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.
Want to play Fences with 5 or 6 players? We've got the expansion too!
For all of the new games, visit https://www.pnparcade.com/collections/new-games
The game of the week is Doom Realm!
In Doom Realm you will adventure deep into dungeons, through the wilderness, and over the seas in an attempt to defeat your foes, destroy their lairs, and loot their treasure hordes. All of this is done with a single adventure sheet, 4 d6 (6-sided die), a sharp pencil, and a bit of cunning.
If you like a game with a simple component list, this is one to check out. Explore across a map of terrain, battle monsters, level up adventurers, and try to defeat all 6 baddies before 30 turns have passed in order to win. The clever thing is that you’re rolling 4 dice per turn, allocating each to a different aspect of the game, such as movement. Baddies and bosses get stronger over time, and failure to defeat baddies makes them even stronger when you try to take them down again. If you want a dungeon of adventure, mixed with some risk-taking dice rolling and a small party of heroes, this is a game to check out because it has a lot to offer and takes no time at all to get up and running. This is a nice roll and write with up to four different adventures, but where no two times through the same adventure will ever play out quite the same.
Check out Doom Realm here: https://www.pnparcade.com/collections/game-of-the-week
See you next week with more information on our newest print and play games!