Archive for board game

Castle Ravenloft

Posted in Gaming News, Product Review with tags , , , , , , , , on August 25, 2010 by boccobsblog

picture via Wizards.com

On August 31st, Wizards will uncover the first in a new line of D&D board games, Castle Ravenloft. The game is based on the famous 1983 AD&D adventure module I6: Ravenloft, by Tracy and Laura Hickman. The game uses newly modified dungeon tiles that connect together like large puzzle pieces to keep the board from moving around. This tile based system allows the game board to be different for each adventure.

There are 5 heroes (cleric, wizard, rogue, ranger, fighter), and several monster to include two large miniatures (a flesh golem and a zombie dragon), and one huge miniature (a dracolich). The miniatures are unpainted (though they are cast in different colors of plastics based on power level), and are in the standard D&D scale. All of the miniatures (with the exception of the dragonborn fighter) are recasts of D&D minis.

The game contains the following pieces:

40 miniatures                     Rules book

Dungeon tiles                    Adventure book

4 card decks (treasure, hero powers, monsters, encounters)

1    20-sided die

The game will retail for $64.95 and be playable for 1-5 players.

If you’d like more information on the game you can follow this link and watch Mike Mearls open a copy of the game and show you what you’ll get for your money.

Not convinced yet? Well then follow this link and download a free copy of the rule book.

Also, if you do buy the game, Wizards has placed two additional adventures on their website for download (here).

-Andy

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Gaming on the High Seas

Posted in Gaming News with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 23, 2010 by boccobsblog

How would you like to play your favorite role-playing game while surrounded by miles of pristine Caribbean ocean? The people at Gamer Adventures can make that dream a reality.

Gamer Adventures combines your love of gaming with your family vacation. What’s really great about it, is that if your spouse isn’t a gamer there are still countless activities for them to do while you enjoy guilt-free game time.

GA currently offers three cruise packages: Alaskan, Caribbean, and Mexican Rivera. Also, they have a trip that travels to Essen, Germany for the world’s largest gaming convention, Spiel. Each trip has scheduled and open gaming events that take place in a private gaming hall on board the ship.

It’s a pretty cool idea, check it out.

Gameradventures.com

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Letters from Whitechapel

Posted in board game, Product Review with tags , , , , , , , on August 13, 2010 by boccobsblog

At Gen Con, we got a chance to demo several new and exciting games. One of them was a thrilling detective game, Letters from Whitechapel. The game is set in London in 1888 during the killing spree of Jack the Ripper. One character controls Jack while the others play constables trying to arrest him.

How does it work? The game board (a period map of Whitechapel) is covered in more than one hundred numbered circles, and each of these circles is a possible hiding place for Jack. The players go in turn moving about the board investigating the numbered scenes, while Jack moves about the board unseen (the players have visible game pieces, but Jack denotes his movements on a notepad and has no game piece).  The detectives must use strategy and a fair bit of luck as they work together to catch Jack before the fifteenth night, after which he escapes and wins the game.

What I really liked about the game is the amount of detail the designer put into it. The game board looks like an actual period map, and the five murders happen at the historically accurate place on the map. Each of the detective cards (used to determine who leads the investigation each turn) denotes an actual picture of a Scotland Yard detective that worked the case.

The detail that truly impressed me was that on the third “night” of the game, Jack kills two of his five victims. This detail closely follows the actual events of September 30, 1888, when The Ripper killed Liz Stride (but was interrupted), and then killed Catherine Eddowes in the same night. When I saw that detail, it was clear to me that the designers had done their homework on the Ripper murders.

My only complaint, and it is a small one, was that the game pieces that represent the detectives were a bit lame. I would give the game a four out of five.

The game requires 2-6 players, and takes about 90 minutes to complete. It is available from the Nexus Games website.

-Andy

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