Dominant Species - The Evolution of Worker Placement.

GMT games, a prolific publisher well known for its quality wargames, has been making grognards smile for over two decades. In 2010, GMT surprised a lot of people with the release of Dominant Species, a game about survival of the fittest during an encroaching ice age that appeared to have more in common with the worker placement mechanics found in Euro style games than GMT’s previous conflict oriented offerings. Designed by Chad Jensen, Dominant Species trades the battlefields of Europe and the Pacific for the glacial arena of the frozen tundra, where the deadly implements of modern war are replaced with the ruthless hand of mother nature and the wily twists of evolution.

In Dominant Species, players control a class of animals in a biological taxonomy, and attempt to evolve their class of creatures to dominate a world being rapidly changed by the encroaching glaciers of the ice age. Players must evolve their creatures to better adapt to the environment and change the environment to benefit their species, all while engaging the other players through direct tactical conflict and cunning strategic migration. While the core mechanic in Dominant Species is worker placement, it’s about as far from archetypal genre titles like Caylus or Agricola as you can get. Players will compete for various actions through the worker placement mechanic, but how they choose to utilize those actions, and where on the board they place their genetic army of species has an awful lot in common with conflict based combat games. As one poofy-haired singer from the 80’s once expressed: “Love is a Battlefield”, and the cutthroat natural selection of Dominant Species certainly supports that notion.

Components:

I was a bit late to the party in picking up Dominant Species, and although I may have thought mean, jealous things about those lucky gamers who acquired a copy during 2010 before it sold out, I was happy to pick up the second printing in 2011; a printing which received upgraded components, as well as the removal of the comic-sans font (the bane of typophiles everywhere) from the rulebook. That being said, the components in the second edition are stellar. From the super-sturdy box, to the thick tiles and board, everything in the box screams quality. And that’s not even mentioning enough wooden bits to shock a lumberjack – and that’s okay!

It’s important to note that the components that make up dominant species are all very minimal in design: wooden cubes; cylinders; cones; and very simple, minimalist illustrations that serve more as iconography than artwork. I have to admit that in general I am drawn to detailed miniatures and colorful artwork in games. The way a game looks and feels, and the mood that it conveys can really enhance my gaming experience. GMT could have easily gone this route with dominant species, but I can honestly say that it would have been a mistake to add such embellishments. The minimal presentation of the game fits the function much better than complicated artwork would have. There is so much going on in Dominant Species, and so many pieces on the board at any given time, that miniatures or fancy art would have detracted from the playability of the game. The minimal art allows the state of the game to be delivered in a clear, concise way and benefits the game as a whole.

Click to read more ...

Dreams of a Fashion Reject

Last night I had a dream.

I was racing down a mountain road in a sleek blue sedan, weaving between cars as the engine purred with power. In the distance I could see the foot of the mountain, and a sandy desert valley opening up before me. But, as I approached the foot of the mountain, the car began to lose power, and its silk-like handling turned to that of a brick in molasses.

Looking through my rear-view mirror I could see black smoke billowing from the trunk. I pulled the limping vehicle to the side of the road, despite it's chugging objections, and quickly stepped out. I circled around to the rear of the car, and held my breath as I opened the trunk. The oily smoke poured out, but quickly dispersed, following the meandering path of a summer breeze. In its absence, I saw the source of the problem.

Sitting in the center of the trunk was a shiny black Barbecue Grill. Golden flames darted from cracks in the side of the grill, licking the surface, and leaving a powdery grey ash. I gingerly opened the grill, and stepped away as a ball of fire rolled out of the strange cooking apparatus. Even while stepping away, I could feel the inferno inside singe my eyebrows. I leaned forward to see what was inside - burning, crackling, and coughing out such a noxious and oily smoke.

Although the contents of the grill were charred and curling to ash, to my horror, I instantly recognized them. My entire wardrobe of clothes. Burned and blackened, my ragged collection of game related T-shirts were smoldering inside of a barbecue grill that was resting inside the trunk of a broken down sports sedan, on the side of a rocky mountain road.

What does it mean?

It means that I need to tell you about the new games being introduced by Ignacy Trzewiczek and Portal Publishing at this year's Essen game convention. Ignacy is the designer who brought us Stronghold, a board game which I reviewed earlier in the year, and gave very high marks.

The broken down car in a rocky desert wasteland is obviously alluding to the post-apocalyptic, "Road Warrior" inspired board game 51st State. Portal is revealing a new standalone expansion to the game at this years Essen, called The New Era, which allows for increased player interaction through the mechanic of invasion and treaties. I have been a fan of post apocalyptic settings ever since I first booted up the computer game Wasteland on my Commodore 64 as a kid, so I am really looking forward to The New Era.

Although people have been telling me I need to burn my clothes since high school, I'm sure that the destruction of my entire wardrobe is a hint from my psyche that it's time to enter the world of high fashion. Ignacy is also releasing the English version of Pret-a-Porter, a cutthroat economic game about the high stakes world of high fashion. Don't let he theme fool you - fashion is a serious business, and this is described as Portal's most ruthless game to date.

After Essen, more information about a potential North American release will likely be made available, and I hope to give both of these titles a closer look in the future to see if they really are the stuff dreams are made of.

Quite Quotable

"Failure leads to maturity; maturity leads to success."

Steven Brust, Jhereg

Quite Quotable

"A man who dwells in the past will only have shadows for company, and that is not enough.  The soul will sicken and starve."

 James Axler, Deathlands 24: Trader Redux

Eaten by Zombies - A Review.

Kickstarter.com has been making waves in board game development lately. Its no-risk preorder model allows indie designers and larger publishers alike to take more risks when releasing games. When a designer has a project that he wants to fund, but doesn’t have the money up front to print the game, or fears that the game may not have a large enough audience, he can pitch his project on kickstarter.com.  Potential buyers can “invest” in this idea by pledging money to the project, and in return will receive a copy of the game when it is printed. Most kickstarter projects offer some nifty goodies that are exclusive to the kickstarter campaign.  If the project does not earn enough money to fund it, the investors are not obligated to pay anything. This is great for both the game publishers, and the consumers; the publishers don’t end up with a bunch of unsold stock in their warehouses, and the consumer doesn’t lose money if a game isn’t printed.

One of the many publishers to begin embracing kickstarter as a means of offering game preorders is Mayday Games. Until now, Mayday Games has mostly been known for manufacturing card sleeves for hobby and euro games, but Mayday is entering the game publishing business with a bang this quarter with no fewer than three kickstarter projects, all of which are either already funded, or well on target to be funded. One of these titles is an interesting Zombie themed deck building game designed by Max Holliday, called Eaten By Zombies, of which I was fortunate enough to play an advanced copy.

In Eaten by Zombies, players work to defeat a zombie horde, by fighting, fleeing, and scavenging for items. Notice I didn’t say the players are working together to defeat the zombie horde; the game may seem to be somewhat cooperative at first glance, and there are ways to achieve a cooperative victory, but the easiest, and most prevalent way of winning involves being the last player alive. In order to stay alive, sometimes friendships have to be sacrificed. Eaten by Zombies turns the act of throwing other players under the bus into an art form. It’s more like throwing the other players under the bus, tying them to the bumper, backing over them a few times, and then dragging them for a few miles. You may think that this is one of those fabled "direct conflict" deck building games. No, it's not. Eaten by Zombies could only be categorized as a “Passive Aggressive deck-building game”. Players never really directly attack each other, but instead modify the environment to benefit themselves, and if someone gets eaten in the process, that’s just life.. or death.. or undeath. Imagine a zombie apocalypse let loose during a family reunion, and you get the drift.

Although there have been a slew of both zombie themed games and deck building games, Eaten by Zombies manages to tackle both with a great deal of originality. The art style in the game is wonderfully distinctive, with its fusion of 1950’s propaganda and zombie horror that manages to be both sinister and humorous at the same time. And, while Eaten by Zombies utilizes deck building mechanics, it only shares some passing similarity with others in the genre, focusing on hand management and deck un-building just as much as deck building; delivering mechanics and gameplay that are just as unique as it’s art style.

Click to read more ...