David Neumann

Yes, Acram’s new game is Charterstone

April 25, 2019 David Neumann 8

iOS, Android, Steam, Switch Not since the removal of the headphone jack from iPhone 7 has there been a worse kept secret than Acram‘s attempt at obfuscation. What am I talking about? A couple days ago they posted a mysterious tweet about their new upcoming project showing nothing more than a gif of clouds. It didn’t take long for someone to look at the image directories over at the Acram site and, lo and behold, find they’re all labeled with ‘charterstone’ in the title. I’d like to poke fun at Acram for this, but I have to admit that I wouldn’t have thought of locking that stuff down either. I wouldn’t know how to do it, either, so <shrug>. Anyway, Acram’s next board game port is Charterstone! (Act surprised, dammit!)

One Deck Dungeon heading to the small screen

April 22, 2019 David Neumann 7

iOS, Android, PC/Mac/Linux Coming out of nowhere last year was Handelabra‘s port of the Little Card Game That Could, One Deck Dungeon. No other board game port received nearly as much playtime and, let me remind you, you could only play it on iPad or your laptop. Luckily, it’s less of an addiction now because it’s coming to phones in May which would have killed me had it happened last year.

Mystic Vale headed to mobile on June 6th

April 16, 2019 David Neumann 15

iOS, Android, PC/Mac Mystic Vale, the transparent card-building board game from Nomad Games and AEG, arrived for PC/Mac back in January and has been raking in rave reviews over on Steam. Due to my ongoing gaming malaise, I haven’t yet given it a go instead opting to wait for the mobile version. Today we learned that we won’t have to wait much longer to do just that. Mystic Vale is headed to iOS and Android on June 6th.

Say bonjour to the next board game Kickstarter you’re going to back: Maquis

April 9, 2019 David Neumann 2

Tabletop Earlier this year I fell in love with an unassuming little solo board game called Black Sonata. You can read all about it right over here. Just a spectacular solo game that combines tight decision-making with mechanisms that obfuscate the underlying math, ensuring you never feel like you’re simply solving a puzzle. Yesterday, publisher Side Room Games decided to go at it again. Leaving the Elizabethan era behind, their latest focuses on World War II espionage in a little title called Maquis.

Forbidden Sciences forbidden no more: XenoShyft unveils new expansion

April 4, 2019 David Neumann 8

iOS, Android, PC/Mac I mentioned this in last week’s news bundle, but Asmodee has been hard at work on bringing the Forbidden Sciences expansion to everyone’s favorite forgotten board game port, XenoShyft. Turns out they were working harder than I realized, as today XenoShyft updated and, lo and behold, Forbidden Sciences is right there waiting for your money.

Welcome to the Renaissance: Lorenzo il Magnifico kickstarting its way to digital

April 4, 2019 David Neumann 8

PC/Mac Lorenzo il Magnifico is a heavier euro set in Renaissance Italy that is pretty much exactly like every other euro published in the last 4-5 years. By this I mean that it’s sitting in shrink wrap on my basement shelf surrounded by a bunch of other games I have yet to find time to play. Publisher Cranio Creations is here to help, bringing its tableau builder to digital via everyone’s favorite crowdfunding source, Kickstarter.

Channel your inner wgah’nagl with Cultist Simulator, now on mobile

April 2, 2019 David Neumann 37

iOS, Android, PC/Mac/Linux Of all the games that I picked up on Steam last year, Cultist Simulator from Weather Factory was, by far, the strangest. It sells itself as a card game, but I don’t think that’s really what it is. There are cards, sure, but… Yeah, it’s weird. Let’s not equate weird with bad, because this weird is a fun mystery to try and work your way through and now it’s on a platform where we can really sink our teeth into it: mobile.

Say cheese! Luca Redwood set to release Photographs this week

April 1, 2019 David Neumann 10

iOS, Android, PC Everyone loves games crafted from the mind of Luca Redwood and EightyEight Games. If you don’t, then you either haven’t played them or are a big ol’ doody-head. I mean, who couldn’t love You Must Build a Boat? There’s no option of building a boat, you MUST build it. Gold. Also, 1000000 which is a game I can never remember how many zeroes to add to it. Sure, they look like match-3 games, but delve into them and you’ll find they’re chock-full of deeper gameplay that belies their Bejeweled aesthetic. On Wednesday, we’ll get to see his latest foray into our collective gamespace when EightyEight Games releases Photographs, a game most definitely unlike the previous two.

Playdek/GMT union producing more fruit. Here comes Fort Sumter

March 25, 2019 David Neumann 8

iOS, Android, Steam The biggest news story around these parts last year was word that Playdek and GMT Games, two names that carry a lot of weight around these parts, had formed a partnership. Playdek would have access to the GMT catalog and announced the first product, Labyrinth, would be coming to our touchscreens. We were wondering which other titles from GMT’s vast library would be coming. Now we know the second title, Mark Herman‘s fantastic Civil War filler, Fort Sumter is on the way.

All the news we missed last week (and maybe even before that)

March 25, 2019 David Neumann 8

It’s been a crazy few months at Stately Play HQ. Work, family, and life in general have been putting up huge detour signs whenever I’d sit down to pen a poorly written screed about the latest Big Thing. You may have noticed. I’m on vacation this week (my kids are on spring break, which seemed as good of an excuse as any) so I’m hoping to have a little more time. I’m hoping this extra time stretches into the future even when I’m not sitting outside in 72 degree weather with a lovely ocean breeze to keep me cool. Work should be dying down a bit and the end of club volleyball is in sight. We’ll see, but I’m hoping for a more energetic front page in the coming weeks and months. A lot of stuff in Gameland has been happening and, instead of forcing you to read one dreck filled post of mine after another, I thought I’d pile all the dreck into one easy-to-digest morsel. See what’s been happening after the break.