iPad, PC/Mac/Linux • It’s always nice to wake up to a surprise unless said surprise involves wet sheets and a horse head. Today’s non-horse-head-based surprise comes from our Discord channel, where Athros discovered that Aspyr Media is at it again in regards to Civilization VI for iPad. Yep, a new update has landed and it’s a doozy.
iPad, PC/Mac/Linux, Switch, PS4/Vita, Xbox One • While I know Darkest Dungeon isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, I think we can all agree that, yep, it probably is the darkest of all dungeons. You can bring torches along, but it’s still dark. In fact, the only color you’ll see while playing is blood red, and that’s when your beloved heroes go insane, which is better than death. Or is it? In June there will be more color coming to Darkest Dungeon, namely a new expansion called The Color of Madness.
iOS Universal, Android • In this year of endless betas, we’ve had at least one launch that was worth talking about, the Tinder-ish roguelike, Meteorfall. I really liked the game even though — yes, you were all right about this — it’s not a substitute for Dream Quest. Is anything, though? Today Meteorfall received its first major content update since its January launch, something called the Necrodude.
PC/Mac/Linux • Well, that headline was embarrassing. Fear not, our headline writer has just been sacked and replaced with a mindless stooge [it’s Dave. It’s always been Dave -ed.] who has agreed to write boring headlines for half the price. While it was embarrassing, this headline was relevant to the game at hand, Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire which has a Golden Age of Piracy vibe mixed in with its Infinity Engine roots. Why should we care? Because PoE2: Deadfire releases today.
iOS, Android, PC/Mac/Linux • Acram Digital made their digital name with a well done port of Steam: Rails to Riches and, later, Ryan Laukat‘s Eight-Minute Empire. Both games nailed what made their cardboard cousins so much fun and presented everything polished to a glistening shine. Even better, their releases weren’t just for mobile, but the PC/Mac/Linux crowd could get in on the fun as well via Steam. Looks like those salad days are behind us, however, as all of Acram’s titles have been removed from Steam due to the folks at Acram being naughty.
PC/Mac/Linux, Android, iOS • Another week, another post about a mobile beta. Sigh. I don’t know what’s happening, but I know that the next few months there’s going to be an explosion of goodness oozing out of the App Store’s pores. This week (and I’m sure there will be more as the week goes on…we’ve become Betas-R-Us) we have an abstract that hasn’t gotten enough coverage: Feud.
iOS, Android, PC/Mac/Linux • It’s been a rather slow news week on the mobile front with the big releases still far in the distance and nothing new coming to light. Leave it to Asmodee Digital, keepers of the keys to the mobile board gaming vault, to break that silence and give me something to write about other than stuff that happened 70 years ago. A bunch of Asmodee news appeared this week — nothing so grand that I felt I should stop playing Factorio to mention it — so here it all is in one place.
You may have read that headline and wondered what the hell I could teach you about history. You’d be right. The readers of Stately Play are some of the best read history buffs I’ve ever been witness to (to the point where I’m embarrassed to admit I’m struggling to read a historical fiction novel that was recommended to me), and far be it from me to try to explain anything that’s happened in the past to any of them. That said, May is going to be a strange month and it all revolves around history. Specifically, my history. Well, my father’s history at least.
PC • Say what you will about the fire-sale mentality of Games Workshop licenses being granted thither and yon, the dividends are paying out rather nicely. We’ve got grand strategies coming online, decent approximations of the tabletop in the mix, starship combat deftly effected and the list goes on. Tickle me pink that the colossi are seeing their day, too. Just announced? Adeptus Titanicus: Dominus. Fantasticus.
Tabletop • Fantasy Flight, the Angel Cordero* successfully flogging that Star Wars license to win after win, have announced that their immensely popular X-Wing line of prepainted tabletop miniatures will be getting a new edition. Lest my fellow players of the existing game crack their screens in frustration, all existing ships will be supported with a conversion kit, so those of us who’ve sunk hundreds of dollars into the first edition won’t be left behind by organized play and new releases. Naturally, we can always play the edition we have, but that’s still a comfort. There’s a (by X-Wing standards) modest cost to upgrade, and it looks like small ships are headed for a price hike, but the goals announced seem pretty desirable, so it’s more defensible than some routes to our wallets. It sounds like they’re aiming to make the game substantially more responsive to balance problems while making it easier to build ship lists, avoid having to buy everything, offer a greater variety of play styles, and tweak some of the decisions they now regard as limiting both their design space and ability to accurately represent the world of Star Wars. But none of that’s what caught my eye.