Stately Play

Steaming the Unfriendly Skies

September 24, 2018 Tof Eklund 0

In case you haven’t heard, Sunless Skies, the sequel to Failbetter Games’ indie hit Sunless Sea, has set course for release on January 31st, the year of her Majesty below 2019. The pitch is “Sail the skies. Betray your Queen. Murder a sun.” Works for me, I’ve wanted to murder a sun ever since I met the !@%$!?! Dawn Machine (falling as it does only behind red honey on my list of things that are actually terrible in Sunless Sea, and that only because the red honey smuggling subplot involves such an intensely personal corruption). I’ve been in on the Sunless Skies alpha and it’s been amazing, watching the world grow from a frustratingly sparse but conceptually fascinating single zone of space to a deep, dark, place, full of wonder and terror, worthy successor to the strange glories of Sunless Sea.

Tripflare & Torch: Chronicle of the Lightbearer, pt. 2

September 23, 2018 Tof Eklund 0

Welcome back, my dear fiends! In this gloaming hour we have for you the ghastly first quest of the Lightbearer, a suicide mission into the gullet of giant worm, and I don’t mean wyrm with a “y.” No, this behemoth is the maggoty, squirmy kind. Do you think you have the “stomach” for this tale? We shall see. (TW for body horror).

Review: Stockpile

September 19, 2018 David Neumann 16

iOS/Android (out now), PC/Mac/Linux (coming Friday) • There was a time, not long ago, that I dreaded any game that included a stock market mechanism. Something in my brain convinced me that games with stocks and money were the purview of the business-inclined, which I’m definitely not. [For example, look around this website and see how well he’s monetized it. -ed.] Luckily, a little game called Imperial changed my mind and, while I’m terrible at stock games, I discovered that they’re fun as hell. If you’re not aware, stock trading is a (the?) major component of the 18xx family of board games which readers will know I’m currently in love with. Stock games tend to fall into two categories: those that treat stocks fairly realistically and those that don’t. The 18xx games, for example, deal with it somewhat realistically with your stock price rising and falling based on demand and the profitability of your train company. Stockpile falls into the unrealistic camp in which stock prices are randomly in flux. Both are fun, and while I doubt we’ll ever see an 18xx game make its way to our phones, (unless Playdek ever gets around to developing 1846 from GMT) today Stockpile makes its grand entrance on the digital stage.

Tripflare & Torch: Chronicle of the Lightbearer pt. 1

September 17, 2018 Tof Eklund 0

Hello my ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties and things that go “bump” in the night! It’s uh, still Sunday night, right? No… well, never mind then. This week, I’m starting my creative playthrough/AAR of Tales of Maj’Eyal as a Writhing One. TW for body horror in roughly the same vein as Mary Shelly, David Cronenberg, H.P. Lovecraft (of course), and my nightmares as I entered adolescence. We’re not getting into Human Centipede territory because even I have limits. It’s my intention to stay as close as possible to the official lore of ToME and to the key in-game events without being pedantic about either one. We’re not doing this is chess notation.

Stately Scrying: What we’re playing this weekend

September 14, 2018 David Neumann 29

While I know it’s not the most beloved game around these parts, I seem to have fallen pretty hard for One Deck Dungeon from Handelabra. I purchased the Forest of Shadows expansions and promo cards and discovered Quick Play mode which randomly pits one or two adventurers against one of the 10 or so bosses. It’s fantastic. I love learning the quirks of each class and using the hero progression to slowly give them new abilities for the next time they randomly get called to service. I’ve played for hours at a time this week which is not something I’ve done with a video game in quite a while. I bring this up because I will probably be playing it quite a bit over the weekend as well along with a few other things. We’ll all be playing games over the weekend and to see which ones, skip past the jump.

Cities: Skylines releases for Switch (yes, more Switch news)

September 14, 2018 David Neumann 2

PC/Mac/Linux, Switch • Another interesting announcement during the Nintendo Direct that I didn’t watch came from Paradox, makers of all things epic and real-time. Turns out they’re getting in the Switch game as well and their first (and maybe only?) release is the outstanding city builder, Cities: Skylines. The best part is that it wasn’t a tease announcement. No, they were announcing that the game was out for Switch right then and now.

Asmodee bringing a lot more to Switch than just Carcassonne

September 14, 2018 David Neumann 0

Switch • There was a “Nintendo Direct” last night and I’m a bit embarrassed to say that, until last night, I had no idea what a “Nintendo Direct” was. I still really don’t. I mean, I guess it’s when they announce a bunch of stuff, but I have no idea where or how I’d go about watching one. Luckily, I don’t care enough to learn, so it all evens out. This morning, however, Asmodee Digital sent me a press release about their Nintendo plans, and I guess I should maybe pay more attention to these Nintendo Direct things. We already knew they were bringing their version of Carcassonne to Switch at some point down the road. Turns out that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Sequel to Frozen Synapse, creatively monikered Frozen Synapse 2, now available for PC

September 13, 2018 David Neumann 4

Mac/Linux (soon), PC (out now) • When the original Frozen Synapse appeared on the iPad it instantly became one of those “wow” games that you would show off to people who still didn’t grasp what a great game platform the iPad could be. Owen fell in love with its Tron-like graphics and tactical, WEGO turn-based strategy so hard that he finally admitted to sitting on a throne of lies. In other words, it was pretty great. That was 2013, however, and Frozen Synapse has long been relegated to the cloud rather than residing on my tablet. It’s going to stay that way for the foreseeable future, but a new Frozen Synapse is going to be taking up space on my laptop’s hard drive and that’s nearly as good. If you haven’t guessed yet (or not read the headline), Mode 7 has finally released Frozen Synapse 2 for PC.

Julian Gollop’s latest gem is not XCOM and is out now: Chaos Reborn Adventures

September 13, 2018 David Neumann 77

iOS Universal, Android • The wonderful folk in our forums directed me to some questionable reviews posted on the just released mobile strategy title Chaos Reborn: Adventures. One of them gives the game one star on the sole basis that Julian Gollop, the creator of the original XCOM, created this game and it’s nothing like XCOM. I found this funny as hell because we usually criticize when creators keep redoing the same thing over and over but now Chaos Reborn is being flogged because it’s not just like another game that the designer created 23 years ago. What’s even better is that Chaos Reborn: Adventures is actually a remake of a game that Julian Gollop designed well before the idea of cryssalids ever entered his brain. Anyway, I’m rambling here. The major point to take from all this is that Chaos Reborn: Adventures is now available for both iOS and Android.

Making Planetfall at the Flashpoint

September 13, 2018 Tof Eklund 3

Oh boy! Are we going to try something dangerous? Sorry, had to work the reference in there somewhere. Blink and you’ll miss it. Or, at least, “be sick nigh unto death itself with food poisoning and ye shall not see it.” Last week, while my guts were re-staging the storming of the Bastille, Paradox showed off the first live-play session with forthcoming sci-fi 4x game, Age of Wonders: Planetfall. But wait, you say, isn’t Age of Wonders a fantasy series? Not this time, friend, though the video does show off some classic Age of Wonders / fantasy 4x mechanics adapted to sci-fi with grace and aplomb.