iOS Universal, Android • I’m currently putting together our top five lists for the End of Year Hullabaloo and, while I don’t want to drop any spoilers, you may see Meteorfall pop up once or twice. Just to be clear, I collected those lists before the latest mega-patch dropped, which introduces a new skin, new cards, and new Meteorfall goodness. Say hello to the Queen of Shadows.
iOS, Android • While my gaming desires tend to lean toward heavier fare such as Through the Ages or Twilight Struggle, there’s a warm place in my heart for simple, quick card games. Games that, while sitting at your child’s Holiday Concert and you spot another dad from your game group, can be played without dedicating all your attention, thus lowering the chances of your wife catching you sneaking turns. This is an entirely hypothetical situation, by the way. I’d never play games…who am I kidding? Lost Cities was our School Concert/Play/Sports game of choice but it has been surpassed by a little game that, until November, none of us had played, Morels. [Whoa, big reveal! It’s in the title of the piece you dink -ed.]
iOS, Android, PC/Mac • So, all the voices in my head the last couple days have been talking about one thing, the new game from indie dev Kenny Sun, Twinfold. “Wait, what voices?” you’re probably asking. To that I say, Sandwiches! [we’re not sure when Dave fell and hit his head, but we’re all guessing it was somewhere around the age of 7 -ed.]
iOS, Android, PC • I’m not a huge fan of Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer, but that has more to do with bloat than the game itself. I know I’ve mentioned it before, but when a game keeps adding cards and rules and mechanisms, eventually my brain shuts down and I can’t handle it. Sure, I could play Ascension without the expansions, but then the same part of my brain will keep telling me that I’m missing out on “the big picture”. It’s a sickness. That said, I know a lot of you love Ascension, so you’ll be happy to hear that its follow-up, Shards of Infinity from Stoneblade Entertainment, is coming to digital next year. You’ll also be happy to hear who’s behind the port. No, it’s not the Ascension-crafting Playdek. Instead we have Race for the Galaxy upstart, Temple Gates, taking the helm.
iOS/Android (coming in 2019), PC/Mac/Linux (available now) • Artifact, if you’re not aware, is the latest digital CCG to hit the market, this time from streaming bigwig, Valve. While playing Civ VI on my laptop, I was inundated with ads for the game [there was one, and it was only when he logged in -ed.] and, [being a simpleton -ed.] couldn’t resist. After playing through the two tutorial matches I can only say one thing for certain: I’m not a huge fan of CCGs.
iOS, Android, PC/Mac • There are a lot of games that, upon release, are less than stellar and only achieve greatness after patches or expansions release down the road. Diablo 3 was like that, as was Civ V. A mobile entry on that list has to be Perchang‘s reentry into the grim world of Warhammer Fantasy, Warhammer Quest 2: The End Times. When it was released the general consensus was it failed to live up to the glory that was the original Warhammer Quest. Several patches and additional content, however, have elevated it to be a worthy successor. Come January, PC and Mac gamers will get to experience the full Warhammer Quest 2 experience without having to slog through all that drama. You can thank us mobile gamers later.
iOS, Android • I realize that mushrooms are merely the sexy parts of a gigantic microscopic decomposer spreading for miles under the forest floor, slowly digesting any and everything dead, but they’re so damn tasty. Seriously, I love the things and would put them in nearly everything if they didn’t cause all three of my kids to display their revulsion via dry heave noises. I’ve never actually gone and hunted my own from the wild because I’m ignorant and lazy [two qualities that define Dave regardless of activity -ed.]. For those of us who love the shroom, but aren’t devoted mycophiles, there’s Morels, a 2-player card game released in 2014 that’s making its way to mobile next week.
iOS Universal, Android, PC/Mac • While I used to talk quite a bit about iOS war game gem, Carrier Battles for Guadalcanal, over at another site I used to write for, our coverage here at SP has been shamefully light. I apologize not only to the one-man development team of Cyril Jarnot, but to you as well. CB4G is a pretty great hex-and-counter war game for iOS (the only one I can think of) and we’re the kind of audience that should be eating it up. With a little (or a lot–that’s a big $ number) luck, CB4G will be a little less niche than it currently is. A Kickstarter started today to not only bring CB4G to other platforms–namely, PC/Mac–but also adding a ton of functionality making “the little war game that could” into the sprawling epic war game that Cyril envisioned from the beginning.
iOS, Android, PC/Mac/Linux • Last Friday we skipped our normal Scrying article to bring you a new screenshot of the upcoming Leaders & Wonders expansion for Czech Games Edition‘s magnum opus, Through the Ages. Well, my embarrassing pleas to Vlaada to be noticed and get into the beta have born fruit! I’m not helping playtest the new expansion (they’re not stupid), but I should be in the beta once it goes live. Also, they sent me a couple more screens from which we can extract completely erroneous information. Let’s put on our deerstalkers and get to work.
iOS Universal, Android • Tinder-esque role-playing roguelike, Meteorfall, landed on the App Store back in January like a…um…hmm, something falling from the sky? Can’t think of a good metaphor. It will come to me at some point, I’m sure. Since its release it’s been the recipient of several updates including the massive (and free) Necrodude update which added a new hero, the titular Necrodude. Yesterday another update crashed into Meteorfall like a…jeez, I really just can’t think of anything. Anyway, it’s called the Demon Update and the changes it makes to the game are on the hefty side.