PC/Mac • Asmodee Digital told us at Gen Con that Scythe for our laptops would be coming out in Q3 and, well, they weren’t lying. Scythe has shed its Early Access shackles and moved onto full release today for both PC and Mac nearly 3 weeks before the third quarter of 2018 comes to an end. What are you waiting for? Details? Oh, okay, check after the jump.
PC • In 2016, Stonemaier Games released the engine building mech/farming crossover board game Scythe to much acclaim. The game quickly shot up the ranks on BoardGameGeek and currently sits firmly at number seven, ahead of classics like Agricola and Puerto Rico. That’s in no small part to its worldbuilding –a post WWI fought with giant mechs– along with the addition of strategic 4x gameplay and Jakub Rozalski’s outstanding art. For those reasons, Scythe: Digital Edition, developed by The Knights of Unity and published by [our dark overlords -ed.] Asmodee Digital, is one of the most anticipated titles of 2018. Recently it landed in Early Access which seemed like a good time for us to attempt the conquest of Eastern Europe.
PC, (Mac, iOS coming soon) • In a year with a lot of anticipated board game ports, Scythe from Stonemaier Games and Asmodee Digital is near the top of a lot of lists, mine included. Strangely, Asmodee has been somewhat quiet about what’s happening with Scythe, only giving us tiny glimpses into the inner sanctum. Sure, we got a week-long beta test back in April but that was only for PC so all the cool kids were left out. I’m built of strong enough stuff to wait for Early Access and a build specifically for Mac, yessiree…Oh, what’s this? Today, Scythe arrived on Early Access…for PC only. Ugh.
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.
PC (beta), iOS/Android (down the road) • After collecting nearly $2 million on Kickstarter in 2015, Scythe made its grand debut at Gen Con 2016 and quickly scrambled up the Board Game Geek rankings to eventually land in the top ten games of all time. I’m not sure it deserves to be called the 7th best board game ever, but I do enjoy the game and its incredible overproduction quite a bit. Due to its success, a digital version only seemed natural and, of course, our digital overlords, Asmodee Digital, would be the ones bringing it to life. We know it’s coming to Steam and mobile sometime later this year, but maybe you want to give it a try now? Follow me.
iOS, Android, Steam • Thanks to Gen Con, we already knew Asmodee Digital had a ridiculous amount of new games slated for later this year and 2018. This week is Essen, however, and it seems they still have some tricks up their sleeve. Yesterday they released a teaser trailer for Scythe that failed to show any gameplay but did manage to remind us it’s coming. They also mentioned some new Catan vehicles which we’ll talk about when they get closer to launch. Today, however, we learned that apart from all the new releases coming down the pike, they still had at least two they were holding back. That would be Arcane Wonders‘ abstract Onitama and Steve Jackson‘s ubiquitous Munchkin.
iOS, Android, PC/Mac • The biggest player in both the cardboard and digital board game realm right now is the French company, Asmodee. If there’s a board game publisher you like, there’s a good chance they fall under Asmodee’s umbrella, and not just the cardboard version. Starting with Colt Express last November, they’ve published a ton of digital board games like Mysterium, Potion Explosion, Onirim, Pathfinder Adventures, and more. They’re only beginning, too, with upcoming titles both from their own cardboard catalog as well as tabletop titles that Asmodee has nothing to do with. It’s kind of crazy.
The board game Scythe has had its share of space here on Stately Play due to the fact that a digital version is in the works and should be coming sometime in 2017. It never really dawned on me that the rest of you aren’t spending half your waking hours skimming game info over at BoardGameGeek, or lurking on Kickstarter waiting for The Next Big Thing to arrive in board games. I just assumed that you’d be as excited for a digital Scythe as I was. Let’s talk about the tabletop game a bit, and maybe you’ll see where the excitement is coming from.
iOS, Android, PC • Last week, big news ’round these parts was the announcement that the farming/war board game, Scythe, was coming to digital. At the time all we had was a little art and a rough release date of 2017. Using the bat-computer, I was able to log into every cell phone in Gotham and track down the developers, The Knights of Unity. Using an elaborate scheme that involved getting arrested and surgically implanting a cell phone bomb into one of my lackeys, I was able to get some face time with Sir Lucas, one of the aforementioned Knights. If you’re wondering what the hell’s wrong with me, I also rewatched The Dark Knight yesterday. That’s on top of the staggering mental deficiencies you’re already aware of, so it should all make sense now. Sort of.
Every year it seems like there’s one or two tabletop games that get 98% of that year’s hype. Last year’s darling, Scythe, was a huge game from a small publisher funded via Kickstarter, a combination that wouldn’t seem to warrant the levels of anticipation we were seeing. Turns out the hype was warranted, because Scythe launched to great reviews and turned out to be one of 2016’s best tabletop experiences. Unbeknownst to us, there’s a digital version of Scythe in the works and, from what little we can gather, it looks like it should be generating a whole lot of hype on its own.