Stock Market – Stately Play

Buy, sell, and manufacture your way to riches in upcoming City of the Big Shoulders

November 8, 2018 David Neumann 1

Tabletop • As someone who’s spent much of their life in Wisconsin, I’ve been taught to react with revulsion to anything that comes from south of the border, the Wisconsin/Illinois border, to be exact. It’s just not cool to show any appreciation for Cubs, Bulls, or even the pristine, toll-funded freeways that turn into potholed monstrosities as you meander north. Now, having a wife that lived for many years in Chicago (and living there myself for a period) has made me a tad more appreciative of what other Wisconsonites call FIBs. It’s with this more accepting eye that I peered at a new board game on Kickstarter set in the City of Big Shoulders called, appropriately, City of the Big Shoulders. It looks and sounds like Automobile and Arkwright had a baby, and I’m more than okay with that.

Chaotic stock-trading game, Stockpile, coming to digital via Digidiced

July 17, 2018 David Neumann 0

iOS, Android, PC/Mac/Linux • Digidiced is turning into quite the workhorse. Not only is their port of Isle of Skye currently in beta, but we learned last week that they’re also working on a digital port of the Stefan Feld classic, Castles of Burgundy. Today I was sent a missive of another game Digidiced has in their pocket, the chaotic stock trader, Stockpile. Even more surprising is that it’s already entering beta. Apparently Digidiced has been working on this one for a bit now in secret.

Cardboard Critique: Imperial and Imperial 2030

August 3, 2017 David Neumann 13

Tabletop, iPad • Mac Gerdts created the board game Imperial way back in 2006 and, while it looked like any other Dudes On A Map title, its theme made it anything but. That theme can best be expressed by something that Elliot says in the first episode of Mr. Robot, “There’s a powerful group of people out there that are secretly running the world. I’m talking about the guys no one knows about, the ones that are invisible. The top 1% of the top 1%, the guys that play God without permission.” Imperial and it’s “sequel”, Imperial 2030, put you in the shoes of the monsters with enough money and power to manipulate the world for their own gain. Oh, and there’s also a rondel.