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This Week’s Explorable Games
This round of Explorable Favorites is from BoardGaming.com member HaiKulture. The games selected from her Favorites shelf were:
- Mage Wars
Arcane Wonders | Published: 2012 - A Touch of Evil
Flying Frog Productions | Published: 2008
These games will be explorable until next Monday, June 30th.
After you’ve explored these games, let us know what you think about them in the comments below!
@Sir Gamesalot (or as I sometimes call you in my head @Not Paladin) Thanks. Give me a Flatlander shower of cards rather than cubes any day. 😛
And if I make it to GenCon @Paladin had better prepare himself for the patented Canadian Girl slap – and since I run around barefoot quite often he will never hear me coming. *hee hee* Best game with one eye open Sir!
And many thanks to @everyone who poked about my profile, gave me a few review/tip ratings, and became new followers. Much appreciated. 🙂 *hugs* I tried to duly reward you likewise and told the Medal Fairy about you.
Oh HaiKulture, what excellent games! And for the record, your profile was explored long ago, as I am a fellow lover of Ameritrashy goodness! I’m glad to see Canadian representation on this site, at least with excellent taste in games. 🙂
I bought A Touch of Evil recently and have enjoyed it a lot. I am looking forward to getting expansions for it.
Drat! Another already-explored game (A Touch of Evil). Good to see a review of Mage Wars, though. I’ve been intrigued by it for a while.
@BitsnBots Mage Wars is cool! Very cool! 😉
@Paladin Bah! I am only Canadian by birth – I grew up in New Jersey (Probably not making a case for myself with that)
@Account Deletion I thought it was a bit of nifty chatter to do. 🙂 To me there’s a difference between what makes something a personal fave for the BGdot Sacred Shelf vs. a 9/10 nuts and bolts review. I thought I’d tell their more ‘personal’ story. (Besides even if most of my reviews are more ‘nuts’ than bolts with sublime to ridiculous tangentials, personal musings are touchy-feely and merit cross-referencing. Cross-referencing is a big review no-no I am told. I say ‘meh to that – but Mr. Downvote is always watching)
As for Mage Wars I’d let it linger Through the Ages style on the mental wish list. I do love Summoner Wars and its tactical war game lite feel, vastly variable faction play style, and hard decision making of what to burn for mana and what to hold. (It’s on the Sacred Shelf.) Mage Wars nods in that direction but is mainly a more bloodsport-esque game. What if you took two magic users and threw them in a pit with a full spell book and said ‘there can be only one’! And that spell book can be built out of a selection of 500 different cards.
Yes – Touch of Evil has a very Talisman-y vibe. It is sort of the step-child of Talisman smooching Arkham Horror. Also while it lives eternal in the Cooperative Games Explorables it has a race to beat the Big Bad Competitive Version also. The impending ‘doom track’ keeps the pacing up and character grinding to a minimum. Although my personal favorite for Talisman Vibe Plus is Runebound which FFG seemed to totally drop once they got the Talisman license. 🙁 It was a night grinder, but lots of fun. It has been sitting in mental cryo for the Sacred Shelf waiting for a fresh slot to open up. (Also recommend Prophecy and Relic read: Talisman in Warhammer Space)
As for LNOE vs Zombicide– that’s another topic for another Explorable week…
@Jim Yay! Secret Badges! 🙂 *hee hee*
And thanks @Jim’s Robotic Hand of Personal Selection for the selection.:) Happy to donate the Ameritrashy Hai-mind to science so Mage Wars could get some explorable love and to advertise the ‘Free Love’ of Touch of Evil‘s Co-op Quest
Hmm, so now that Jim implied that having unique Favorites gives you a better shot at being featured as the host of the week’s Explorable Favorites, a lot of people are going to change their Favorites.
Some to create unique game lists so they stand out in a crowd.
Some to put up all really popular games to hide in the shadows.
🙂
It would be possible to award a user with a special badge… let me see what I can work up! (on a side note, looks like we have to fix our comments so they show the most recent at the top)
I’ll admit that the random number generator machine broke down and we found it was much more efficient to hand pick a user that had reviewed one of the currently explorable games. The hand picking was necessary because many users have the same games on their favorites shelf.
I don’t want to explore @HaiKulture’s favorites. She’s a filthy Canadian.
😉
@Hai – thanks for this. I always wonder what makes a game a “Favorite” to a user when they haven’t posted a review for it, and it’s an excellent idea to spill your thoughts here if you don’t want to write a full review.
Of course, as you point out, the selected user has to be “active” or it will remain a mystery. Also LOVE your idea of a special badge when you get selected. Is this doable @Jim?
Mage Wars was on my Want list for some time, but I bumped it when I bought Summoner Wars. I have never played MtG, so I don’t have the itch to find a “less CCG” version. And Summoner Wars plays much faster, so it felt like enough for me. Once I’ve warn out all of the Summoner Wars expansion factions I’ll probably look into Mage Wars.
Touch of Evil looked good to me in spite of the artwork – as much as I love B-movies, I just don’t like photographs as artwork in games. It makes me feel like I’m playing a cheaply-made game licensed from some popular franchise. But then I watched the Last Night on Earth episode of TableTop and decided Flying Frog games probably weren’t for me. That game really didn’t appeal to me at all – I’d rather just play Zombicide – and I just carried over that feeling to all of the Flying Frog games that “looked” the same. Hearing you compare Touch of Evil to Talisman really piques my interest, though. If I can get some of that experience in a game that’s not an all-nighter, I definitely want to check it out.
It does not appear that the link for the Mage Wars rulebook is directing correctly. Folks looking for the rulebook can find it at
http://www.arcanewonders.com/resources-and-downloads
Mage Wars looks so cool. So very cool.
@Jay Thanks @JAY!!!! 🙂 🙂
If only there was a nifty ‘I was BGdot Explorable’ profile badge we could display with much envy and gnashing of teeth. 😛
Hmmm…since I am not a Member Mortis that can show up on a given week I guess I’ll share why these titles made my Fave Shelf. It seems like a cool thing to do 🙂
Mage Wars: I abhor CCGs. The thought of ‘press your luck’ Booster packs give me shivers. (This will change when I get my hands on Marvel Dice Masters but that’s a whole other animal It’s cards and dice! ;)) So I have only ever dabbled out of curiosity with a borrowed or pre-constructed deck in ‘The Magic’. The FFG LCGs? The Boy plays em and that’s his biz – but I have burrowed around in the Cardatoriums he has amassed and played around. I can understand his glee when a new Chapter or Asylum or Boba Fett Bounty Pack pops up but I only have ever dabbled my toes in those waters and never dove in. I just don’t feel like going high and low to gather my ‘Magic’ preferring fixed sets at around $30 and the compromise is Mage Wars.
It does have a learning curve and a certain dedication to ‘reference’ your way through a game or two – after that it becomes intuitive. The Arena board creates a sense of ‘Magic Mobile’ and gives spell-slinging a dash of Summoner Wars – another game I enjoy. But for me, the best part of it and what puts it on my Fave Wall is the Open Deck. By having an Open Deck in your spell book and being able to choose anything at any time it becomes a game of a)preparation and planning by gleefully pre-gaming your spell book in an attempt to outmage your opponent and b)a game of act and react. Everything is at your mana charged fingertips – it is never a question of Endgame before you even start because your precious Golem is buried deep at the bottom of the deck due to an unfortunate shuffle.
Touch of Evil: Two important events happened in the early 80’s: Talisman came out and yours truly was born. Since I was busy throwing applesauce and learning fractions through most of Reganomics, this was a ‘Daddy’s game’. He loved it. Come the mid 90’s and freshman Algebra – it became our game because it was easy enough to play. You rolled, you drew cards, and set forth on a character grind to the Crown of Command. Come the Y2K and the summer before college it was MY game. It lived permanently set up on a table in the basement and my more cardboard-inclined friends would gather nightly to basically play ‘Fantasy Monopoly’ and Dad would bring down a bowl of popcorn and smile that the mantle had been passed on ‘his’ game and it was well loved. It now lives enshrined in the Sacred Chest as FFG took up the mantle and created a reboot for ‘play’. (Let’s never discuss the weird 3-D centric 3rd edition -thank you very much. It’s embarrassing.)
So Talisman was one of my gateways and I love how it captured a whole fantasy realm, a whole quest cycle, in just one loooong night and on one…well…main board and several sub-boards. But what does this have to do with Touch of Evil?
The Boy begrudgingly plays the occasional (read:yearly) Talisman game because he doesn’t appreciate the glorious history and he’s a troglodyte who likes to mutter things like ‘Fantasy Monopoly’ – even if he does usually get me the latest expansion for the holidays. 😛 😉
But he’ll play Touch of Evil
Touch of Evil scratches my genetic Talisman itch with a Touch of Pizzazz. It captures that whole idea of a grand quest in a single night, a world realized on one…whoops…several boards. And while the engine is roll/move/card – there is a sense of urgency and impending doom. You can’t just lap around grinding your way to a nifty all powerful crown. There’s a menacing big bad AI grinding back – hammering you each round and causing all sorts of touchy-evilly problems. It makes for a fun and exciting night around the table – with Eternal Cartwright and the signature overdone B-movie photo cards that make me a Frogger Fangirl. (I will miss that in Shadows over Brimstone 🙁 ) Just enough Talisman to make me smile, just under to keep The Boy from rolling his eyes, and sense of frantic race against impending doom without a soul crushing baseball bat to the table Arkham Horror Gate Burst.
This ain’t my Daddy’s Talisman – this is Touch of Evil! 😉
I know, I know…TL;DR is the story of my life.
Thank you BGdotters and @Jim’s Random Number Generator for stopping by my Fave Wall. 🙂
Congrats Hai!
Holy smokes! It’s ME! LOL 🙂 Yay!
Thanks BGdot Jim’s Random Number Generator!!!!! *hee hee*
Sorry guys – if I knew this was coming I would have spruced the place up a bit. BUT – for those of you saying the past few weeks have been decidedly Eurocentric – welcome to my Ameritrashy Tabletop. Not a cube in sight. 😉
I would have laughed if Last Night on Earth and Pathfinder ACG made the page because we just played both this past week. Those Random Number Generators work in mysterious ways.
(*Ahem* Now if only people adopted my weekly habit of also exploring the Explorable Personage and checking out their general collection of reviews and tips. 😉 Then again I’ve already been visited by the shadowy, mysterious ‘Mr. Downvote Everything’ – the dark mirror to the mischievous Medal Fairy – so what else is there? :P)
Touch of Evil is great. I’ve already explored it, as well, but it’s nice to see the game get a little more love.
I own Mage Wars, but I have yet to get it to the table. It’s hard for me to get a long two-player game out frequently, but I’ll hold on to it, just in case…
Dang it. Another previously explored game.