All too often I’ve seen the hype for new games fade quicker than a cheap sparkler, but here we are, a year later, and people are still talking about Ark Nova. Mathias Wigge might not be a name you knew a year ago, so should you know it now?
Dice as workers, a historical theme with an unusual name beginning with the letter T, and tons of depth – it’s all in there. Let’s take a look at Tabannusi.
Origins: First Builders puts you in a world where these aliens have popped over to say hi, and are willing to teach us all about building and warfare, and all that good stuff.
If you’ve read The Arabian Nights (One Thousand and One Nights) collection of stories, you might be familiar with the fate of the sultan’s bride, Scheherazade. In Almadi, rather than kill her as he intended to, the sultan is won over by her tales, and decides to build her her own realm – Almadi.
Lots of good things come in bags. I’m a big fan of crisps, for example. But now, now dear reader, you can get a whole freaking dungeon in a bag! Bag of Dungeon is a dungeon-crawler game from Gunpowder Studios, which, unsurprisingly, comes in a bag.
Ahau: Rulers of Yucatan takes the Maya civilisation as its inspiration, delivering a Euro game mixture of area influence and engine-building. During the game you’ll be expanding your city state, building pyramids, and if push comes to shove, asking the gods for a helping hand
You play as entrepreneurs who have bought derelict space stations, and aim to turn them into the swankiest holiday resorts in the cosmos. This isn’t your Airbnb style holiday, think about it more like Space Vegas. (note to self – trademark ‘Space Vegas’, it sounds awesome)
Cooper Island is an unusual Euro game that marries worker-placement and tile-placement, along with a bit of resource management.Each player is developing their own peninsula of the oddly-shaped island, and resources are in short supply.
This special feature looks at the games produced by The Dark Imp, and designer Ellie Dix
Ishtar: Gardens of Babylon, from Bruno Cathala and Evan Singh, is a combination of tile-placement and area control. The premise of the game pits you as rival gardeners, seeking to do the seemingly impossible – grow beautiful gardens in the middle of the desert.
