Kickstart Your Week! Nightmarish Dinosaur Burgers

---

 

Escape the Nightmare

 

I had the opportunity to play the prototype copy of this game at Mid Con (a UK games convention) over the weekend! With the designer! I had already written the following before seeing the game in action, but let me add that after playing it is even better! I’ll be putting up a proper review in the coming days. For now though…

 

I can’t possibly introduce this better than the publisher’s own description…

You and your friends are trapped in a nightmarish dreamscape of clashing realities. Worlds of delirium, death, mutilation, monsters and more whirl around you as you try to find your bearings. Amidst the chaos a hideous jailer swirls the maelstrom keeping you disoriented and contained. Deeper in the darkness, something stirs.

It’s Coming.

Run.

And those are the lines that launch players into this real time game, as which ever player holds the It’s Coming card must say those two lines and count down steadily from 10. If they ever reach zero, you’ve been caught and the game is over. To restart the timer you just have to trade a card for that card. Then you start the count down again. I feel incredibly tense just writing about it!

To win, players must trade cards with each other to form sets of 4 monsters. A set is discarded to defeat one of the guardians holding you in this realm, and once all are bested you escape. This is a real time game, so trading is going to be frantic and exciting, but don’t forget the timer. But there is a cost to every trade, for any card you receive has a rule you must obey until you complete your next trade. You may not be able to make eye contact with another player, you may not be able to trade with specific players, or you might have to babble continuously. Everything making progress harder.

There is something immensely cool about this game. The real time element, the bizarre effects you must handle while still making progress and the genius of the constantly recycling ten second timer. It’s enough to drive a player mad!

 

It’s coming! Run… until November 25^th.

 

 

The Great Dinosaur Rush

 

Join the golden age of palaeontology, which sounds like it probably occurred between elevenses and luncheon in a stuffy wood panelled room… until you realise palaeontology (which I have to say in my head to spell each time I write it) is scientist for DINOSAUR HUNTER!! Not so stuffy now!

You’ll be racing around the United States gathering up bones and garnering publicity for your upcoming exhibits. But most excitingly you’ll also be putting these bones, by which I mean colourful wooden sticks, together behind your enormous player screens to make you’re very own dinosaur! Oh, God… I think I just had a nerdgasm.

Depending what body parts are built best, meaning biggest, obviously, players will score points. But the precise amount of points will depend on how much publicity has been done, and on who has the biggest, the most ferocious, the longest. But you’ll also score points for your notoriety as a dinosaur hunter, I mean palaeontologist, which you’ll gather for performing cut throat actions like sabotaging, stealing and using dynamite. Except, in a horribly cunning piece of design, whoever has the most notoriety at the end of the game loses those points instead of gaining them.

Designer Scott Almes (of the Tiny Epic series fame) has been putting out games at an incredible rate recently and this latest offering is well worth checking out. Particularly if, like me, your 10 year old self was obsessed with all things dinosaur!

 

I’ll have a bone to pick with you after November 23^rd.

 

 

Burger Up

 

Burger Up! Is that what they shout in burger restaurants? I’ve never worked in one so I don’t really know. Wouldn’t they be shouting it quite a lot? You know, being in a burger restaurant and all? I shall have to listen out next time I’m in a Gourmet Burger Kitchen… or, more likely, I’ll forget. It’s probably an American thing.

Not like delicious burgers! You can enjoy them anywhere and in this game you’ll be trying to make the best damn burgers you can! Just like in a real burger restaurant, each chef will get a handful of ingredient cards with which to fulfil the demands of customers. Each card shows two ingredients, but which ever you don’t use decides the type of ingredient that must be placed next.

 

 

Once your ingredients are pilled up, you can grab a top bun and fulfil the corresponding order. However, doing so raises the value of all the other burger orders your opponents are cooking. Waiting may see your order snatched by another player (it’s thematic ‘cos a slow restaurant will lose customers!) but finish it and all the other top buns become worth more (it’s thematic cos burger buns are in notoriously short supply… wait, what?).

A quick playing, card matching game with nice art and an interesting timing element to it. Burger up will make a nice filler game… because it will fill you up! Makes me hungry just thinking about it.

 

Burger Up will be taking orders until November 23^rd.

 

Best of the Rest

 

[row][one_third][/one_third][two_third]Elementos – A simple, appealing abstract game, in which the aim is to clear a path for your “wand” (don’t ask) to the other side of the board. Each nice wooden piece represents on of fire, water and life, which can take each other in a rock/paper/scissors type mechanism. But each piece can be flipped to its other side to reveal a different element that only the controlling player can check. Ends Nov 23^rd.[/two_third][/row]

 

[row][one_third][/one_third][two_third]Islebound – Explore and exploit a fantastical archipelago in the latest offering from Ryan Lauket (designer of the excellent 8 Minute Empire). Take your ship, hire crew, fill its holds and overcome strange events. Befriend or conquer the islands to forge a new nation. As always, the game features very nice art. Ends Nov 23^rd.[/two_third][/row]

 

[row][one_third][/one_third][two_third]ManaSurge – A kind of anti-trick-taking game, in which the aim is to avoid being hit by spells in a wizards duel. To do so, simply always play a higher card, but matching will swap the direction of play. Each card that matches the starting suit will earn a VP and trigger it’s special rule. Simple to play, yet the powers offer interesting decisions and options. Ends Nov 24^th.[/two_third][/row]

 

[row][one_third][/one_third][two_third]Monster Truck Mayhem! – A strict turn structure in racing games has always seemed odd to me. In Monster Truck Mayhem, however, you just need to roll your dice faster! A real time game, with jumps and obstacles to overcome as you race around the megadrome! Ends Nov 24^th.[/two_third][/row]

 

[row][one_third][/one_third][two_third]Deep Space D-6 – A solo dice placement game putting you in command of a starship under attack from waves of enemy ships. Use your dice to activate your different crewmembers and “just” try to survive. Being in command is a lonely role! Ends Nov 25^th.[/two_third][/row]

 

[row][one_third][/one_third][two_third]Attack! Deluxe – A new updated edition of 2003’s Attack, a reimagining of Risk with more modern game design principles. Take command of a superpower and try and conquer the world. Attack! Deluxe expands into the pacific theatre and updates and streamlines the original rule set. Ends Nov 25^th.[/two_third][/row]