Kickstart Your Week! Borgias Zombie Pickpockets
House of Borgia
In the House of Borgia its all about dice, which is not terribly holy, but then neither is what you’ll be using those dice for. The race to become Pope is on (better to not ask what happened to the last one) and each of you will have a cardinal in mind for the position. Use the dice to bribe, poison, accuse, cast judgment upon or just spread rumours about the various members of the conclave before time runs out. Except no one knows for sure what dice you have.
The game effectively sounds like a more advanced (and thematic) version of Skull (a favourite of ours here). Each round everyone will roll their dice in secret and then a player will chose an action and bid, guessing the number of dice that show that symbol. For example, “bribe, 2”. The next player can chose to challenge that claim, suggesting that from all the dice around the table, there are fewer than 2 bribe symbols. If they do not challenge, then it’s their turn to choose an action but they must increase the bid. Once a challenge goes through, someone will lose a die (either the challenger or the bidder) and the top three cardinals will gain influence. When the game ends, whichever cardinal has the most influence will claim the papacy.
The more I think about this game, the more excited I get by it. Everyone will be bidding based off of only limited information, forced to climb ever higher if they don’t want to risk challenging (that’s exciting), but because players want to manoeuvre their candidate to the top, they might have good reason to let an over the top bid go through so that they can have their turn. Which is where figuring out who is which supporting which cardinal becomes hugely valuable. Players do not become less able to play the game by losing their dice either, but they do lose information in future rounds. Much like the den of political intrigue the game is simulating, this game has ever-deepening layers of lies and manipulation. So nice!
The House of Borgia closes its doors March 16th.
Pickpockets
“Hmmm… what else do we have on Kickstarter this week? Wait what’s that – Damnit Tagmire! Get your hands off my wallet!”
Jason Tagmire of Buttonshy Games is back with Pickpockets, another of his wallet game line, the third since the start of the year and the third to feature as one of our top picks! I’m clearly a sucker for clever little micro games! Pickpockets is the first of the series that actually uses the wallet as a component in the game, with each player taking the role of pickpockets stealing bills from the wallet each round. However, some of the bills are marked and one of you is an undercover cop! This cop can demand players flip their money at any point and should a player have two or more marked bills they are caught and the cop wins.
However, once someone has more than $100 they can skip town, winning the game so long as you only have fewer than two marked bills! It is a simple game of push your luck, with the option to check before you grab (an important action for the cop) as well as swapping back into the wallet to try and lose dodgy bills. The asymmetric roles is a really nice element of the gameplay sure to add some nice tension and test everyone’s poker face!
The shipping fees on this Kickstarter are nothing to be sniffed at, but they don’t really increase too much for multiple games, so this might be a good chance to pick up a few others in the series at the same time. We loved the look of Avignon a few weeks ago, and you can check out actual reviews of Smoke & Mirrors and Ninja: Silent But Deadly here on the site!
Pockets will be picked on March 12th.
Zombie Tower 3D
Winning the award for least subtle game title ever, we have Zombie Tower 3D, which also wins the award for least subtle component as it features a gigantic cardboard tower across which you’ll be running. The aim is to gather up the items you need and escape while hopefully saving some survivors and not getting eaten by the hordes of zombies steadily appearing. Everyone needs to escape together, but the tower is set up such that no one can see into the other players’ sections.
While this might sound gimmicky, it is firstly an awesome gimmick, and secondly it is absolutely integral to the gameplay. For one thing, sharing items is exceedingly important, and there are slots in the walls through which you can pass each other the cards (so silly but so satisfying). And more importantly not being able to watch each other’s moves has an amazing effect on how you communicate with each other and discuss your actions. You’ll actually be listening intently and coming up with possible solutions as a team.
The Zombie genre (particularly on Kickstarter) might be infuriatingly over used, but Zombie Tower 3D does actually bring a new, interesting experience to the table. We reviewed this game in the run up to the Kickstarter launch and we recommend you check that out here for a more detailed analysis of the game!
Zombie Tower 3D collapses on March 16th.
Other Great Games
Saloon Tycoon – A tile laying game in which it is as important to build upwards as it is to build outwards! Competing to construct the best saloon in town, but each tile you play needs investment to get up to power, triggering extra actions and providing the foundation for the next floor. Aiming to attract the local citizens and to complete objectives. Ends Mar 15th.
The Butterfly Garden – A game of catching butterflies and racing to fulfil orders from the butterfly garden. Gameplay progresses through simultaneous bidding, with the lowest valued card gaining a new card from the market, but also contributing the least to fulfilling an order. Ends Mar 15th.
End of the Line – A harrowing glance at life in post-apocalyptic Britain (not really). Each player has a family who are queuing for life’s essentials, food, water and ammunition, but there is never enough for everyone. Expect brutal manipulation of the line and events until only one (severely depleted) family remains. Ends Mar 16th.
Heir to the Pharaoh – An auction game in ancient Egypt in which the cards you are bidding on let you build on and manipulate the central board. Construct the best placed monuments to best impress pharaoh. Also, you are cats and dogs, but hey, why not? Ends Mar 17th.
Mi Tierra: New Era – A new edition of 2010’s Mi Tierra that has been out of print for a long while. Offering both a nice family level gateway game and a more cut throat mid-weight euro game experience in a single box. This sees players running farms building up a production chain and eventually producing goods at factories and selling to the market. Ends Mar 19th.
Image credit goes to Board Game Geek users jason2043, jtagmire, MrMysteryPenguin, vanrydergames, drfinn, edmorbius, DragonCat, ArtEmiSa64, as well as the relevant Kickstarter projects.
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