In recent months my blog has been so full of screenshots of digital implementations of boardgames that it is looking more like a computer games blog than a boardgame blog. So I need to post some photos of physical boardgames to balance that and make me feel more like a boardgamer.
Han was in town, and we met up to play. This time it was only the two of us. We wanted to ask Allen to join us, but he wasn't back in town that weekend. I suggested Axis & Allies & Zombies. I quite like the Axis and Allies series. It's one of my nostalgia games, and I haven't played the series for quite a while. I have only played this zombie version once, and I didn't even manage to complete the game then. This time, the first place where zombies (white) appeared was Sweden.
This is World War 2 with zombies, so don't expect history accuracy. This is fantasy, not history. Germany (black) attacked Egypt. Although the battle went well for them, they decided to retreat because there were too many zombies. In this game, whenever an infantry unit dies, it turns into a zombie. This is quite a scary thing. Germany basically left the zombies for the Brits to manage. Later the zombies killed the remaining British troops, and Egypt fell to the zombies.
This was Asia before action started. This is a low unit count version of Axis & Allies, which means it is simpler, but also the swing of luck is bigger. Things can go in many different ways after the first round.
UK sent troops from Australia and India to capture Malaya and Indochina. Japan did not attack Pearl Harbour and instead concentrated it's fleet to destroy the UK Pacific fleet. It also did an amphibious landing to attack and eventually capture Yunnan.
Surprisingly our game ended in Round 2. Germany blitzed into Moscow and captured it. There was one territory before Moscow, but it was occupied only by zombies and not Soviet troops. This allowed Germany to blitz through it with all the tanks it had. There was some risk, since Germany infantry could not keep up and support by being cannon fodder. It would be an expensive offensive. If this failed, Germany would lose most of its tanks and the next offensive would take many rounds to be ready. Thankfully I managed to capture Moscow.
In this version of Axis & Allies, victory is checked at the end of each round. If you capture an opponent capital while keeping all of your own, you win. USSR had an army just next door which could have easily recaptured Moscow, but USSR had taken its turn and the recapturing would need to be next round. Its other allies were too far away to help. So this game which I had expected to take the whole evening ended much earlier than anticipated.
The funny thing about playing this game was sometimes we felt like cooperating to push back the zombies. This is a game in which both players can lose. If zombies capture territories worth $25 in total, they win. It is quite a horrifying experience watching infantries turn into zombies.
We played Lost Cities. This two-player card game is a classic from Reiner Knizia. It was one of the game I bought when I just got into the hobby. I hadn't played it for quite some time, and playing it again reminded me of how wonderful this design is.
We also did another Reiner Knizia classic Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation. I played the Light side, and the game was a slaughter. I lost horribly. We were not true to original story at all.
28 Sep 2025. There was a boardgame event at Lolla Paluza cafe. Several local designers attended, and some local gamers too. I introduced my games Pinocchio and Dancing Queen. I also played some of Jon's (King & Peasant, Furmation of Rome) prototypes. I played a newer iteration of Foundations of Rome. This has similarities to Castle Combo, and I think it is a better game. The need to plan for buildings getting built over is challenging and interesting. The other prototype I tried was Money Laundering in this photo above.
I find the theme hilarious. This is a bad boy game. Think Breaking Bad. The core game mechanism is interesting. You run illegal business like smuggled cigarettes, drugs and weapons, and you need to launder your dirty money before they are worth points. You can tip off the police and get everyone raided. Anyone who doesn't have enough hiding places for illegal goods and dirty money will lose them. That's very painful, even when it's crime money. It's not easy being a crime lord.
This is a mid-weight strategy game and I hope to see it published.
30 Sep 2025. My business community the BNI Lighthouse chapter had its annual teambuilding 2D1N trip. I brought Pinocchio to teach my friends, and they had great fun with it. I am glad I had the foresight to bring two copies, because I needed both. Of the four games I have published, this was the only one suitable for this occasion. This was a casual crowd and not the boardgame special interest group subset of friends who would be mentally prepared to learn a few more rules. It made me very happy to see my friends have so much fun with the game.
No comments:
Post a Comment