Give my creation life: Golem Arcana’s Shadow of the Khan campaign arrives

A staring contest for the ages.

It wasn’t too long ago that we checked in on app-driven miniatures game (and Kickstarter success, by mere dint of existing) Golem Arcana. Post GenCon, developers Harebrained Schemes had sketched out some plans on their blog about where the mixed-media game was going–specifically, they discussed their grand and buzz-wordy plan for a “Living World.”

Now, Golem Arcana is making good on the ambitious goals proffered in the game’s Kickstarter pitch. The first of these player-influenced campaigns–Shadow of the Khan–went live last week, and it in turn is comprised of three smaller scenarios. The opener, The Battle of Two Rock, is available until November 12, at which point one of Arcana’s factions (and the players loyal to that faction) will undoubtedly emerge victorious. Harebrained have even set up a Twitter account for play-by-play style updates on campaigns, with notifications ranging from straight-faced breakdowns to goofy, pal-around chatter.

Mercenary’s fighting for the Durani at #TwoRock have shown their true loyalties killing couriers the payment bound for Vanya and the Untamed

— Herald of Eretsu (@HeraldofEretsu) November 4, 2014

Word has spread through the ranks of the Gudanna at #TwoRock of MitchB’s slaying of a Durani Jagara Colossus, rallying the defenders resolve

— Herald of Eretsu (@HeraldofEretsu) November 4, 2014

(Of course, I’m assuming “MitchB” isn’t an official part of Arcana lore.)

Team PT have gone off before about the exciting things happening at the crossroads between tabletop and tablet gaming, and we’re likely to again. Bristle at the catchphrase all you like (Guild Wars 2 uses the same one) but, if successful, these Golem Arcana scenarios stand to give the gaming experiences of handfuls of players the kind of community and context you might normally see only at a well-attended hobby shop. This is especially noteworthy considering that board game designs gone digital often suffer criticism over a perceived lack of human interaction.

The base Golem Arcana set is $80, with the companion app free on iOS and Android. Video after the break is a largely unrelated introduction to some new golems in a recent expansion, but it has some shots of the game and the phrase “demon lash,” so that’s nice.

All men must free: Last chance to nab GoT parody Twitchy Thrones for nada

All men must also pun.

After several years of widespread acclaim for George R.R. Martin’s gritty, twisty fantasy world Westeros–really for the HBO series based on that writing, to be honest–we’re not quite yet at the point of max Game of Thrones saturation. But maybe we’re close–in fact, you might even say that the cultural winter for the series is, in fact, coming. (Jeez that’s played out…)

Or maybe I’m a miserable cynic unfit for the lowest House of the realm. Point is, Twitchy Thrones is a land-grab strategy game which ever so lovingly takes the piss out of everyone’s favorite serialized snuff film. Today’s also the last day you can grab it for free.

Despite roots as a Ludum Dare entry that, fittingly, focused on character’s with incredibly short life spans and incredibly active libidos (with a sort of dynasty system, now cut from the game), Twitchy Thrones as it stands is more about big battles than anything else. Main developer Ricardo Moura contacted us via email with some details, writing that the main gameplay thrust is a trade-off between defending key choke-points and presumably costlier attacks to grab more plots of land. More plots equals more troops, but also a wider expanse to defend.

As for the game’s humor, well… comedic tastes will vary. For my money, the fake Westeros map on the game’s site with “Up Lands,” “Middle Lands,” and “Land of Sand” at least shows the developers understand good parodies are born from genuine love for and understanding of a genre, and not–hopefully–just because Game of Thrones is SEO gold. *sets focus keyword to “Game of Thrones”*

Twitchy Thrones is free until November 5th, and then jumps to $1.99. Trailer after the jump.

Review: Nexionode

It’s like playing Cat’s Cradle with electricity.

Some apocalypses leave the surface of the earth in desperate straits, with humanity struggling to survive. Mad Max, Fallout, A Canticle for Liebowitz–there are lots of post-apocalyptic settings in which interesting things can still happen on Earth. Heck, Marvel apparently already has post-Ragnarok plans. Nexionode is set at the end of the other kind of apocalypse; the kind that puts one in mind of the classic exploration of how to utterly destroy the earth. When something’s coming which won’t even leave the cradle of humanity a plausible place to recolonize, the tragically unforgiving allure of space becomes irresistible. Unfortunately, you’ve departed on your extrasolar Oregon Trail in quite the hurry, without the equivalent of a spare wheel or axle. Your job now is to Macguyver your way around the complications of flying humanity’s last hope before it’s entirely finished being built.

Darkly humorous setting aside, what we’re really talking about here is a simple puzzle game; in some of the loosest theming this side of the Tetris movie, there’s nothing an interstellar handyman can face which isn’t fixed by drawing lines between dots. These are the titular acid reflux-suffering nodes, each of which sports a number of hashes equal to the number of links it must have. Fortunately, simple concepts can work well for puzzle games, and Nexionode gradually adds obstacles, severe time limits, and motion, all of which add difficulty without additional rules overhead.

Timed levels are not my favorite. Timed levels which make you replay a series of other levels if you fail them tear the wings off baby kitten angels.

Much of the game consists of static puzzles you can finish at your own pace (though there’s a bonus for finishing a group of puzzles very quickly). Solving these hinges on a nice balance between general inferences about Nexionode as a whole and insights into specific problems posed by individual levels. I found myself sufficiently stymied by a few such levels that I took a break; returning to them with fresh eyes was usually sufficient.

Several groups of puzzles are not only timed, but force you to begin the entire group of levels again if you fail any of them. Self-control is said to be a depletable resource, so I’m going to go eat a bowl of Halloween candy after expressing my displeasure at this structure without resorting to the dreaded Caps Lock. One level so frustrated me that I simply took a screenshot, solved it offline, then returned to enter the solution. By the time I reached that level again, I’d forgotten how I just solved it, so I repeated the process. Adding time pressure to otherwise simple puzzles in order to make them difficult enough to be interesting strikes me as family degenerate game design, so my initial reaction to its use in a punishing structure was extremely negative.

The pilot has turned on the “The die is cast” sign. You are now free to move about the cabin; we don’t think it’ll make things any worse at this point.

Fortunately, developers Big Round Eyes were actually training me in a skill I’d need for their last batch of puzzles, which were a blast. These added moving nodes, bringing a heretofore two-dimensional path-finding puzzle into a third dimension, a dimension not of height or of width, but of time. A journey into a wondrous land of imagination–wait, no, that’s the Twilight Zone. Surprisingly accurate, though, as navigating these puzzles requires visualizing complicated interactions. You must also move quickly to implement solutions, which I’d have been utterly unprepared for without the earlier timed levels. I cannot recall a more exciting innovation in a puzzle game without added rule complexity. Sadly, there are only a few such puzzles, which left me with intellectual blue balls.

The demo on Android can help you learn whether the simple UI and overall aesthetic appeal to you, but the last group of levels is where Nexionode really stands out. I find myself feeling much as do about 3D TVs: most of the time, they’re perfectly satisfactory normal TVs, but they need these annoying glasses in order to make the really special moments possible. In the world of home electronics, I’ve never been interested enough in apex experiences to bother with 3D, but puzzles are dearer enough to me that I’m quite glad to have played those final levels.

Nexionode was played on an iPad Air for this review.

Time’s up: Battle Worlds: Kronos arriving this Thursday

Tanks for nothing! (I’ll be here all week, folks. Try the veal.)

Battle Worlds: Kronos is one of those games we’ve been talking about forever, always stretching the release date farther and farther down the road. Our last post about it ensured an October release, but Halloween came and went without any word from developer King Art.

The PC version of Kronos has been out for a year now, with Phil weighing in way back in November of 2013. Why the huge delay for the mobile version? We still don’t have any answers there, but it doesn’t really matter because it’s hitting for iOS and Android this Thursday.

Battle Worlds: Kronos is a huge game with 2 single-player campaigns that are being touted as containing 50 hours of gameplay. On top of that there is hotseat and online asynchronous multiplayer. The game will even include in game leagues as well as chat. It’s been compared to classics like Panzer General and Advance Wars, and if it’s anywhere near the quality of those two, we have a winner on our hands.

Kickstarter trailer after the break.

Welcome to the jungle : Concrete Jungle funds, coming to iOS?

We’ve got fun ‘n’ games

We’ve not hidden our feelings about the lack of a decent city-builder on our tablets. Nearly every title out there is either a free-to-play mess, or just not deep enough to grab you and hold you the way the classics like SimCity or Caesar did. Therefore, we will take any and all chances of a decent city builder for mobile and run with them, even if their appearance on iOS or Android is, at this point, just a wish.

Cole Jeffries, who developed the puzzly Megacity for iOS and Android is twisting his city-building muscles again. This time he’s including a board game mechanic for good measure: deck-building. Concrete Jungle is the new title and it’s just been funded on Kickstarter with 23 days to go.

Concrete Jungle is still more puzzle than city manager, but the combo of deck-builer and city-builder looked too cool to ignore. So, the goal of the game is to clear city blocks so you can continue to build a bigger city. Of course, the bigger the city gets, the harder it gets to keep building. There are over 150 cards that you can use to build a deck that will allow you to build certain buildings, and as your cities get bigger, you can add bigger and better buildings to your deck. Best of all, the game features no IAP at all.

The big downside is that Concrete Jungle is currently only planned for PC and Mac, and those are the only platforms being funded by the Kickstarter. Cole does mention, however, that iOS and Android are possibilities down the road. Let’s hope he heads that route, as tablets can use any city-building love they can get.

Kickstarter trailer after the break.