Crankycorvid

In today's session we played and observed a handful of games from a list. The majority were fairly short and simple, but others really needed extra time to appreciate. I wanted to experience the whole game within the timespan of the allotted time, and went for shorter games. Many of these smaller scale games were either small in scale and more of a demo, or short so that the maker could make that one small game shine. I found that Jurassic Heart and Manbat were both on the simpler demo side of things, though Jurassic Heart does feel somewhat like a contained refined gem. But what I think really makes these games stand on their own despite being short is that their premise is ironic and endearing. What I mean by this is that Jurassic Heart is a dating sim with a stage shy t-rex sweetiepie, and Manbat shows a bat therapist talking to monsters about how to be more scary and help with the other life problems they have. It has a very Nightmare Before Christmas vibe, with that non-seri...

Spider Pit, a dummy name for the project, is a game where two players set their gladiators against one another. Each person controls two gladiators, set on a board shaped like a spider web. The players move their pieces around, trying to attack the other's pieces. But placement has to be strategic. Each player's gladiators can have defense buffs if two of the same team's gladiators are next to each other, and likewise two gladiators of the same side can add an attack buff when attacking. But there's more to placement, there's the actual clash initiated by an attacker on their turn if they choose to. When attacking, both players roll die. If the attacker rolls higher, they can attack one of the other player's gladiator. There are three types of weapons that can be drawn as cards: swords, axes, and shields. Swords leave bleeding damage, axes blunt damage, and shields both nullify the attack and do a small counter. The core mechanic here is player elimination, ...

Machi Koro is a both a luck and strategy based game, placing 2-4 players as mayors of their own city, starting with just a simple bakery and a wheat field. It’s competition based, and the winner is determined by who gets all 4 key establishments, a train station, an amusement park, a radio tower, and a shopping mall first. Players roll the die, or dice later on with the aid of the train station, and gain money depending on what cards are activated by the roll. Typically those that give the player more money require a higher roll. Other cards, or establishments, can be bought once per turn, divided into four categories. Blue typically consists of more nature driven environments, such as a mine, a forest, or the wheat field. These are more consistent sources of income. Green cards act the same as blue cards, but only activate on the roller’s turn, while blue cards are activated by other people’s rolls. It’s a nice subversion, and it can make someone's high roll turn against...