Release Roundup (Q3 2019)

Santorini

Santorini is a brilliant head-to-head duel game which gives each player two pieces on a small grid. Each turn is incredibly simple; move and then construct a building. Your goal is to make it to the third level of any building, which results in an immediate victory. Sounds pretty simple, right? So does “all you have to do it put the King in checkmate” or “your goal is to build up settlements, an ecosystem, resource generating features, raise the global temperature, and keep things going over several generations.” Okay, maybe not that last one. Santorini is a fantastic game at its base level, but gets even better when you add in god powers which give each player fantastic, unique abilities. The app is a wonderful implementation and features a campaign-like mode along with real-time online play and terrific AI.

Fluxx

It’s Fluxx! It’s a crazy dose of complete randomness and fun. Or not fun, depending on your take. The app is well made and opens up the world of digital Fluxx to you and friends with a solid online implementation. If you’ve ever been curious about Fluxx, this is a great way to test it out. If you are a big Fluxx fan, you’ll definitely want to check this out.

Silver

Silver was released before the physical game as a free solo game against a single AI player. This is a very cool concept and certainly helped drum up interest in the physical game release, so well done Bezier Games for the innovating marketing. The game takes place in the ONUW world and has you using memory and card powers to try to shed as many cards as possible each round. It’s a really fun game that certainly has me eyeing the physical copy.

Bananagrams

I did not play Bananagrams. I’m curious as I’ve never played the physical game either, but I have not gotten to it yet. It appears to be a speed test of word building use a pool of letters. This has been around for a while now and you probably know whether or not you are interested in this digital port, sorry we couldn’t be of more help in this blurb.

Raiders of the North Sea

This one was a rollercoaster. It instantly pops as one of the best, most polished looking apps we’ve seen in a long time. The feature list was stacked with (almost) everything you could want (the biggest omission was no pass-and-play, but that was later added). The game itself was hailed a new standard for gateway worker placement games. It was, seemingly, the whole package as they say. Upon closer inspection, the incredibly weak AI made it practically unplayable offline except as a tool to learn the game. Over time, however, Direwolf updated the AI and added new settings to allow the AI to start at an advantage to make it tougher. Not a perfect solution, but a commendable effort to support the game after release. As it stands, the AI is good, not great, and those settings can make the game truly difficult. Meanwhile, the online game remains fantastic and the underlying game is really good (although the app would really benefit from getting the expansions).

If an app is released and nobody knows about it, was it actually released? Of course, what a dumb question. Anyway, Coffee Roaster snuck into the app stores in mid September without a peep from any of the usual channels. A follower on Twitter, thankfully, tagged us on a RT of a post mentioning it, a couple of weeks after release. I went straight to Google Play and found the developer’s page and it was nowhere to be found. Another reader sent a direct link so I could actually buy the thing. How bizarre. Anyway, I’m just now starting to play it and it is a typical Brettspielwelt game. The text rules are confusing, the tutorial is lacking, there is no in game help to aide in learning an iconography-heavy game. Yay. I’m beginning to understand how the game works and I am fairly certain there is a really fun solo puzzle game to be found. Look out for our review which should be coming in the next week or so.

Aeon's End

Handelabra makes really great ports of tough co-op games. Aeon’s End is the best tough co-op game they have gotten the chance to port yet. Sometimes, it’s pretty simple to see how we get to a five star review. Aeon’s End is easier to digest and more streamlined than Sentinels of the Multiverse and it is deeper and tougher than One Deck Dungeon. It’s only out on Steam and tablets right now, hopefully we get another great phone port in the future, but this is definitely one of the best solo experiences in the digital board game world.