27 April 2019

Board Game Review: Majesty: For the Realm

The cover art for Majesty: For the Realm. A queen stands in front of four other people; two look like warriors, one looks like a young peasant girl, and the last one looks like an old peasant woman. The queen is holding a fancy cushion on top of which sits a crown. These people are looking towards the viewer with fields in the background; windmills and other buildings can be seen in the distance.

I have been learning a lot of cool new games so far this year. One of those is Majesty: For the Realm. It's a quick but fun little game from Z-Man Games, designed by Marc André. The premise of this game is that the players are competing to claim the crown. Players must manage the subjects in their domains to amass more power than their rivals.

I wasn't sure what to expect from this game at first, but in the end, I found myself quite enjoying it. But let's not get ahead of ourselves, shall we? Let's look at the numbers for this box of fun:

20 April 2019

PinkFae Archive #33: Diversity Panel at Gen Con 2016: A Review

This week's entry is another installment from the PinkFae Archives. This one was first published on 11 September 2016.

The official illustration of Shardra, the first trans character in Pathfinder, an excellent representation of diversity in gaming. She is a dwarven female in elaborate shaman clothing, holding a large mace, with a fantastical lizard-like creature on her shoulder.

One of the panels I attended at Gen Con was 'Diversity in Gaming.' I expected it to be about ensuring an inclusive environment for all people in the games industry. Instead, it was three staffers from Paizo, the company that publishes the Pathfinder roleplaying game, discussing their company's policies on inclusiveness.

Not what I expected, but still worthwhile.

13 April 2019

Board Game Review: Santorini

I realised recently, much to my surprise, that I hadn't yet reviewed Santorini, published by Roxley Games and Spin Master Games. Let's fix that right now, shall we?

The cover art from the Santorini box.It shows a small island with buildings of the style of the Greek cities on Santorini being built by two cartoon representations of Greek Gods (specifically, Poseidon and Aphrodite). A few humans can be seen on the island, in the buildings, and on the nearby mainland. In the background, Hermes and Demeter are watching from a cloud.

This is a surprisingly deep and thinky-thinky game for as quick and simple as it is. It feels like it was designed as a kids game, and although the rules are simple enough that children can easily learn to play, there's enough strategic depth to satisfy most adults.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves, shall we? Let's look at the numbers:

06 April 2019

My Unusual Dice Collection

A couple of weeks ago, in my glossary of gamer jargon, I mentioned that I personally own some oddly shaped dice. I thought it might be fun to share some of those with you today. Of course, my collection is nowhere near as large as the amazing dice collection shown at dice collector dot com (warning: that site is very much stuck in the mid-90s, webdesign-wise). But I do like the small collection of odd dice that I have.

So, here we go.

Now, when I say that I have some odd dice, I'm not talking about dice that are just alternate shapes of 'normal' dice, like these two unusual d6s:

A small black ball with white dots painted on the sides as if it were a cube, and a length of a hexagonal steel rod with holes punched into the sides, a different number of holes on each side.

That's one that's a sphere (it has a small weight inside it, and ridges in which the weight can sit, so that it will always stop with one of the numbers on top, even though it's just a sphere) and one that's a length of hexagonal steel with 'pips' punched into the sides.