Designers Lukas Zach and Michael Palm create a game system perfect for IPs
Your generosity of insights, feedback, and ideas is truly amazing: I’ve learned so much from the 800+ comments you’ve made over the last week on the Facebook and website versions of my article about ready-to-ship launches vs crowdfunding. Thank you!
Before I delve into the input that resonated the most with me, I want to share a small call for action: If you are interested in the games we make at Stonemaier Games and don’t want to depend on an algorithm to keep you informed, please subscribe to our monthly newsletter. I heard from SO many people who reported that they didn’t hear about our new game, Braided Skies, during the 25-day window between reveal and launch, a time period during which I was constantly sharing information about it on this website, newsletters, YouTube, BoardGameGeek, and social media.
Fortunately, Braided Skies is still fully produced and available. It’s on all four of our region-friendly webstores, all of which offer flat-rate shipping to most countries. We’ve already started shipping in the US and Canada, with Australia and Europe following over the next 2 weeks.
Here are my top 7 big conclusions from your comments:
1. The launch is about serving early adopters. At least, this is the point of me talking about our ready-to-ship launches vs crowdfunding projects. My goal in this discussion isn’t to sell more games during the launch; rather, it’s to ensure we’re doing everything we can to serve a variety of customers, and we have room for improvement specifically for early adopters. I have no interest in fear as a motivator (no FOMO tactics, no exclusives), but I think we could more often include something special for free in addition to the game for early adopters during our launch period. I have a few ideas for what that might be, and it will always be something small that consumers and retailers can purchase post-launch.
2. People rely on ads to hear about crowdfunding projects. As I mentioned above, I was truly surprised by the number of people who said they were just hearing about Braided Skies for the first time as a result of the article. I’ve been talking about this game nonstop for the last month on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, BoardGameGeek, our newsletters, and this blog, and 10 different content creators showcased advanced copies before the launch (over half a million subscribers between them). We also ran ads, though our ad spend is very low ($1,000 or less) due to our organic reach. However, clearly it isn’t enough. For me, the takeaway is that I need to pay to boost posts to reach more people who already follow us on Facebook and Instagram, and we need to increase our ad spend to try to reach the same people who are seeing crowdfunding ads. This isn’t just for the launch; it’s also for the reveal, the shipping process, and the retail release. Last, I’m going to experiment with more vertical videos.
3. Discovery on crowdfunding platforms is way higher than I thought. It’s clear from your comments that a significant number of people visit Kickstarter and Gamefound on a regular basis to find new games. While I think we can best serve you via our current method–we invest in our games up front so they’re ready to ship to you very soon after you pay for them–it is also clear that some people are happy to wait. So I’m pitching a partnership to Gamefound that involves us launching a second printing preorder on Gamefound simultaneously with a Stonemaier Shopify ready-to-ship launch of the first printing. This allows us to serve Champions, early adopters, and retailers (all from the first printing) while increasing our visibility for those who primarily discover new games by browsing Gamefound (for the second printing).
4. Include more people in the process. Currently, the only people who have a hand in shaping our games are the designers, playtesters, proofreaders, my coworkers, and me. That typically adds up to around 100+ people, which is already a lot of cooks in the kitchen. However, what I would like to try is revealing a few key decisions via surveys before production begins, as well as some teasers at the PPC and MPC stages. If you enjoy this type of involvement, please subscribe to our monthly newsletter.
5. Feature more reasons to visit the Stonemaier website on a regular basis. Approximately 5,000 people visit our homepage every week, but they see the exact same content. You have to go digging around to see the content I post every day on Instagram, nearly every day on YouTube, twice weekly on the blog, regularly via the general and game-specific newsletters, and via design diary posts during a new game reveal, not to mention the reviewer links I add several times each day to various games’ media pages. So I’m working with our web developer to feature the 3 most recent updates across all of those categories right at the top of our website homepage, a list that will update every day based on the newest content.
6. Many backers are drawn to deluxe games. This is actually great news for us, because we try to make every game feel deluxe while still offering a compelling price. The problem is that I simply haven’t done a great job at conveying the deluxe nature of our games in anything other than my unboxing/tales-from-production videos. So I’ve created a new template for showcasing each game’s deluxe components in a single social-media friendly image, and I plan to share that image early, often, and everywhere.
7. Make our product pages more like project pages. It seems that people like the long scroll of crowdfunding project pages, especially when the images are mobile friendly. So for Braided Skies I’ve redesigned existing infographics and added some new images, along with some videos, with links to more content interspersed throughout the page. You can see many of these reworked images in this article.
Again, I genuinely appreciate your feedback and insights, and I hope you follow along to see how I continue to implement these changes for our next game (including a newsletter survey next Wednesday about a critical component in that upcoming game, a big 2027 release): https://stonemaiergames.com/e-newsletter/
If you gain value from the 100 articles Jamey publishes on this blog each year, please consider championing this content! You can also listen to posts like this in the audio version of the blog.
Editor’s note: GAMA is one of the sponsors of the BoardGameWire newsletter and an advertiser on the site.
Hobby games trade organisation GAMA is facing another shake-up of its senior leadership, with interim executive director Melinda Prickett and board vice president Ross Thompson both announcing they are leaving their roles.
Prickett’s departure is a significant blow for GAMA, having emerged as a key figure in stabilising the organisation and its finances following the resignation of long-serving executive director John Stacy last year.
She joined GAMA as its first chief operating officer in September 2025, before stepping up to become interim executive director just eight months later – and was understood by BoardGameWire to be under strong consideration for the permanent position.
GAMA said its board of directors scheduled a “rapid response meeting” after being informed of Prickett’s departure on October 26, in an effort to determine its next steps – and would be taking immediate steps to appoint temporary leadership to oversee day-to-day operations.
Prickett is set to leave the organisation in less than two weeks, on November 6 – the day before GAMA’s much publicised Game Store Day, and amid the organisation’s preparations for moving its flagship GAMA Expo trade show to Baltimore for the first time.
Her departure leaves GAMA still hunting for a permanent executive director more than a year after its previous leader, John Stacy, announced his resignation.
A statement provided to BoardGameWire from GAMA board president Meredith Placko and secretary Tiffany Reid said, “Recruiting top talent for an executive position is a laborious process, and finding the right fit for our organization has taken longer than anticipated.
“As well, we have been forthright during public board meetings that the biggest reason for the delay was that we needed to get the foundations of the organization in better order, as we had been advised. To that end, Melinda Prickett did amazing work in bringing our financials from a planned deficit for the year, to a resounding success and raised more money than we anticipated for the organization.
“She also worked on creating stability amongst for the organization, the staff, and membership. Her work helped GAMA grow and succeed in the year she was with us.
“That being said, GAMA’s Board of Director’s had interviewed a strong candidate and we were in negotiations with them, but ultimately it did not work out. Because of that we will need to begin the search again.”
The pair said they could not comment on why Prickett’s notice period was so short, or whether she had been a formal candidate for the permanent executive director role.
They added that GAMA was currently working through a short list of people to bring in a new interim executive director “very soon”, adding that the goal was to “make sure GAMA Expo and Origins are a success, and the overall day to day running of the organization is met”.
The statement said, “To that end, the Board of Directors is currently seeking RFPs from firms that specialize in hiring executives in the trade association and member organization sectors. We feel it will be valuable to have the expertise of a company that knows how to recruit top talent in our search for an Executive Director.”
Placko and Reid said there was currently no estimate on when a permanent executive director would be appointed, but said an interim “to handle the most immediate needs of the organization should be decided upon very soon”.
Prickett’s exit comes after GAMA reported a significant improvement in its financial position during her tenure, with the organisation saying it had moved from a deficit budget at the beginning of 2026 to an expected surplus by the end of the year.
In a statement emailed to GAMA members, the board credited Prickett and treasurer Jamie Mathy with stabilising the organisation’s finances, as well as increasing member participation in events outside GAMA Expo and Origins Game Fair and developing new partnerships.
The statement said, “Though it is a bittersweet announcement to make, we are grateful for Melinda’s tireless work with our organization. She has been an incalculable force in leading GAMA during a transition period, setting us up for success in a way that is visibly reverberating through the organization.”
Prickett previously spent more than a decade at Girl Scouts of Ohio Heartland, including almost five years as chief operating officer, before being hired by GAMA last September to oversee its growing day-to-day operations.
Her appointment came just weeks before Stacy announced he was leaving the organisation after seven years as executive director, having just unveiled an ambitious 10-year plan aimed at expanding its international reach, membership and industry advocacy work.
GAMA appointed veteran leadership consultant Zaria Davis as interim executive director last November, initially saying it expected to find a permanent replacement for Stacy by spring 2026.
But Davis’s contract ended in March, with Prickett subsequently confirming to BoardGameWire that she had taken over as interim executive director on May 21.
The latest leadership departure follows a period of significant change for the organisation’s board.
Former president Nicole Brady lost her re-election bid in April to publisher representative Meredith Placko, who had previously served as GAMA vice president.
Ross Thompson, who was elected as vice president following Placko’s elevation to president, has now also resigned from the board after just over six months in the position.
Thompson only joined GAMA’s board in October last year, winning a special election to replace former secretary Monica Rasso, who had stepped down after five years as a director.
His resignation means the organisation will now hold its second special election for the same Media & Events board seat in little more than a year.
The latest departures also follow a turbulent period for GAMA’s board, which publicly apologised in March after some directors were accused of being rude and disrespectful towards members during a heated annual general meeting over proposed changes to the organisation’s bylaws.
GAMA did not give a reason for Thompson’s departure, but praised his work alongside Prickett in streamlining organisational processes and strengthening representation for its Media & Events members.
Thompson wrote on Facebook, “After being part of GAMA for many years, I was happy to lend my time, energy and experience to GAMA serving on the Board during the past year and a half. It was wonderful to be able to work with passionate people, identfying projects that needed support or upkeep, along with bringing new ideas to life.
“By far, GAMA is one of the best organizations to grow your business in the tabletop game industry. The connections made at events like GAMA Expo can revolutionize the way your work and that is truly special.
“There are things that need attention within GAMA, at the Board level and the Organization as a whole. I hope the membership, staff and current Board are able to continue to support GAMA’s mission and identify the obstacles it faces so the tabletop industry can continue to connect.
“I’ll still be around and am not going anywhere, but needed to end my time on the Board.”
The organisation said it would hold a special election to replace Thompson as Media & Events director, with nominations opening today and closing on November 8. Voting will take place between November 10 and 16, with the successful candidate serving until the next annual election in March 2027.
The changes come at a key time for the organisation’s professional trade show GAMA Expo, which has experienced rapid growth in recent years and is preparing to move from Louisville, Kentucky, to Baltimore, Maryland to accommodate rising demand.
This year’s event attracted a record 3,820 attendees, almost 12% above the previous year’s 3,425, continuing a run of growth that had put pressure on the show’s available exhibition and seminar space.
The first Baltimore edition is scheduled for April 25 to 29 next year. A statement provided to BoardGameWire from GAMA board president Meredith Placko and secretary Tiffany Reid said, “We are currently working to ensure there is no visible impact on the preparations for GAMA Expo.
“GAMA staff has been diligent in doing an excellent job to bring us to our new home in Baltimore. They continue with the work that needs to be done, including finalizing programming, working with vendors on booth placement, and everything that needs to happen to make GAMA Expo a success!
“Melinda has led an amazing team, and even in her absence, they will continue with the work that needs to be done.”
GAMA’s other major convention, Origins Game Fair, is set to return to Columbus in June. That show has struggled to recover its pre-pandemic attendance, with visitor numbers falling 2.5% this year to 18,700 – the show’s first annual decline since Covid-19, and still below its 2019 record of 20,642.
The event could face further pressure next year from the launch of PAX Unplugged Houston, a new tabletop gaming convention scheduled to take place just 12 days after Origins, which could potentially force publishers and exhibitors to choose between the two shows.
The post GAMA faces fresh leadership shake-up as interim executive director, board vice president announce departures first appeared on .
Destruction of your enemies is hardly a new concept in board games. Monopoly can only end if you bankrupt your opponents. Risk doesn't stop until you've wiped everyone else off the face of the Earth. Board gaming and zero-sum game design have been best buddies for decades, but to many, it's become a tired-out trope. This probably explains why so many publishers these days prefer games where player interaction is minimized, helping cement the term "multiplayer solitaire" into the industry lexicon.
Black Rose Wars: Rebirth does not care for any of this. It's a game that borderline ignores industry wisdom simply because it can. You're encouraged to mess with your opponents from turn one, and every move is designed to either help you at someone else's expense or straight-up hurt them.
Which makes perfect sense, given the whole theme going on here. You play as a powerful mage, and leading the Black Rose Lodge is the prize, much like a crazed motorcyclist yearning for the Isle of Man TT. The Lodge has seen better days, though, and with your magic, you might be able to restore some of its former glory, hence the "Rebirth" in the title. You're not the only one with this…
The post Black Rose Wars: Rebirth Game Review appeared first on Meeple Mountain.
If you threw the bluffing game Sheriff of Nottingham into a pot with Sushi Go! and stirred them around, you’d get Honeypot—a set collection game with a bit of push-your-luck bluffing. Honeypot was not a game I would have picked up on its own, but because my family is already familiar with those mechanics and […]
Also, can you match names with initials to test Who You Know?
Stop whatever you’re doing. Just stop. I need to tell you about one of the weirdest, wildest, and most interesting board games I’ve played all year. Scratch that. Ever. That’s right. Ever.
This is Grinivil. It was designed, illustrated, and published by Rudy Priecinsky. It’s tempting to lob a jab in there — “I can tell!” hardy har — especially once you get a look at the scattershot rulebook, the potato-headed character portraits, the mishmashed card layouts, the box itself… okay, as soon as you get a look at pretty much anything it has to offer.
But don’t make the easy joke. Set that aside. Because Grinivil is a gift from a parallel universe where Eurogames are never wrung dry through market testing and impersonal development, but instead allowed to blossom into bespoke artifacts that are equally uncanny and compelling and inventive. This is Grinivil. It’s breathtaking.
In its early stages, Grinivil is mostly empty lots.
When Grinivil begins, Grinivil — the town the board game is named after — has been thrown open to new development. As towns go, Grinivil is small. Actually, I’m not even sure it qualifies as small. The municipality has started construction on a few things, drawn at random, but they’re as yet unfinished. There are plots for houses and additional commercial spaces, but nobody has filled them. Even the trees have yet to be planted. If Grinivil were deposited in the Old West, they wouldn’t have the livestock to qualify as a one-horse town.
But where there’s a vacuum, there’s opportunity. As a developer, you’re here to buy and sell land, construct amenities, and finagle clients into houses.
It’s a normal enough pitch, in other words. Maybe even an unexciting pitch. There are plenty of board games about real estate, and Grinivil doesn’t sound all that far off from titles like Rebuilding Chicago, The Estates, or Magnate: The First City. Tough competition. Solid games. Good bones.
But it takes Grinivil all of ten seconds to set itself apart as those titles’ spiritual opposite. For one thing, there’s the way the game looks. And I promise I’m not about to ding it. Quite the opposite. Grinivil’s earliest state, when it’s nothing more than a traffic loop and a few partially-constructed buildings atop a single pizza-slice of land, is full of potential. You can see what it might become after some walls have been put up and a few trees have been planted.
What’s more, those walls and trees mean something. They signify investment. When you add a floor to a building, you mark it with a piece of your color. Now that isn’t just the second story of a bowling alley or the foundation of a house. It’s your share in the bowling alley. It’s your ability to profit off the sale of the home. Those trees are bumps in property value. That road, now paved, is a sign that a new portion of the town is open for business.
And it isn’t only your investments you’re interested in. It’s everybody else’s, too.
The Time Action Ring is a rondel. An amazing rondel.
Let’s approach it from another angle. Turns.
Turns in Grinivil take place on the Time Action Ring, also called the TAR. The TAR is a rondel. Starting at the top-left, you move your pawn clockwise around the TAR, stopping at any action you want to perform. You know. It’s a rondel. It behaves like most rondels.
There are a few wrinkles to this process. First and foremost, most actions, once completed, will move you forward an extra space or two. (Or three or four.) Sometimes this bypasses another action you were hoping to take. Fortunately, you can pay cold hard cash to move fewer spaces. If pouring that foundation will move you forward three spaces, therefore passing the space you were hoping to use next turn, you can pay some money to move a little less.
That’s not all. Unlike some rondels, which limit movement, here you’re allowed to visit any space. You can even circle the entire TAR in a single move if you so desire. The limitation is that passing Go will not award $200. In fact, the opposite is the case. Whenever you pass the space at the top left, you pay both taxes and your workers. Taxes, now, that’s a flat rate. But workers consume a few bucks apiece. If you don’t have any workers on the table, whether constructing a building or squatting on an ability space on the TAR, that’s not the biggest deal. But if you have three workers out, it suddenly behooves you to stretch your time on the TAR as much as possible.
And then there’s the real highlight: the actions themselves. Put simply, Grinivil offers some of the coolest actions I’ve seen put to a rondel. Some are fairly routine, like buying or selling resources, but others transform the state of the board in ways that are hard to describe without seeing them in action.
I’m not sure the score and road track had to be this, ah, eccentric.
You might, for example, add a wedge to the map. This costs some money and awards a few points. Far more importantly, it gives you ownership over that wedge. Basically, you’re speculating on land. Now whenever anybody wants to build on that land, they’ll be paying a premium for the opportunity.
Or you might turn victory points into cash. Points are the game’s objective, of course, but they don’t really matter until the end. So why not turn them in for walking-around money? This isn’t the first game to feature such an option, but it’s the only one where I’ve seen players accept that devil’s bargain. Sometimes multiple times. If you’re still short, you could also collect unemployment for all the workers who aren’t currently out there collecting a wage, or host an auction and collect the proceeds, or flip all that timber and concrete for more than you spent on it.
Or you could alter the rules altogether. This is mostly the domain of abilities, spots on the TAR that must be occupied by one of your workers. This uses up the worker — and you’ll have to pay them, of course — but gives you that space’s perk until you loop back around to it. To a one, these are ridiculous. There’s the Manager, who removes the need to spend extra time on the TAR. As in, that entire portion of the game is just deleted. Or there’s the Architect. She lets you use any resources when building rather than using specific materials, letting you pass off concrete monstrosities as homes or build a pet store out of nothing but cheap steel. So much for the game’s inventory management! The Banker gives you three coins per turn. Just gives them to you. The Ecologist — my group calls him Treesus — does something similar, adding periodic trees to your inventory.
Surprisingly, the most foundational action, construction, is anything but perfunctory. As you might expect, construction is where you spend materials to add a floor to the map. But it’s also so much more than that, inserting players into the overgrown thicket of incentives that is Grinivil’s principal draw. More on that in a moment.
It might sound like the efficacy of these actions is game-breaking, but in practice it really means that every decision carries considerable heft. On any given turn, you’re presented with a wide-open decision space between three or four tremendous opportunities. Sometimes a shortfall can be covered by having the right resources on-hand, and it isn’t unheard of for an action to become better thanks to a cash infusion. But the real cost is always paid in the opportunities you passed by on your way to something else.
As Grinivil develops, it becomes a minefield of overlapping interests.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the game’s residents. Grinivil, at its core, is about attracting newcomers to town. Each resident has a number of needs, some underlined in red, others more negotiable. When the game begins, you have two in-hand. There’s also a display of additional cards that can be acquired or swapped out.
Here’s an example. When you first sit down to play, you could be holding Miriam and Nela. Both are worth some points, but Miriam will pay a bunch of cash if her house is on a lot with many trees, whereas Nela is willing to pay a flat rate. Okay, simple enough. So Nela is easier to place on undeveloped land, right?
Sort of! Both also have some hard-coded requirements. Miriam won’t move in unless there’s a grocery store within three spaces of her new home and a bus stop somewhere in town. Nela, meanwhile, isn’t too picky about distance, but wants a pet store and a garden center. When placed, they also provide bonuses. If there’s a playground within two spaces, Miriam will award a few extra points. She’ll also pay a premium for a nearby garden center, giving her some overlap with Nela. For her part, Nela wants a library and a music venue. Deep breath: They also provide end-game bonuses. Miriam wants a hospital in town. Nela insists on a police station.
Here’s the thing. Call it a double-edged sword. Like everything in Grinivil, residents pose a certain hurdle. Their cards are, charitably, a mess of information. Less charitably, they’re just a mess.
But that mess, apart from being somewhat hard to untangle visually, is important, because it’s how everything gets evaluated. When you house a resident, each of those boxes tells you something different. The top box is how many points and coins they give you right away. But everything underneath that, all three boxes of potential rewards, are awarded to whomever owns the thing in question. If I built the garden center for Nela, and then you later welcome Miriam to town, I get the cash for her proximity to the garden center even though you played the card. If I own two of the hospital’s three floors, then two-thirds of Miriam’s fifteen end-game points are mine, even if I never so much as glanced at her until the final tally.
This makes Grinivil a stern plaything indeed, but it’s always fair in its unfairness. There’s hidden information, but not so much that it can’t be overcome with watchfulness and shrewd investments. There are few guardrails, but open-ended actions and a few dashes of chance make it possible to wrestle out of tight spots.
I love everything about this.
Which isn’t to say that these rough edges can’t prove frustrating, especially during the first play or two. Once, a player’s early investment in a water treatment plant — and we’re talking about their third or fourth action, maybe fifteen minutes into a two-hour session — translated into a game-winning swing when a half-dozen residents all insisted that their town have potable water.
The beauty of Grinivil, though, is that this was entirely our fault. The table’s fault, I mean. Mine. My co-players’. Because as soon as that rival invested so much in clean water, we should have shifted our priorities. No more residents who care weirdly a lot about their drinking water being certified amoeba-free! Only cop-loving residents, or residents who insist on accessible hospitals, or residents who hang out at churches and retirement communities.
Or, perhaps, we could have ensured that our game-ending tally was dwarfed by residents whose earlier payouts were sufficient to overcome any final swings. There are many ways to earn points in Grinivil, and just about as many ways to invest one’s attention and money.
In all cases, though, this is a game that benefits from both experience and table-talk. It’s a game where it’s not only not impolite, but necessary to say, “Hey, let’s stop attracting so many residents who love the aroma of water being treated.” In that sense, Grinivil is a game about cutting through the clutter to see what’s really important. (And boy howdy is there clutter, hardy har!) It’s about reading the state of the table, about observing which properties are likely to pay off big and which might only be worth a little bit here and there. It’s about watching your opponents and knowing when to feed the animals and when to hold back. Sometimes, it’s even about snaking somebody’s investment by paying a pittance to slap a roof atop their house and hustle one of your residents inside before they can protest.
As more people move in, costs go up. Sorry. Them’s the rules.
I like a polished game. But we’ve reached the point where too many games are polished. Some are so polished, I’d say, so devoid of rough edges, that there’s nothing left to snag one’s attention.
Grinivil is the other thing. Snaggy and shaggy. Some of its actions don’t have immediate utility; others are so potent that it’s impossible to choose between them. Sometimes a corner feels too painted-in. Its art is, um, undeniably not crafted by a plagiarism engine. Personally, I like how it looks. Not only the town, which is gorgeous, but the wackadoo resident cards. Just look at those nerds. I love them like my own ex-girlfriends.
For all of that — or more likely because of it — Grinivil is captivating. As in, it captures and holds one’s attention the way no number of over-smoothed experiences possibly could. It grabs your elbow, shows you the dance floor, and asks you to move. Then it probably shouts at you a little bit, before apologizing and rumpling your shirt and tucking a buck into your back pocket. No matter. This artifact, this singular vision, this gift from another dimension, is so spellbinding that it reminds me why I started playing board games in the first place.
A complimentary copy of Grinivil was provided by the designer and publisher.
(If what I’m doing at Space-Biff! is valuable to you in some way, please consider dropping by my Patreon campaign or Ko-fi. Right now, my third-quarter newsletter is open to all.)
Time Walkers from Aguilar, Turpin, and Sand Castle Games debuts in January 2027
by Steph Hodge
(For reference, everything in this piece refers to the 1960 version of The Game of Life. This version is the version I had as a kid and re-bought when Winning Moves Games remade it. There have been many versions since, but I haven't played all of them. The ones I have played tweaked the formula and have failed to capture "life" laike the original.)
Sigh. I just finished another play-through of the newest life-simulation board game, Coming of Age. As a "gamer's game" it is okay, if a lot heavier than I anticipated. There is a lot to think about, manage, and optimize. Plenty of cubes, tracks and tokens, if that's your jam. It gave my brain a workout.
That's not the reason I bought it, however. I was (and still am) looking for a fun, "gamer's" life-simulation game to replace The Game of Life. I've tried almost all of the life-sim games out there. Pursuit of Happiness. CV. Adulthood. And now Coming of Age. They are good games, for the most part, but they lack the pure fun and whimsy of The Game of Life.
As a kid, The Game of Life was just a blast. We'd put the pegs on the spinner and send…
The post Why The Game of Life Is Still The Best Life-Simulation Board Game appeared first on Meeple Mountain.
I despise the word “impossible” in the two-player board game design space. It’s “impossible” to make an 18xx game at two players. It’s “impossible” to make an area control game with two players. It’s “impossible” to make a hidden roles game with two players. When a designer or design team aims to tackle the “impossible,” […]
With this My Favorite Wargame Cards Series, I hope to take a look at a specific card from the various wargames that I have played and share how it is used in the game. I am not a strategist and frankly I am not that good at games but I do understand how things should work and be used in games. With that being said, here is the next entry in this series.
Labyrinth: The War on Terror, 2001-? from GMT Games is a 2-player asymmetrical Card Driven Game that pits the mighty and powerful United States military and all of its various antiterrorist agencies against the Jihadists in the Middle East whose sole goal is to spread terror, sow the seeds of deceit and ultimately destroy Western civilization. The game is a Card Driven Game where the cards contain Operation Points or Events and each turn the player must strategize and use their cards to their best ability in order to effect the state of the board and further their individual and asymmetric victory conditions. But the game is raw and is tied to the actual events of the early 2000’s as the United States was reeling to recover from the terrorist attacks in New York.
In the game, the Jihadist player is working to destabilize the Middle East through a series of clandestine activities such as destroying stability, toppling governments and forcing the US to react to their actions. One of their biggest strategies is to work to place what are called Plots out on the board in order to destabilize but also to generate local support and funding for their activities from the populace. If left alone, these Plots will go off at the end of a round and cause trouble that will then have to be cleaned up by the US player over the next turn. In order to uncover these Plots, the US player will have to play a 3 Ops card to take the Alert Action and different from most other actions there is no die roll required and the the Plot removal is automatic. But, the cost is steep as a 3 Ops card is pretty rare and spending it on this action is very painful. Jihadists use these Plots to force the US player to have to stamp out fire after fire rather than working to reform and stabilize governments to create allies. And when these Plots appear, the player’s long-term strategy will have to be put aside and a focus will have to change from managing regime change and the Global War on Terror (GWOT) posture to dealing with urgent plots. The KSM card is a very powerful tool in this game as it allows for the US player to remove Plots from an Ally or non-Muslim country but also to replace this investment with drawing 2 cards to replace it. This is specifically tied to the intel that was obtained from the capture of Khalid Sheik Mohammad and how it was then used to defuse several ongoing plots. The Jihadist player also gains a pretty large benefit as they will be allowed to place a Plot Marker into a non-Islamist Rule country with a cell. The process of successfully placing a Plot can be very challenging for the Jihadist player as it takes the play of a card for Operations points, uncovering a cell in a country and then rolling a die equal to or less than that country’s Governance Level to then place a face-down Plot Marker. This takes the need for a roll away and makes the placement of a Plot an automatic success.
I think that one of the other important distinctions and differences with the KSM card is that it is a 3 Ops Neutral Card that can be played by either side but when played by the US player for the event, it will be removed from the game while when being played for the Jihadist portion of the event it will remain and be able to be used in a later turn when it is drawn again. This reflects the important role that KSM played in al-Qaeda’s plans and if allowed to stay at large he will continue to plan and execute plots across the globe.
Khalid Sheik Mohammed was a member of Osama bin Laden’s militant organization al-Qaeda, and was specifically in charge of leading al-Qaeda’s propaganda operations from around 1999 until late 2001. Mohammed was captured on March 1, 2003 in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi by a combined operation of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Immediately after his capture, Mohammed was taken to secret CIA prison sites in Afghanistan, then Poland, where he was interrogated by U.S. operatives. By December 2006, he had been transferred to military custody at Guantanamo Bay detention camp. Sensationally nabbed in Pakistan, alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was photographed for the
world in a disheveled state immediately after his capture—symbolizing an apparent laying low of the once mighty al-Qaeda network. According to his US captors, he later provided information that thwarted other attacks.
Mohammed is widely regarded as the chief planner of the September 11 attacks. The United States government has alleged that he further participated in planning Richard Reid’s shoe bombing attempt to attack an airliner, the 2002 Bali bombings in Indonesia, the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the murder of Daniel Pearl and various foiled attacks as well as numerous other crimes. These claims have been criticised by others, such as military prosecutor Moe Davis and journalist Andrew Brown, as inadmissible due to being obtained through torture. He was charged in February 2008 with war crimes and murder by a U.S. military commission at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, which could carry the death penalty if convicted. A 2008 decision by the United States Supreme Court had also drawn into question the legality of the methods used to gain such admissions and the admissibility of such admissions as evidence in a criminal proceeding.
In the next entry in this series, we will take a look at Constantinople Sends Aid Core Event from The Shores of Tripoli from Fort Circle Games.
-Grant
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