Archive for March, 2013

Stefan Feld’s games are known for having an interesting mechanic at their heart, which is one of the reasons I look forwards to his games.  Bora Bora is no different and has a dice-placement-action system in the centre of a game that isn’t complicated but it does have a lot of other game mechanics and bits surrounding it.  No specific aspect is complicated, but there is a lot going on, so I’m going to try to discuss each main part one-by-one.

OVERVIEW
The game is set on a Pacific island and players place huts, gain tribe members, build buildings, make offerings to the gods, and so on.  The game lasts 6 rounds and the winner is the player who finishes with the most  victory points (VPs).  Many VPs are earned during the game, but there are also lots of bonus VPs that can be awarded at the end of the game (although, as you’ll read later, these are quite tough to achieve).

Each round players first roll their 3 dice and then take turns placing one at a time on one of the action tiles allowing them to perform the appropriate action.  Next, players use the ability of one of their man tiles and the ability of one of their woman tiles.  Then, the status track (scoring VPs and determining  turn order), temple track (scoring VPs and a bonus for one player) and jewelry purchases are all resolved.  Finally, players must complete or discard one of their 3 objective tiles before taking a new one.  (All unclaimed man and woman tiles, objectives and jewelry are cleared from the board and new ones added for the next round.) Read the rest of this entry »

The Achtung! Cthulhu Keepers and Investigators Kickstarter project smashed its £8,000 target in just 26 hours.

The Kickstarter project is for the Achtung! Cthulhu Keeper’s and Investigator’s handbooks which can be played with the Basic Role-Playing system as well as the Savage Worlds system too.  It has already reached a lot of stretch goals which means the two books will be full-colour hardbacks; however, other stretch goals already reached mean many backers will also be receiving loads of extra supplements in PDF form (with an option to upgrade to physical versions).

One supplement is the superbly named campaign ‘Assault on the Mountains of Madness’.  A piece of concept art for the campaign is shown here.  The first two parts of this campaign have been unlocked already and the third (and final) part is within reach.  Some other stretch goals already reached are another campaign (Shadows of Atlantis) and some sourcebooks too. Read the rest of this entry »

Frustratingly, I haven’t been able to post new reviews recently as I have been moving house.  It was made all the more frustrating as I played Bora Bora two week’s ago and have had a half-written review sat i my drafts ever since.  I expect to post that on Monday or Tuesday, and be back to adding reviews more regularly after that.  Before that though, I’ll be adding a post about a Kickstarter project that looks very interesting.