I’m not sure what it is about spring, exactly, but board games tend to multiply in this season like a certain cotton-tailed carrot eater that likes to deliver painted eggs. That usually means that more games start hitting the table and more games need to be reviewed – because hey, it’s what I do, and all of you dear readers deserve it. So let’s ditch the dallying dialogue and hop straight to the heart.

Dragon Valley

I’ll be completely honest – when designer C.W. Karstens first contacted me about Dragon Valley during its Kickstarter campaign last year, I was a bit trepidatious. The combination of art and main title logo made it feel like a throwback to early ’90s PC games when might and magic was all the rage; plus, it was a case of bad timing since Carnival was just about to make its debut. However, the premise and mechanics stuck in the back of my mind like a thorn. And, so, when presented with the chance to be the only one available to learn and teach the game at PAX East, I leapt at the chance. I’m so glad I did. I’ve raved about the divvy mechanic on The State of Games, and it’s really the heart and soul of the game. Each turn, the King’s Favored (basically, the start player) has to divide the available random selection of goods – special action cards, buildings with cool abilities, and resource cubes representing good guys and bad guys – into a number of piles equal to the number of players. What could be an exercise in resource balancing is turned on its head by the fact that the King’s Favored gets the pile that is not chosen by the other players, making that task a very tricky thing, indeed. Admittedly, the game has a tendency to run a bit long in an affair with more than two players, but the length often justifies the means. This charming Kickstarter gem is well worth checking out – especially if you find magic in the mighty power of cardboard and cubes.

Impression score:
5 out of 6

Santiago de Cuba

Ah, gateway Euros – how you do entice this particular gamer. After all, how can any cube pusher resist the bantam call of a relaxing trip to a charming, foreign land? Santiago de Cuba is just such a creature with alluring art, plenty of resource cubes, and a giant rondel disguised as a car traveling along a crowded city street. So what could go wrong? Plenty, actually. Sometimes a relaxing trip can be a bit too relaxing; in the case of Santiago de Cuba, that relaxation becomes a burden when the decisions are far too straightforward. The car’s path that seems so charming, at first, soon transforms into a one-way street filled with no signs of analytic thinking – only a repetitive course of singular decisions. One might imagine that the trip would be enhanced with more travelers, but this is not so – a two-player affair feels just as pointless as one with more. This is not to say that Santiago does not have its charms; after all, if any of your group has not experienced the thrill of the Stone Age or the high-flying allure of Airships they may very well enjoy the crowded streets of this revolutionary city.

Impression score:
3 out of 6

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Dice Hate Me and Go Forth and Game have joined forces to bring you some of the best gaming interviews on the web! That’s right, from time to time here on Dice Hate Me, Tom Gurganus will contribute one of his comprehensive conversations. In this interview, Tom sits down for a chat with Matthew Duhan of Gozer Games to discuss the current Kickstarter project, Titans of Industry. Enjoy the interview and be sure to let us know if there are other designers, artists or gaming insiders that you would like to know more about!

Tom: Welcome to Go Forth And Game again Matthew. Before we get to far into this remind us about your company Gozer Games.
Matthew: Gozer Games was founded in 2007 with the idea that games should be funny as well as fun. We have produced several titles. The most recent, Vampire Werewolf Fairies, won the 2011 Gaming Genius awards for Best Non-Collectible Card Game.

Tom: Now for your newest game, Titans of Industry.  Tell us all about it, what is it about, how do you play?
Matthew: Titans of Industry is a worker placement Eurogame set in the 1920s. I think that the setting and style are pretty unique for a game of this kind. You are trying, in 7 turns (years), to gain the most victory points, by buying factories and businesses and using them to produce and sell goods. It has a rich interaction, and builds upon itself rather well.

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If it seems like we’ve been cranking out podcasts lately as fast as The Flash on a caffeine binge, that’s probably because we have! Sometimes there just seems to be a lot to talk about in the world of boardgaming. We’re aiming not to wear out our welcome, though, so it’ll likely be a bit before our next online roundtable – but we promise that when we do come back, it’ll be with good stuff just for you, dear listeners. Because we love you.

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Every now and then serendipity raises its pretty head and projects just come together. The past week has been a lot like that here at Dice Hate Me HQ, with some great moves on our own projects and some very interesting developments in others’. And then there are those special times when serendipity whispers a secret in your ear and you get to share it with the world. This is definitely one of those times, and I’m here to tell you that it just warms this old journalist’s heart.

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When you’ve been in the information game as long as we have you start to wonder if you’ve seen and heard it all. We’re here to tell you now: We haven’t. From all our intel we can safely say that the boardgaming hobby is on the cusp of a revolution, and these next few months are going to be an exciting time for enthusiasts! For now, though, sit back and listen up as we share a small piece of history from the shadows.

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In the world of board games – particularly those with a certain European flair – there is seemingly no theme more rich, more explored, more involved, more epic than… farming. It’s true. Enter a hobby store anywhere and you’ll find more vegetables – albeit tiny wooden ones – than at your local supermarket. This does not mean, however, that there cannot and, indeed, should not be more rich and engaging games that allow players to get their inner gardener involved. With that said, let me introduce all of you dear readers to Garden Dice, a game about vegetables, vermin and my favorite vexing vice – dice.

I first encountered Garden Dice when I met the designer, Doug Bass, in November at MACE, a local gaming convention. Doug had contacted me previously and asked if I’d be interested in trying out a game he hoped to launch on Kickstarter. Never being one to turn down a game, even one with dice, I sat down with Doug and my buddy Shawn to play what I thought would be a leisurely and friendly stroll through the garden. What I soon found out was that Garden Dice was not to be the light skirmisher I once thought, but an engaging, deeply tactical and often cutthroat competition that just happened to include carrots and eggplants.

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Thanks to Stratus Games, Dice Hate Me is able to offer a completely insane giveaway – a free pre-order copy of their latest game Off Your Rocker! Off Your Rocker is a party game where one player takes on the role of a psychiatrist while the other players have all been assigned a particular quirk. Fans of the classic TV show Whose Line Is It Anyway? will recognize this is as one of the staples of improv – and it’s rarely played without hilarious results. You can all read more about Off Your Rocker on the Stratus Games website.

Off Your Rocker is currently on Kickstarter and Stratus Games can use your help to get this great game funded. So check out the Kickstarter page, enter into the contest below, and get ready to get crazy good stuff.

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