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Brew Crafters on Kickstarter!
True Boards & Barley!
Every once in a while a really awesome game goes up on Kickstarter that I just have to talk about. This time it’s a game that aligns perfectly with what this website is all about – beer and board games!
Dice Hate Me Games is currently Kickstarting their newest game, Brew Crafters. This is a game design by Ben Rosset, whom you may know from the awesome game Mars Needs Mechanics. I had the privilege of meeting Ben at GenCon this past August and I can safely say he’s an awesome guy.
And if you are aware of previous Dice Hate Me games, then you know you can expect quality and fun in every box! (Compounded, VivaJava, etc.)
Let’s Brew some Beer!
In Brew Crafters you are a craft brewer looking to make it big. Unfortunately you’ve opened your craft brewery at the same time as the other players. You all are starting small with limited equipment. Through a worker placement mechanic you can send your workers to obtain ingredients, perform research, obtain better equipment, and do all the awesome things a brewer would do.
Over the course of the game you will be upgrading and expanding your facility. Here’s what a starting and fully upgraded facility looks like in Brew Crafters:
There is a great amount of competition in the game as brewers try to be the first to brew each different style of beer, or have the best tasting room to lure in customers, or upgrade to the finest facility.
If you like beer or board games or both, then you should consider backing Brew Crafters by Dice Hate Me Games!
My Essen Top Seven
Greetings gamers! As you are most likely aware, the world’s biggest board game festival is currently running in Essen, Germany. There are hundreds of newly released games that make their debut each year at Essen. While I have never attended Essen myself, this is the first year that I will be able to get a game directly from Essen. How? My close friend Jeremy will be attending on Saturday (and maybe Sunday). So I am going to have him pick up a game for me. The problem is I still cannot decide which game to get.
So here are my top 7 games debuting at Essen this year in no particular order:
Glass Road:
BGG Link: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/143693/glass-road
# of Players: 1-4
Playtime: 75 minutes
Mechanics: Hand Management, Simultaneous Action Selection, Tile Placement
What looks cool: First, it’s by Uwe Rosenberg. Those games always seem good. Also, I love the look of the artwork. Finally, I think the tension of playing the same employee/worker card as someone else will make the game fun to play.
Coal Baron:
BGG Link: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/143515/coal-baron
# of Players: 2-4
Playtime: 70 minutes
Mechanics: Action Point Allowance System, Pick-up and Deliver, Set Collection, Tile Placement, Worker Placement
What looks cool: The artwork looks amazing and I’m a sucker for good art. The other thing that gets me is the combination of mechanics. The five mechanics listed could possibly be my five favorite mechanics.
Expedition: Northwest Passage:
BGG Link: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/71074/expedition-northwest-passage
# of Players: 2-4
Playtime: 45 minutes
Mechanics: Action Point Allowance System, Tile Placement
What looks cool: Again, the artwork is drawing me in. I think this is a very clever game design in how the isomorphism of the tiles works. Also, it seems like a nice take on the tile placement mechanic where you need to work within the land/ice system that the tile combinations present.
Nauticus:
BGG Link: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/144415/nauticus
# of Players: 2-4
Playtime: 90 minutes
Mechanics: Not listed, but there is a rondel and ship building, which is usually enough for me (Shipyard, Navegador)
What looks cool: I think that the way ships are built and the way the rondel works seems nice and fresh. The artwork looks good. And this seems like a cool take on shipbuilding.
Russian Railroads:
BGG Link: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/144733/russian-railroads
# of Players: 2-4
Playtime: 120 minutes
Mechanics: Worker Placement
What looks cool: A railroad game with great artwork? A railroad game with worker placement? Either of those would lure me in. Together they make this game one of my Essen Top 7. I know that another Madisonite will be having a copy of this so I may not choose this one, but it sure looks awesome!
Quantum:
BGG Link: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/143519/quantum
# of Players: 2-4
Playtime: 30 minutes
Mechanics: Area Control / Area Influence, Dice Rolling, Grid Movement, Modular Board, Variable Player Powers
What looks cool: Everything about this looks cool. The designer diary was awesome to read. The artwork looks exceptional! I love that there are variable player powers. I love that the core of the game seems to be a simple system on which the designer added a few layers of awesomeness. And I love the idea of balance between the ship characteristics. Plus, 30 minutes is a great play time for my game group.
Madeira:
BGG Link: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/95527/madeira
# of Players: 2-4
Playtime: 120 minutes
Mechanics: Area Movement, Dice Rolling, Worker Placement
What looks cool: As with all the other entries I love the artwork for this game. I don’t really know much about this particular game, but with that combination of mechanics I know that this game is interesting to me. The playtime is a little long, but it still looks cool.
Honorable Mention:
So this list is a little long, but there are just so many games debuting at Essen that I would love to own!
- Cornish Smuggler – Which Jeremy pre-ordered
- Caverna – But I don’t think I would get such a game to the table often enough.
- Piwne Imperium – Not available for purchasing, but it looks totally awesome!
- Canalis – A very nice looking tile placement game.
- L’Aeropostale
- Les Bâtisseurs – Moyen-Âge – Not available in English, but this game looks really sweet.
- Dig Mars – I’m a big fan of Undermining and this looks similar.
- Craftsmen
- Francis Drake – This game is awesome. We got to demo it at GenCon and it was a ton of fun!
- Bremerhaven
- Lewis & Clark – I love the theme and I hope that the designers did the great journey correctly.
- SOS Titanic – The way they sink the boat with the binder seems interesting.
- Amerigo – Another Feld game? Of course I had to list it.
- Canterbury – I was very close to backing this on KS, but didn’t. I wish I had!
- New Haven – This game looks pretty good as well!
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What games are you looking forward to? Isn’t Essen Spiel awesome?!?
Monday Brews: 10-21-13
Though over half of Monday is gone already, I’m finally able to post my Monday Brews article. I hope your Monday is going well. As per my usual approach I present to you the Boards and Barley that I enjoyed this past week:
The Barley:
Delicious!
New Belgium Fat Tire: A classic, solid choice for a beer. Enjoyable.
Ale Asylum Madtown Nut Brown: I enjoyed this with my boss and several colleagues as we greeted a former student who has returned to town. On tap it’s a pretty decent brew.
Rathskellar Red: This beer is produced by the UW Union and was very enjoyable as well.
Abita Fall Fest: I’ve had better beers and I’ve come to realize I don’t care for any from Abita. But if you’re in the mood for some New Orleans style, then Abita is for you!
Tyranena Painted Ladies: I’m a sucker for pumpkin beers and this one did not disappoint. Unfortunately it appears the season for Oktoberfests and Pumpkin beers is waning despite Halloween still over a week away.
Left Hand Brewing Nitro Stout: This milk stout was more enjoyable than the MKE Brewing Polish Moon Milk Stout that I wrote about previously. This was was much less “Earthy” tasting, thankfully!
Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale: I’ve decided that I do not care for strongly aged bourbon barrel beers. If I want bourbon I’ll just drink bourbon. This beer was overwhelmingly bourbon-y. I hate to say this, but I would have rather had a PBR.
North Coast Brother Thelonius: I enjoyed this while being a guest on the Building the Game Something from Nothing podcast that aired last night. It was a mighty fine brew in a delicious Belgian style that I will likely drink again!
The Boards:
Amazing artwork and awesome gameplay make Farmageddon a great game!
Farmageddon: I broke this out at Board Game Night and it was thoroughly enjoyed for its cut-throatty awesomeness. We played a tight game that ended up being not so tight as the winner had 46 points and last place had 16. This was a very fun game and I highly recommend it!
Scoville: I got to play my game again! I taught two new players and they both enjoyed the game. Scoville will be up on Kickstarter to coincide with BGG.con in November! I don’t think I could be more excited! Here’s another exclamation point just because!
Long Shot: We played with 8 players and utilized a few house rules to speed things up. The result was that we played the game in 35 minutes! The house rules included being able to bet $10 at a time and rolling both dice twice on your turn so horses move faster. It’s such a fun game and these rules made it more enjoyable since it didn’t take an hour and a half.
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So those are the Boards and Barley that I enjoyed this past week, What did you enjoy?
Also, is there any interest in having a “Designer’s Corner” section in these articles where I discuss the designing work I’ve done each week??
Thrifting Victory!
I’m not sure how many of you take the time to visit your local thrift store establishments, but every so often I find I enter the doors of the local GoodWill or St. Vincent dePaul’s. Why do I go to those places? I go there to hunt. I go to stalk the ever elusive find. I go to find board games for cheap!
And I’m not alone. A good friend found the game Tsuro for $1.20. We’ve played it at least 7 times. What a find! Each week there is a thread on BoardGameGeek where people list their thrift store finds. I love perusing the list to see what treasure people found. I have never been one to have a good find. Until now.
Farkle Party
My wife and I stopped at GoodWill to look for cheap Halloween costumes for the kids. While she was looking through those racks I headed over to the game section with secret hopes of finding Agricola or something else awesome for cheap. Well, I found Farkle Party, which has six dice cups and 36 dice. For $3.99 I figured it wasn’t a terrible deal for the dice. My plan was to use the dice for game designs in my queue.
The tin was taped shut and I didn’t want to be that weird guy in the store that untapes things to check them before buying. So I bought it. At our next shopping stop I waited in the car while my wife went in. I figured it was as good a time as ever to open the tin and examine my new dice! However, there were no dice! Instead it was full of this:
No Dice!
Jewelry! At first I was really disappointed because I wanted the dice. But then I realized that there might be something of value in it. So I looked through it a little bit and picked out a few things that I thought might have value.
The items I sold.
Yesterday I took those items into a local jeweler to get them appraised and see if they would be interested in buying them. Here’s the results:
- Sterling silver items and miscellaneous items: $35
- Diamond on a brooch: $90
- Gold on a brooch: $142
So my $3.99 purchase earned me $267! Now that’s a thrifting victory if I’ve ever heard of one! Have you had any thrifting victories?
Monday Brews: 10-14-13
Welcome back to Boards & Barley! So glad to have you here. Last week I posted an article about using Inkscape to make icons for your game design prototypes. It appears that the article was pretty well received. If there are other things you’d like me to show how to do in Inkscape, just let me know!
Today is Monday, so I present to you the Boards & Barley that I enjoyed in the past week:
The Barley:
Freshly bottled awesomeness!
First some news: last night I bottled my third batch of homebrew. It is an Oatmeal Stout and will be named after Sir Isaac Newton. So in a few weeks I’ll be able to enjoy some Newton’s Oatmeal Stout. The picture shows the beautiful bottles of awesomeness. They will be waiting patiently in my basement.
New Glarus Spotted Cow: Yum.
Tyranena Rocky’s Revenge: This is a very good beer that comes from Lake Mills in Wisconsin. The upside is that it reminds me and my friends of the great Beer Run event that the brewery holds each November.
Hinterland Oktoberfest: Not good. This hoity toity beer was not a good Oktoberfest. It did not even taste like an Oktoberfest. Served in 16 ounce bottles at a high cost by a brewery that thinks it’s high end, I expected something better. Disappointed with this one.
New Holland Dragon’s Milk: Wow! Not necessarily a good “wow.” Just Wow. This beer is potent. I’ve been wanting to try it for a while and it lived up to expectations. This beer had a ton of character.
New Belgium 1554 Black Ale: New Belgium has some interesting beer styles that I don’t always enjoy. However, the 1554 Black Ale is definitely one that I do enjoy. I have to wonder, though, if that’s because it makes me think of Euro style games. This beer could have a theme based on the black plague. All it would need is some bored looking dude on the label!
Point Oktoberfest: This is a passable oktoberfest, which is saying quite a bit compared to the Hinterland oktoberfest listed above. It’s not my favorite oktoberfest, but I’d drink it again.
The Boards:
Camel tokens from Yspahan are awesome!
It was another down week for gaming. But this week we’ll be having a game night, so hopefully I get a few more games in this week.
Kingdom Builder: Somehow I sneaked out a win over my wife. With a final score of 84 to 81 it was a closer finish that I was expecting. I was surprised when I saw how close she was.
Yspahan: I got to play Yspahan for the first time this past week. And I snapped this awesome picture. The game is a really cool game design despite the possibility of dice results ruining it. I pulled off a big win and really enjoyed the game.
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So those are the Boards & Barley that I enjoyed last week. What did you enjoy?
Boards and Barley 