Blog Posts

Blog Posts

The Cup of the Monkey God

Tresa“Better luck next time,” sneers Tresa, holding the cup up to the light. An eerie sheen gleams on its surface.

“It is a pretty thing, is it not?” she says.

Jake eyes the half-dozen gun-barrels levelled at his chest. “You don’t understand what you’ve got there,” he says.

Tresa hands the cup to one of the soldiers. “Put this in the plane and prepare for take-off,” she says. The soldier clicks his heels and runs off.

She turns back to Jake.

“You were a worthy opponent,” she says, “How do you Americans say, a jolly good sport?”

Jake winces.

“No, that’s the Brits,” he says through gritted teeth, “but I’ve got another saying for you.”

Tresa laughs, “I expect you do. However, I do not have time to stay and listen.”

The cargo plane’s engines start up with a roar. Birds scatter from the nearby trees. Tresa starts towards the plane.

“I have an appointment with some armour in Peru,” she calls over her shoulder, “Sadly, I do not think you are invited!”

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Rise of the Crimson Hand unboxing

This is The Rise of the Crimson Hand, the first expansion for Fortune and Glory: The Cliffhanger Game.

It adds a whole new faction of villains, the Crimson Hand, who are a cult threatening to take over the world.

What is neat is that the Crimson Hand first appeared in the Touch of Evil board game, also by Flying Frog Productions. (Touch of Evil is the Sleepy Hollow game, set in the early 1800s with headless horsemen and vampires and werewolves, and cultists.)

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“Fortune and glory, kid. Fortune and glory.”

Fortune and Glory: The Cliffhanger Game is the Indiana Jones-style adventure game from Flying Frog Productions. The title comes from the most famous quote from the Raiders movies, after the one about the snakes.

It is set in the 1930s, and is a cooperative game where you are chasing the Nazis around the world after mysterious ancient artifacts.

This has to be the biggest box game we own. It has a nice huge world map and a whole bunch of cards and figures.

warningIt is also the only game I have seen that comes with a disclaimer.

It is on the back of the box. It reads:

“Warning. Fortune and Glory is set in the Pulp Adventure genre of the late 1930s. As such, it includes enemies and villains that are part of the Nazi party that had taken hold in Germany at the time (as well as the corresponding historical iconography). The usage of Nazis and their iconography is purely rooted in the historical context and is absolutely not intended to condone or glorify them or their actions in any way. If you find this material strongly objectionable it is our recommendation you do not purchase or use this product. Please game responsibly.”

We got it a while back and played it once. We found it a bit difficult to keep up with the villains. The game also suffered from ‘first play’ syndrome where I hadn’t got the rules straight. Gab loves it though. We call it ‘Nazi-opoly’.

We have dug it out because we discovered it has two expansions. We now have the first of these, The Rise of The Crimson Hand. This is quite cool, as the Crimson Hand were the evil cult in the Touch of Evil board game, so they are still going two hundred years later.

I did paint some of the figures, and here they are:

Shelly Hargrove (Race Car Driver), Dr. Zhukov (Master of Science), Jake Zane (The Flying Ace)

Shelly Hargrove (Race Car Driver), Dr. Zhukov (Master of Science), Jake Zane (The Flying Ace)

 

Duke Dudley (British Lord), Sharon Hunter (Daring Photographer), Li Mei Chen (Night Club Singer)

Duke Dudley (British Lord), Sharon Hunter (Daring Photographer), Li Mei Chen (Night Club Singer)

 

Alexander Cartwright (Reclusive Novelist), Jacques Moreau (Tomb Robber)

Alexander Cartwright (Reclusive Novelist), Jacques Moreau (Tomb Robber)

 

Tresa - the Femme Fatale, Colonel Stahl - the Iron fist, and Herr Teufel - The Occult Specialist

The Nazi villains: Tresa – the Femme Fatale, Colonel Stahl – the Iron fist, and Herr Teufel – The Occult Specialist

I haven’t painted the Nazi soldiers or the Mob villains yet, so along with the Crimson Hand they will make a nice painting project.

Love Letter unboxing – the world’s smallest card game

This is Love Letter, a card game about trying to get your love letter to the princess and win her hand. It gets consistently good reviews on boardgamegeek and also lots of personal recommendations.

We haven’t played it yet, but we have got our copy. It comes in a lovely red velvet pouch. There isn’t a lot to it at all. The game is made up of only 16 cards!

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It’s a trap!

The world falls away. Momentary vertigo lurches in his stomach as his senses adjust, the adrenaline spike riding on the rush of the ‘phettes.

Orienting himself, Noise aims for the clonefarmocology district. His mouth is dry and sweat beads on his neck, but here in cyberspace none of that matters. He hits the GoTo and the sensation of speed thrills down his spine.

This will be the biggest run of his career. The target is a new datafort on the outskirts of the Jinteki infrastructure. Newly-installed, its defences are incomplete. Trashing its storage and corrupting its data will bleed back into the rest of their corporate datamines, teaching Jinteki a well-deserved lesson.

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Running R&D – What are the chances?

I noticed several of my recent games were won by the runner stealing agendas from R&D (the corp player’s deck).

The corp has to spread his ICE across several servers, and in trying to protect a remote server often can’t help leaving R&D under-ICEed. Even if it cost a few credits to run past a couple of ICE into R&D, it seems always profitable for the runner to do so.

So how profitable? We need to look at the distribution of the agendas in the deck.

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The classic story of power and the press

18:03

Day job over, Kate exits her office building and walks toward the subway. She angles her head and checks the reflection in a shop window. A dark-windowed SUV is cruising down the street. It is the same one as this morning.

She keeps walking, flips open her wrist-terminal and starts a timer. It counts up in thousandths of a second as she quickly enters a series of commands. There is a pause and then behind her she hears the airbags in the SUV suddenly deploy.

Kate smiles. 3.009 seconds. A new record.

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Scorched earth policy

Swift Eddie’s feet scrabble for purchase in the alley puddle. Gabriel’s prosthetic hand holds him by the neck.

“Someone ordered the hit,” Gabriel hisses, “Who was it?”

“All I… urgh,” gasps Eddie, “All I know is someone from Weyland’s space exploration division was throwing his credits around in Wyldside last Tuesday. Everyone knows that’s where you go for…”

“…for a contract,” finishes Gabriel. His eyes follow the smoke still rising from the ruined city-block.

Eddie swallows. “I didn’t know they would go that far,” he pleads, “No-one could have known.”

Gabriel lets him go. Eddie slumps into the muddy water.

“No-one could have known,” he whimpers.

Gabriel looks up and down the alleyway.

“Where’s the nearest terminal?” he asks.

Eddie gestures at some neon flickering in the gloom. Gabriel hefts his go-bag on his shoulder and stalks towards it.

Eddie calls after him, “Make them pay!”

Gabriel pauses and looks back. The neon shines in his eye.

“I always do,” he says.

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