Casual Games

A lot of the Kickstarter games this month have very strong themes and really embrace them, both through their mechanics and the artwork. There’s also a fairly good mix of card games, board games and dice games being offered, with a nice range of mechanics from bluffing to worker placement to resource management.

Tasty Minstrel Games debuts Harbour as print and play, USAopoly posts a list of their new games, and Scott King previews Tahiti.

Fantasy Flight has announced a fast paced dice game for later this year, Smart Play Games has released a new card game and Boardgaming.com previews oddball Aeronauts.

Zombie Dice is getting a new expansion, Hyperbole Games releases print and play Wizard Poker and the New Yorker publishes a profile on Settlers of Catan designer Klaus Teuber.

If there's anything that TV shows like BattleBots have taught us, it's that the best possible use of robots is to watch them fight each other to the death. Sure, robots can come in handy for many productive uses, as well, but they're not nearly as entertaining. Stak Bots, by UK publisher DogEared Games, is a small Kickstarter-funded card game that pits stacks of robots against each other to use their unique attack abilities to gain victory.

This month, Kickstarter has a couple of interesting two-player games and several board games with fun looking themes. Microgames are still being pitched and Game Salute is seeking funding for two separate campaigns.

Asmodee will be releasing Continental Express this month, Days of Wonder will be selling a 10^th Anniversary Edition of Ticket to Ride and more games from Z-Man Games.

Before jumping into the world of game design, I paused to consider two things. First, I thought about what types of games I would like to design.  My answer was family-friendly games. I defined family-friendly as easy enough for a child to learn, yet with enough meaningful decisions to hold an adult’s attention. I also defined family-friendly as played in an hour or less. That time limit was not just in consideration of the shorter attention span of some children, but also because of typical family schedules. Between school, homework, soccer, dance lessons, etc., even sixty unscheduled minutes for a game can be hard to come by for some families.

AEG announces the release of Pagoda this summer, Gryphon Games launches Our Games of Art Kickstarter Project and Z-Man Games announces a new 2-player game.