One game that I’ve been waiting quite a while for it to come out has been Deranged. This is one that I got to demo at GenCon last year, and it finally became available for pre-order. So I tried to get it ordered through my FLGS but when they weren’t able to, I ended up ordering it online, and to get free shipping I decided to order up to the $100 total. So let’s see what’ll be coming when that pre-order is ready to ship.

Deranged

So Deranged is the biggest one, this is a great free for all sort of game where you’re in a village and you are cursed. You have three days to escape the village or everyone loses, however, there can only be one winner. So you need to get rid of your curses. However, that can be easier said than done because there are monsters roaming the town, and they can get you, and if they do, they don’t knock you out of the game, but you will be cursed again. And then every night you have a chance of becoming deranged, a monster in your own right, and the only way to break that bigger curse is to try kill another human. The game is kind of a take that type of game because you are attacking the other players to get them more curses if they manage to get rid of theirs also while you’re trying to lift the curses on you and then race for the exit. The game was a ton of fun at GenCon, and I have just kind of described the theme, the game actually uses what I’d call a brilliant card mechanic where you can use the card to take actions, but if you spend a good card for that, you won’t then have that good card to play to defend if a monster or another player is going to attack you, so it offers a lot of interesting challenges, and then when you’re deranged you still use the cards, just in a slightly different way. This has a feel of something like a Betrayal at House on the Hill theme, but very different in terms of mechanics, almost has some of the vibe of the haunt, just everyone is the traitor.

Codenames: Pictures

Now, if you’ve read my Codenames review, you’ll know that I don’t like that game. I think that the one with words is pretty dull and while you can get creative and massive clues to work once in a while most of the time you’re giving a clue that ties maybe two words together or at most three. In Codenames: Pictures, you can use much more creativity when coming up with your clue. I’ve said “Flight, 6” and it worked, and in fact I could have said “Flight, 7” and that would have worked as well. So having those bigger clues to give is just great. Codenames: Pictures also is less language or knowledge dependent because it’s just a picture that’s a mash-up of two things. Whereas for regular Codenames, people need to know what the word means, and while the words aren’t the most out there, it is from CGE (Czech Games Edition), so not all of the words are the most common. But this will work well as another one of those bigger group games for a board game night where you don’t feel like splitting up, and one that I can play with family easily as well.

Welcome To… New Vegas

Welcome To… is my favorite roll/flip and write game, so when they came out with a new version of it, where you’re building up the Vegas strip, I was interested. When I found out that it was more complex, I wasn’t sure how interested I was going to be, because Welcome To… is a medium weight flip and write game. However, when I saw it played on Game Night by Board Game Geek (BGG), it looked like a lot of fun. It looks like it gives you a ton of choices, and I can see how it would build upon what people know from Welcome To… in a really good way. Plus, I’ve really been digging roll and write and flip and write style games because you can play some of them via streaming without much issue. This one might be too complex for streaming, but will work well in person. Again it’s a game that can handle a big group, which is a lot of fun to have games like that in the collection for when you don’t want to split up at a game night.

Tiny Towns

This game was so hot last year. And I can see why, it’s been one that’s been on my radar for a while. Cool Stuff Inc. has it for less than the standard MSRP, so I decided it was time to grab it. In this game you are building up a little town, to do that, you’re putting resources in a grid, going for certain patterns that then allow you to build a farm, tavern or other buildings and you score points depending where the buildings are built. There are a few interesting things about the game. First, when you build, you have to build in one of the spots that you removed one of the cubes from. So you have to plan your buildings well, because you don’t want to create pockets that are too small to build in. The other thing is that you pick the color you want to build on your turn. So you might want a red cube, that means everyone else has to put down a red cube somewhere on their grid as well. But it might not be useful for them, so you can balance really helping yourself or hurting another player, just don’t hurt yourself at the same time. That means, that only when you are it are you guaranteed of getting what you want. I like that, because it doesn’t mean you can plan it out perfectly, which means you need to adjust and adapt on the fly. The game seems simple but thinky.

Those are the ones that I’m picking up in this order. Which one sounds the most interesting to you?

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