A busy week for me this week! While I played a lot of Horus
Heresy: Legions, there’s not much more I can say about it without repeating
myself, and I was fortunate enough to have time to play some other games this
week:
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| A magical experience for the whole family. |
Kirsty and I played a delightful little board game called
The Magic Labyrinth. This game has you controlling little wizards though a
grid-board; you roll a dice to find out how far you can move and aim for a
randomly-generated magic symbol somewhere around the middle of the board. The
challenge comes from the fact that there are walls built under the board, and
if the ball bearing that is magnetically attached beneath the board to your
wizard falls off because of one of these walls, you have to go back to the
start and start again. The first wizard to collect five symbols is the winner.
We played a couple of games and had a really nice time; it’s not a deep
experience by any means but sometimes we don’t necessarily want to be
micro-managing numbers, stats and fifteen different things going on the board,
and in those situations games like the Magic Labyrinth are perfect.
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| A devastating boss fight for parts of your family you don't get on with and want to punish. |
I had a go with Dark Souls for the first time in a while.
I’m stuck on the Bell Gargoyle boss monster, with my character having a very
light dexterity build. I remember making this character in response to having
tried to make a heavy fighter in an earlier play-through, and not having the
speed to dodge the gargoyle’s attacks. I can usually beat the first gargoyle
down to the point where the second one arrives, but once they start breathing
fire, there’s not much I can do and I keep dying on top of the Parish.
Nonetheless, it is fun to try, so I’ll keep at it, though I might need to look
at a Wiki to find out what I’m missing!
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| A strategy game for members of your family who haven't played them before. |
On my laptop, I came back to a game I downloaded last year
and played for a while: Into The Breach. This is a brilliant turn-based
strategy game with rogue-like elements, where you control a team of three Mechs
lead by a time traveller to battle the insect-like Vek on the remnants of
Earth. There are a number of different time travellers and mech builds to
unlock, and the maps are randomly generated so no two play-throughs are the
same. In each battle, it is up to you to decide how you’re going to use the
resources available to defeat the Vek. The key element of the game is the turn
order – When the Mechs take their turn, they move then attack, while the Vek
attack then move. The trick is that the Vek telegraph their attacks before
their turn, meaning that you can focus your attacks on the one that’s threatening
the most, making sure you kill them or eliminate their threat. The mechanics
are simple enough and anybody should be able to have a go and enjoy it, but it
has a surprising amount of depth. I’ve really enjoyed my time with it this
week!
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| It all seems so long ago, when Goblins were tearing families apart... |
Finally, on Sunday I continued running Pathfinder: Rise of
the Runelords for my roleplaying group. Most of the session involved the Wizard
character desperately trying to find somewhere to sleep so he could get all his
spells back. Trouble is, the party were in a dungeon filled with Ogres and
Giants, and I wasn’t about to let the party rest in an area if it wouldn’t make
sense for them to do so. This meant that they had to manage their limited
resources carefully as they tried to find somewhere to take a long rest, which
resulted in some more-careful-than-usual planning and experimenting with
different spells. The highlight of the session was when the Druid character
used Fire Snake for the first time; a brutal spell that inflicts a huge amount
of damage. As this is the highest level I think any of them have ever played
(currently level 10,) they don’t get to use the big guns very often!
I’m back at work next week, so I’m expecting my time to be
limited but I’ll do what I can!
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