I got my Just Desserts from Looney Labs

I was a bit surprised when Looney Labs contacted me asking if I wanted to review a copy of their new game Just Desserts. The reason for this surprise is that I've been pretty open about the fact that I'm not a huge fan of their most popular game: Fluxx.

Back in July last year I did up a review of Regular Show Fluxx. While I didn't tear the game apart it wasn't the most positive review. So I was shocked when they asked me for another review.

I've taken Just Desserts out to a couple Windsor Gaming Resource events and I've broken it out at a couple of home games. The first thing I do have to say is: Just Desserts is very much not Fluxx. It's a very different style of set collection game that the local gamers and I found to be quite a bit of fun. 

April 4th - Brimstone Board Game Night featuring: Deus

It's time for Brimstone Board Game Night!

The Windsor Gaming Resource returns to Brimstone Games on Saturday April 4th.

Brimstone Board Game Night hits on the 1st and 3rd Saturday of every month. These events normally run from 5pm to 10pm and are open to all ages. 

Reminder:
At Brimstone all board games are 30% off all the time.

You can win a board game! 

Every Board Game Night at 8pm the store will draw 1 ticket and the winner will receive a free board game! Sometimes we get extra generous and give away more than one. Heck one night we gave away 6. No matter what there will be at least 1 game given away every event.

Players earn 1 ticket for playing games, 1 ticket for purchasing a snack or drink, and 1 ticket for bringing 1 or more board games for people to play. Earn 5 more tickets for each game you purchase. First time players will receive 5 additional tickets.

You can find Brimstone at 3298 Walker Rd. Parking is available on the south side of the building and on the street around back. Note that Brimstone used to be located in McGregor. This is no longer the case, they moved into Windsor just over a year ago some mapping website haven't figured this out yet.

Featured Game: Deus

In Deus, players work to develop their own civilizations in a shared environment. Each player starts the game with five building cards, and on a turn a player either uses one of these cards to construct a building or discard one or more cards to make an offering to a god. Cards come in six colors: red for military, green for resource production, blue for trade, brown for scoring, purple for temples, and yellow for a variety of effects.

When you construct a building, you build it in the appropriate location on the modular game board — which is sized based on the number of players with the hexagonal tiles composed of seven landscape "circles" — then you place the card in your personal tableau in the appropriate stack of colored cards and activate the power of all of those cards already in your tableau, starting with the card at the bottom of the stack.

When you make an offering, you discard cards, then receive the help of a god associated with one of the cards that you discarded, with the number of cards determining the strength of the associated action. You then refill your hand to five cards.

The game ends either when all the barbarian villages on the game board have been surrounded and attacked or when all the temples have been constructed. Whoever has the most points wins.

Spiel winner Camel Up is deeper than it looks

There was a lot of noise when the 2014 Spiel des Jahres awards were handed out. The Spiel are the German Game of the Year awards and are generally considered the most prestigious award in the board game industry. There are three different categories in this competition. The Speil des Jahres: game of the year. The Kennerspiel des Jahres: heavy/complex game of the year and the Kinderspiel des Jahres: kids game of the year.

So what was with all the noise last year? Well a very silly looking game called Camel  Up from Steffen Bogen won the Spiel des Jahres. Not the Kinderspiel but the main Speil award. People were rather upset because Camel Up looks like a simple roll and move kids game. I have to admit even I dismissed it at first.

I first got to try Camel Up at our 2014 Extra-Life event and boy was I wrong in my first impression. Camel Up is a perfect example of making sure you don't judge a game by it's cover (and components). 

Camel Up is still a pretty quick, filler style, game, but there's a lot more depth there than you would initially think. It's a betting game for up to 8 players who are betting on the overall winner, overall loser and who will be in the lead each leg of the race. What makes the game great is the way the camels work. If they end up on the same space they stack. If a camel in a stack moves all of the camels on top of it move with it. 

Games & Grub - March 27th

WINDSOR STAR NEWS CAFE

Friday March 27th we've got a Games & Grub event being held at The Green Bean's Windsor Star News Cafe. This all ages event runs from 6pm until 11pm. 

The Windsor Star News Cafe is located at 300 Ouellette Ave, 3rd floor. This is the cafe that is part of the new Windsor Star located where the old downtown Palace Theater was.

The Windsor Star News Cafe has great food, coffee and other yummy things. The location is also licensed and offers some awesome beer from Walkerville Brewery as well as local Wines. Street parking is free after 6pm if you can find a spot and there are two parking garages in a very short walking distance if you can't.

We play a wide variety of games at these events. You will find card, dice and board games. We've even seen some miniature gamers bring their armies out. There's no theme to the event. Our last gaming event saw games of Abyss, Roll Through the Ages, Russian Railroads, Warmachine, Star Realms, Bang! The Dice Game, Camel Up and more.

We encourage you to bring some games out, whether an old favourite or something new you want to try out. If you don't have anything to bring, that's cool too. There's always lots of variety and people are always happy to teach you the games they have brought.

March 21st - Brimstone Board Game Night featuring: Pandemic

It's time for Brimstone Board Game Night!

The Windsor Gaming Resource returns to Brimstone Games on Saturday March 21st.

Brimstone Board Game Night hits on the 1st and 3rd Saturday of every month. These events normally run from 5pm to 10pm and are open to all ages. This particular event will run 6-11 though due to a Magic the Gathering event going on at the store.

Reminder:
At Brimstone all board games are 30% off all the time.

You can win a board game! 

Every Board Game Night at 8pm the store will draw 1 ticket and the winner will receive a free board game! Sometimes we get extra generous and give away more than one. Heck one night we gave away 6. No matter what there will be at least 1 game given away every event.

Players earn 1 ticket for playing games, 1 ticket for purchasing a snack or drink, and 1 ticket for bringing 1 or more board games for people to play. Earn 5 more tickets for each game you purchase. First time players will receive 5 additional tickets.

You can find Brimstone at 3298 Walker Rd. Parking is available on the south side of the building and on the street around back. Note that Brimstone used to be located in McGregor. This is no longer the case, they moved into Windsor just over a year ago.

Featured Game: Pandemic

Over the last month it seems like everyone and their brother has been sick. Due to this it seems appropriate that we have a Pandemic themed game night.

Pandemic is a hugely popular co-op board game where the players work together to cure four strains of disease. It's wickedly hard at first but has a scalable difficulty for those who think they have mastered the game.

The game is currently released in it's 2nd edition (which made a few minor updates to the look and play of the game). Along with the base game there are also a growing number of expansion each of which changes the game in a different way.

There's even a Pandemic dice game out now called: Pandemic The Cure. This is a great alternative to the original that's much quicker and has less of an Alpha gamer problem.

As part of this event we will be giving away a copy of the latest Pandemic Expansion: State of Emergency.

Pandemic State of Emergency:

Saving the world just got a little bit harder!

Three new challenges await you in this new expansion for Pandemic:

- The Hinterlands Challenge: the diseases are spreading from animals to humans…

- The Emergency Events Challenge: unpredictable Events have nasty effects on the game…try to use Quarantines to stop the spread of disease across the board…

- The Superbug Challenge: a fifth disease that cannot be treated threatens the world! Produce vaccine doses after finding its cure in order to fight off this threat. You must eradicate the superbug disease to win.

This expansion is NOT for the faint of heart...

Arcadia Quest - Chibi Heroes battling against the Evil Lord Fang, and each other

Arcadia Quest is produced by the people at Cool Mini or Not (anyone else remember when CMON was just a rip off of Hot or Not for miniature painters?) and is an adventure board game that is similar to games like Descent and Star Wars Imperial Assault. Normally I would call this style of game a "Dungeon Crawler" but in this particular case, there are no dungeons, all of the fighting and questing is done in the city streets.

The artwork and miniatures in Arcadia Quest are on in the now well known, Chibi art style. Where the character's heads are pretty much as big as their bodies and everything is over exaggerated. You will recognize this style from another Cool Mini or Not game: Super Dungeon Explore. My guess is that the same artist was used for both games.

Arcadia Quest, at it's heart, is a team based campaign game. It's not designed for stand alone play but is written assuming you are going to play through six separate games with the same players. In each campaign 2-4 player each control a guild of three characters. The players will take these guilds and compete in 6 different missions. Each missions has a different map set up and different quest objectives. Some of these quests are mission based and will have players fighting against the game. In addition to these Player vs. Environment or PvE quests there are always Player vs. Player or PvP quests that reward players for killing members of the other guilds. To win a mission a player needs to complete three of these quests, one of which has to be a PvE one. What is very interesting to note is that, unlike most games in this genre, there is no Dungeon Master or Keeper player.

March 14th - CG Realm Game Night featuring Star Realms

Saturday March 14th the CG Realm is hosting a free open game night. The event runs from 5pm until 11pm.

The CG Realm is located at 3147 Tecumseh Road East, right here in Windsor.

The CG Realm used to be focused on retro video games and collectible card games, but have recently expanded into carrying a lot more Board Games and RPGs. In addition to a growing collection of games they also have a great gaming area with lots of tables, lots of room and great lighting.

We will be featuring the awesome, very hot, Star Realms deck building game. Star Realms premiered at Origins last year and was created by one of the creators of Ascension and the winner of last years Magic The Gathering Pro Tour. It's one of the best and most popular deck builders out there.

As part of the event The CG Realm will be giving away a copy of this great game. So show up and learn to play and you could be bringing a copy home.

Check out the WGR of Star Realms here:
http://w-g-r.blogspot.ca/2014/07/the-best-of-origins-2014-star-realms.html

In addition to featuring Star Realms, there will be a selection of great games on hand that you can play and we encourage you to bring your own games out, whether an old favourite or something new you want to try.

If you don't have anything to bring, that's cool too. There's always lots of variety and people are always happy to teach you the games they have brought.