I admit I haven't been as faithful about posting as I thought I would be. This may be obvious to you, but I get easily distracted. As I mentioned in the last post, I have a few games and I like to play them. Luckily, my family enjoys them as well. This means that a lot of the spare time I do have is filled with games. I am going to continue with my thoughts on game publishers and am going to add my thoughts on a few more. Here goes.
Lets start with Gale Force 9 Games. This company tends toward cinematic games (Firefly and Star Trek Ascendancy are the ones I am specifically thinking of). If you like games that capture the feel of whatever universe, they do really well at it. Unfortunately, this also means the games can be bears to play. Take Firefly the board game for example. The game does a great job of reminding you of the Firefly universe. The game really immerses you. Unfortunately this also means that you end up spending a lot of time moving and shopping. This makes the game take longer than it needs to be. Add in the random events while moving and it compounds. Don't get me wrong, if you love the IP then you'll probably like the game - as long as you don't have ADHD.
Next is Restoration games. This company takes games that have been out of print but were popular and brings them into the modern age (Stop Thief, Dark Tower, Thunder Road, Downforce.) Their modern implementations tend toward either streamlining or app integration. Take Stop Thief for example. The original included a battery operated mini component that controlled the thief. It gave you sound based clues on how the thief moved. You had to deduce where the thief was. Although it had a lot of games in it, it really wasn't randomized since it had to know where the thief was in relation to the board. This means that eventually, you ended up playing the same game again. The new version uses an app and modern computing to make the game pretty much endlessly replayable. Not all their games use apps, but if the game relied on a lot of random decks or computing systems with a lot of upkeep, they tend to use an app to streamline the game to make the game play more enjoyable.
Finally today, let me talk about Orange Nebula. This company makes gorgeous immersive games such as Vindication and Unsettled. The games are wonderfully produced with well thought out game play. The issue tends to be that the games are not exactly what they appear. Vindication for instance looks like it is an area control adventure game when in reality it is a Euro game with fancy clothes. This doesn't mean it isn't good, in fact it's great, it just isn't what it appears to be at first blush. Although their appearance my not match their game play, they are beautiful, well produced and smooth playing, making for an overall enjoyable experience.
Thank you for reading.
