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1 year ago
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PROTECT YOUR DNA WITH QUANTUM TECHNOLOGY
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On February 17, 2025, Pearl Games gave word of its (second) first release: a reprinting of The Bloody Inn and The Bloody Inn: The Carnies expansion from designer Nicolas Robert, with these titles due out in English, French, and German in May 2025.
For an overview of The Bloody Inn, you can visit my SPIEL '15 Preview write-up from August 2015. Nice to see that I can re-use older work for upcoming games, just as Pearl Games is doing!
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Here's an overview of how to play, which starts with the best lead-in paragraph of all time:
For some unknown reason, we now find ourselves in a situation where we must quickly interpret a six-digit digital code. We will analyze this code by gathering various uncertain pieces of information. Its meaning will become clear in our hands, just as it always has.
In Digit Code, each player in a two-player game creates a secret six-digit code, with three numbers above three numbers, with a digit 0-9 appearing at most twice and not adjacent to one another. The letters A-Y are used to indicate number segments in a column or in a row, or within a particular digit. Players take turns asking each other questions of the following four types:
• How many spaces in row ? or column ? are filled?
• Is the number ? even or odd?
• Looking at the adjacent numbers ? and ??, which one is larger?
• Is the segment at row ? and column ?? filled?
Each player must ask all four question types before they can repeat a question type. On a turn, a player can give a six-digit number instead of a question. If they have guessed all six numbers correctly, they win; if not, the opponent says "Wrong", and the game continues. If a player guesses incorrectly twice, they lose.
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With three or more players, one player creates a six-digit number that the other players race to deduce first, with the players asking questions in turn. Once again, if a player guesses incorrectly twice, they are out of the game.
In Digit Code, each player in a two-player game creates a secret six-digit code, with three numbers above three numbers, with a digit 0-9 appearing at most twice and not adjacent to one another. The letters A-Y are used to indicate number segments in a column or in a row, or within a particular digit. Players take turns asking each other questions of the following four types:
• How many spaces in row ? or column ? are filled?
• Is the number ? even or odd?
• Looking at the adjacent numbers ? and ??, which one is larger?
• Is the segment at row ? and column ?? filled?
Each player must ask all four question types before they can repeat a question type. On a turn, a player can give a six-digit number instead of a question. If they have guessed all six numbers correctly, they win; if not, the opponent says "Wrong", and the game continues. If a player guesses incorrectly twice, they lose.
With three or more players, one player creates a six-digit number that the other players race to deduce first, with the players asking questions in turn. Once again, if a player guesses incorrectly twice, they are out of the game.
"For some unknown reason, we now find ourselves in a situation where we must..." — every game description should start this way from now on.
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In the geometrical racing game Billabong, players maneuver teams of kangaroos by jumping around a "billabong", that is, "a dead-end channel extending from the stream of a river", with this term being used in Australia. The board is filled with checkerboard-style squares around the billabong in the middle.
To start, everyone takes turns placing their five kangaroos on an empty square behind the stream that serves as the race's start — and finish — line. On your turn, you move one of your five kangaroos, usually moving it in a jump or series of jumps over the other kangaroos. Jumps can be long, but they must take a specific format; for example, if the kangaroo to be jumped over is five spaces away from your current location, your landing space must be five spaces beyond this kangaroo. You can jump over only one kangaroo at a time, but you can make multiple jumps on a turn as long as each jump is along a straight line (whether orthogonally or diagonally) and it does not pass over the billabong. Your other option — moving a kangaroo just one space — is usually used as a positioning tactic for a subsequent move.
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The first player to get all five kangaroos around the billabong and over the finish line wins.
To start, everyone takes turns placing their five kangaroos on an empty square behind the stream that serves as the race's start — and finish — line. On your turn, you move one of your five kangaroos, usually moving it in a jump or series of jumps over the other kangaroos. Jumps can be long, but they must take a specific format; for example, if the kangaroo to be jumped over is five spaces away from your current location, your landing space must be five spaces beyond this kangaroo. You can jump over only one kangaroo at a time, but you can make multiple jumps on a turn as long as each jump is along a straight line (whether orthogonally or diagonally) and it does not pass over the billabong. Your other option — moving a kangaroo just one space — is usually used as a positioning tactic for a subsequent move.
The first player to get all five kangaroos around the billabong and over the finish line wins.
Billabong is the rare perfect-information abstract strategy game that can be more fun with more players. After all, the more players at the table, the more kangaroos you have on the board, which gives you more jumping possibilities — sometimes too many jumping possibilities, at least for some. You can play more casually without thinking too much about future turns, or you can try to plan several moves ahead. The Playte edition is the first to include components for up to five players.
Billabong was on the 1994 Spiel des Jahres recommended list, along with 6 nimmt!, Take it Easy!, Was sticht?, Die Osterinsel (another perfect-information racing game, although an odder one), Kohle, Kie$ & Knete (a.k.a. I'm the Boss!), and the award-winning Manhattan. That's a fine year for gaming! And for pun¢tuat!on in g@me t¡tles!
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In 2012, CMON partnered with Soda Pop Miniatures to crowdfund Relic Knights: Darkspace Calamity and various expansions. The game was delivered to backers in mid-2014, at which time CMON said, "Effective immediately Soda Pop Miniatures and Ninja Division will be taking over all customer service for Relic Knights, including: damaged items, and missing items or orders." (My understanding is that Soda Pop Miniatures and Ninja Division had the same owners, but were separate companies, with SPM being the creator and owner of works that were then licensed to ND for further design and publishing.)
In 2017, Soda Pop Miniatures ran a Kickstarter for Relic Knights: 2nd Edition, collecting nearly US$400,000...then not delivering to backers or releasing the game at retail, with Ninja Division Publishing filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in Idaho in March 2024.
In late January 2025, U.S. publisher Ignition Core Games announced that it had picked up the Relic Knights license from Soda Pop Miniatures, and on March 27, 202 it will launch the line at the AdeptiCon convention in Wisconsin with the release of Relic Knights: Radiant vs Void Two Player Starter Set, after which it will be available on the Ignition Core website.
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Three individual miniatures — Combat Armor Cordelia, Alabaster Automata, and Infiltrator Candy and Cola — will be released at the same time, and the faction sets Shattered Sword, Black Diamond, and Cerci Speed Circuit will follow in 2025.
In a press release announcing this new edition, Ignition Core founder and owner Will Neill writes: "If you backed the Relic Knights 2.0 Kickstarter campaign, you can contact us directly via email to get steep discounts on anything in our product line that you pledged for during the campaign. It's not a perfect solution but we will provide you with your pledged items at the lowest prices possible."
Neill elaborates on this in a Facebook comment: "I can't afford to 'angel-invest' this Kickstarter, but I can offer you guys hefty discounts. Anything the backers buy on discount or at cost-of-goods-sold (essentially factory cost) related to the KS will not be subject to any licensor royalties."
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English (US) ·