Tesla vs. Edison: Powering Up! Developer's Diary, Part 1

Howdy - I'm JR Honeycutt, the developer for Tesla vs. Edison: Powering Up!, the expansion to Tesla vs. Edison: War of Currents by Artana. I'm writing this developer's diary to talk about some of the things introduced in TvE: Powering Up! and how I got involved. This is part 1 - parts 2 and 3 will come later in the campaign. 

The expansion is currently on Kickstarter, and I'd love it if you took a moment to click here and check it out! 

In November of last year I was at Rob's place in Massachusetts finishing up dev work on SeaFall. Dirk Knemeyer and Marcus Muller, the folks who run Artana, stopped by for a playtest of one of the early iterations of Chronicles: Stone Age, which I tagged along for since I was already in the room. 

It was a blast, and I noticed right away that I had good chemistry with Dirk and Marcus. They asked me to be involved in demoing the game at BGG.Con, which turned into a lunch conversation with Dirk about developing the Tesla vs. Edison expansion. 

I had never played Tesla vs. Edison when Dirk first offered to let me work on it, and it took me a few weeks to get it the table enough times to start doing real development. One of the criticisms of the base game was that the rulebook was hard to understand, and sure enough the first few times I played I got a fair number of things wrong. That was an early hiccup that Dirk and I worked through by playing together on Tabletop Simulator - an awesome resource for long-distance testing. Huge thanks to Andrew Christopher Enriquez for building the module for us and keeping it updated through the process. 

DC Comics Deck Building Game: Heroes Unite, by Erik V Larsen

Here's another guest review from Raoul Mowatt, original Nerd Nighter! 

The first expansion to the DC Comics DC Deck-Building Game does a lot of what an expansion should do: bring a bunch of twists to the base game so that the experience of playing it is just familiar enough to remind you of what you loved about the original and just new enough so as to deepen the play experience.

If you’re unfamiliar with the original DC Comic Deck-Building Game, check out my review of it here.

Heroes Unite, despite its name, is not a cooperative game. It introduces seven new DC superheroes to play as: Shazam, Hawkman, Red Tornado, Black Canary, Batgirl, Nightwing and Booster Gold. (Some copies of the game include a promo Starfire.) For supervillains, it features such New 52 characters as K’El, Graves and Helspont. So some of the deeper cuts of the DC Universe. For some, playing less iconic characters might detract a little.

Though the characters are less famous than those in the original, they tend to be more powerful. I’ve found it’s easier to have broken turns and decks in Heroes United.

Under Two Reviews #11 Pandemic: In the Lab by Matt Leacock and Tom Lehmann

"Under Two Reviews" is a weekly video series in which we take a look at tabletop games and present them to our readers in under two minutes.

Pandemic: In the Lab from Z-Man games is an expansion. It doesn't include the H1N1 virus, but you can go ahead and say those are the purple cubes. What it does include is an imaginary centrifuge. Watch the video and learn all about curing disease with an imaginary centrifuge.
It'll be quick, I promise.
Enjoy the video after the jump!

The Resistance, by Don Eskridge

In a world ravaged by greed, devastated by natural disasters, and conquered by corporate monsters, a small team of brave revolutionaries dare to work against powerful, terrible forces. This incredible squad of women and men seek only one thing - retribution for the damage done by those who hold power. They are The Resistance and they work to make the world safe for you and I…

…but even in this elite group, treachery lurks within the ranks. Those they trust most to carry out these missions are destined to betray them at the critical moment, and yet they still believe victory – freedom! - is just a few short days away…

Guilds of Cadwallon by Gaëtan Beaujannot and Charles Chevallier

While I have always been a huge fan of expansive, complex games, sometimes you just have a little bit between family responsibilities.  Guilds of Cadwallon is one of those great games that can fill that gap with a group of friends.

The game presumes that you lead one of the numerous trade guilds in the city and are attempting to gather enough influence to become the next leader of the city.  You deploy your agents to the streets in an attempt to control the districts.

Welcome to the Multiverse: A Review of Sentinels of the Multiverse

I love cooperative games.  There, I said it, it's out in the world and there's no taking it back.  I love to work with a team and destroy the evil game!  Whether it's ridding the planet of diseases or clearing a dungeon of vermin, cooperative games got their hooks in me a long time ago and I just can't get enough of them.  

They provide a great entry point to the hobby, allowing non-gamers to contribute and not feel picked on by the experienced players.  They provide an island of collaboration and team building in a hostile ocean of "take that" and "screw your neighbor" games.  All of this brings us to today's review - a cooperative superhero experience - Sentinels of the Multiverse by Greater Than Games!

Legendary: A Marvel Deckbuilding Game, by Devin Low

Welcome Agent Phil Coulson to S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ.  Today we need you to bring a team of young agents to the field and have them assist you in the apprehension of some of the biggest villains in the world.  You will not be alone as you will be joined by up to 6 different super heroes in the field.  You will need to utilize each hero’s strengths and work with them to exploit the villain’s weaknesses.

Now that you have been briefed let us dive right in to the world of Marvel Legendary Deck Building Game by Upper Deck.

Preview: Sails of Glory ship packs

So a kickstarter reward landed on my porch recently.  My Marine level backing of Sails of Glory arrived, right ahead of the game landing in stores. This game takes the miniatures combat they refined with Wings of Glory and applies it to Napoleonic era ship combat.  I received four (currently Kickstarter only) ships, two frigates and two Ships of the Line.  I wanted to let people get a feel for the contents of these ship boxes here.  (Note, while I talk about four ships being received, at the time of writing this article I discovered one of my cats had hidden the second frigate.)

Each pack, for roughly sixteen US dollars, contains one ship, a base, a double sided ship card to go in the base, the control panel piece, and the maneuver deck.  Be gentle opening the boxes as the box does double as excellent storage for your ships.  These ships are currently listed as Kickstarter only... for now.  They may be for sale later but Ares Games has not yet decided.  To use the ships in full proper play, at least one player needs to have the Sails of Glory starter box. More images below the break...

Review: Sentinels of the Multiverse Enhanced Edition (plus Infernal Relics/Rook City box)

So I've known about Sentinels of the Multiverse for a long time.  I actually just gave away my first edition copy in the drawing at the most recent Nerd Night event.  This is because I just obtained for Christmas a copy of the Enhanced Edition, which had been out of print for some time.  On top of that, I was fortunate enough to get the new Rook City / Infernal Relics printing that came in the same sized box that the Enhanced Edition came in.  But what is this game, and why should you give it a try?