What's New, Mind Games? 14/12/17

They say Christmas time is Magic. So it shouldn't come as any surprise that this week's new games list blasts off with Harry Potter : Hogwart's Battle! FINALLY getting it's release in Australia and just in time for the release of it's expansion, the Monster Box of Monsters!

Hogwart's Battle is a co-operative deck-building game (a la Marvel Legendary) that puts the entire Harry Potter series in one box. Play through the entire adventure from humble beginnings to climactic end. Add favourite characters and spells to your deck to fight off your enemies and their dark arts. Just like Harry Potter, you too could be screaming FUS-ROH-DAH! That's a totally legit Harry Potter spell as seen in the original book, “Harry Potter and the Really, Is He Doing A Skyrim Bit in 2017? Yes. Yes He Is.” It's a good one, maybe not as good as “Harry Potter and the Knee of Arrow's” but wow is that one played out.

Azul has arrived and sets to prove that Plan B Games is a company that's came out of the gate swinging. After giving us Century : Spice Road earlier this year, Azul tasks players with simple mechanisms and meaningful choices once more! Players merely draft a cluster of colour tiles and place them on their board, but too many equals negative points, and too few score no points at all, and blast it! Joe keeps taking all the red ones! I need those! Never going to get this damn wall done at this rate. A never-before-seen peek inside the true to life cutthroat world of nifty tiling.

Blast you Joe.

Speaking of Century, you may have heard of a little game called Splendor. Well, Majesty : For The Realm, from Splendor designer Marc Andre just landed, showcasing another great, simple game coupled with ho-hum themes. Travel back to the realm of medieval times and draft cards to make a village of brewers, witches and royalty. Pick your strategy, generate combos for points and deflect attacks with defenders. If you know someone that loves Splendor, this might be their next gaming gem. (see what I did there?)

Fantasy Flight is continuing to go hard with their Legend of the Five Rings acquisition. Off the back of their popular LCG game comes Battle of Rokugan, a heavier strategy game in a much smaller box than expected. So what is it? Well it's practically a scaled down Game of Thrones board game that accentuates bluffing, building, scoring objectives and a much MUCH shorter playtime. If you love GoT 2nd Ed, want a similar feeling game and to be able to finish it in one day then this one might be for you.

Any fan of Euro games will tell you that Keyflower is a great one, because if they say otherwise the gods of Euro games will slap them and deduct like... five points from their lives? Well now there's Keyper, and it seems almost fair to say this looks like the Feast for Odin of the Key series. Chock full of animals, tiles, fold-able player season boards, and Keyple of course, Keyper has it all! Will this unlock a place in your heart or be will it simply be another game on the Key-chain? Only one way to find out.

Last today, cool off in Otys, a game about diving for salvage in a water-worldy post-apocalyptic future. Okay, so when I say cool off that is precisely what you may need to do after because at it's heart Otys is a puzzle game of sending divers for parts in which timing is everything. Which diver to use and when, whom to upgrade, which level to set up in order to score points whilst triggering rewards for bigger payoffs. If you love to spin a number of plates at once, or you love a good mental challenge then you should dive right in! The water is dark and full of technologies.

That's it for this week folks. Is there more to come before Christmas is finally here?

We'll all find out soon enough. But if not, have a very gamy Christmas.

All games limited in availability.

Contact either our 145 or 244 Swanston St locations to find out availabilities over this busy season.