The Ares Project - In Stores Now Hot

Wow, I forgot all about this one...I think I thought Earth Reborn was this game or something.

You know what I love about the box cover? It looks just like something I might have picked up at Sword of the Phoenix circa 1991.

Zev always seemed to not have a copy around when I was looking to play it. As best as I can tell, this is kind of an RTS-ish game using only cards with a fairly hefty tech tree.

Cards represent buildings and techs. No real 'tech tree' per se - you just attach tech cards to buildings. Tokens are placed on building cards to represent actual units, and lots of dice get tossed when you decide to beat on each other.

I demo'ed it for Steve "Making Liquor Purchases While Playing" Avery at ConnCon, so maybe he'll chime in with impressions.

How the fuck did I miss out on this demo? Likely cause I was the one actually going to purchase said liquor... bummer.

Yeah it definitely has that early 90's FASA feel to it. In fact this looks like it would be a sourcebook joining all the old FASA worlds or something.

Yep. Looks totally Gamma World.

Wow, did I love Gamma World... I still have a binder full of campaign info for three different versions.

So no map? This is head-to-head combat?

S.

Funny, I thought the EXACT same thing.

I've only seen bits and pieces of the art so I can't really comment on that.

The gameplay however was really fun. It mostly boiled down to a dicefest with some tough choices.

You take turns placing development cards on your army trying to build a combination of units and resources. At some point you or or opponent launch an attack. Your opponent guesses which zone to defend (with penalties for guessing pporly) then you both reveal and convert all your resources.

The fun part is matching up the units and dicing combat. Each unit has target numbers for its effectiveness agaist ground/armored/flying/buildings. Finding a good target that is weak against your unit is tricky. You can arrange your units into more defensive or offensive patterns. Then carnage ensues.

Just for the record- Jeff's superior logic and cunning were no match for my sheer luck. I love you, dice.

Steve"Luck beats smarts"Avery

This looks like it could be super fun, or the kind of game that puts me to sleep. I hope it is fun...it is a Z-Man release after all and although I don't love all of his releases, Z-Man has had a peanut infestered floater release in quite a while.....well I can think of one...but perhaps that game just wasn't for me.

Let's hear it for Geoff Englestein- another F:ATtie with a published game!

He's sending me a review copy so it'll get the full treatment. Looks good.

Congrats Geoff on the release!

Wow, how many F:ATties is that who have successfully designed and released games now?

Off the top of my head there's Mr Bistro (Dungeon Run), David Ausloos (Panic Station), Frank Branham and his space game, this, and I must be missing a slew of others!

Geoff seems like an awesome guy from the podcasts, and I want to give this game a spin some time. Also getting the FASA 90s vibe from this. Listening to Geoff though, I doubt this is a simple 90s style game. Dude is smart, so there's probably quite a bit of depth here.

Uh, Scissors, hello- Milch und Gherkin? It's not published yet, but it will be the greatest Eurogame ever. Recently I've been retooling it to be a deckbuilding game. Essen '12 or bust.

Didn't Juniper design Cornhole 3? And I believe Ken B. and Black Barney did a book called A Gamut of Games to Play with Body Butter.

Hey Matt, I thnk that was about same time as your slot to teach Dune. You know, where you came late and were so drunk that you could barely speak let alone teach a game...you dolt.

That aside. Congrats to Mr.Englestein and his son who was co-designer. I hope the game is good.

Sounds pretty cool, very asymmetric.

Origins... I probably should have written my first review ever on this game... oh well.

I think you will enjoy this game. Interesting interplay between different sides... game play fairly unique and will take some getting used to.

Thanks all for the kind words. Hopefully they will continue after you play it :)

It's been pretty painful waiting for five months for this to show up in stores after getting those first production units in for Origins - I thought we sidestepped a big pile of doo-doo since we were finished prior to the Z-Man purchase, but we caught some collateral damage as production was held up, consolidated, orders shifted to the new computer systems, etc.

MB wrote: "Uh, Scissors, hello- Milch und Gherkin? It's not published yet, but it will be the greatest Eurogame ever."

Ah yes Milch und Gherkin.... so its not a 2-player game with the spouse a la Lost Cities and other Kosmos line stuff. Good to hear :0

Idea for future release(since its European) Milch und Gerkin: the Wild Strawberries expansion.

If I were you, Barnes, I'd just publish Milch, and release Gherkin as the first expansion.

If M&G comes with cute little barf bags, it's autobuy for me.

I was thinking about actually selling just the box and then each component as an individual expansion. It would be a new genre- a game building game.

This is like when Andy is slowly carving the chess set in The Shawshank Redemption, right?

"See? If I had a knight on the left side of my board, I would totally pwn you here."

I'm going to start selling box sleeves.

I was surprised to see it in Essen. As i didn't know exactly what to expect, I didn't buy it immediately and now wonder why.

Maybe disappointment for Battle Beyond Space not being ready (although announced) for Essen

Jur: You saw Milch und Gherkin in Essen? Then you must write a review forthwith.

What? Please tell me it wasn't at the Mayday Games booth!

Mike: By "booth" do you mean one of those suitcases with the collapsible legs? (They're ideal for quick getaways.)

I played the Milch & Gherkin prototype but i'm not allowed to tell you how awesome it is. They're thimking of a last minute retheme now that Kuznia Gier s set to release 'gherkins & cabbage' and flatlined games have announced 'fries & pickles'. Sometimes a theme hangs in the air and everybody goes for it.