#tiny epic kingdoms

[nova-zer0]

Tiny epic kingdoms stories:

My sis built a wall and made the undead ( @memnochslittlesecret ) pay for it.

[blankwallgames]

PnP Wednesday TEK and Scoville

Hey everyone!  I want to go ahead and apologize up front for the abridged write up for this PnP Wednesday.  Unfortunately with all the work we are doing to get the new store ready it just took out too much time, we are also working on a project for another designer that won’t be posted so the next few weeks will probably be non PnP posts.  That really got me thinking though about why I was unable to just get in the plays and really it came down to balancing a schedule.  I tend to do this in a very precarious fashion as I’m balancing being a college Instructor, a game designer, a freelance game developer (through PnP Wednesday), a store owner, and a mother of two toddlers.  It turns out that when you wear a lot of hats it doesn’t take much to upset the stack.  Rather than pass on this week we wanted to go ahead and bring you what we do have, and let me tell you it is a hot bowl of awesome.

  The first thing I would like to report is that this week we played Tiny Epic Kingdoms by Gamelyn Games.  To sum it up I can just say it rocks go back it and thank us later.  The game will make it no problem as it just recently passed the 100k mark, but honestly you should jump on it.  There is a ton of stuff being added for the stretch goals and it is sweet as just the 4 race PnP. 

  The things I would look at in the game are: 1) there needs to be some clear rules about how to handle war in territories occupied by an alliance or multiple units of the same faction, 2) the rules for questing need to be altered to make it not just a superior version of patrol.  Currently the only difference between the two is that patrol moves a unit within a region and quest moves a unit from one region to another.  We have a great idea for this that doesn’t really add noticeable complexity to the game but gives it a lot more variance in map set up.  Basically set the cards in a fixed grid pattern that would them dictate where you could quest to.  We will elaborate more next week in the full write up.  3) The elf racial power that makes magic less effective against them is cumbersome to implement since war is all hidden information, it should be changed up or just replaced with a different power, once again more on that in the full write up.  4)  We are split over if the point distribution is good the way it is or needs tweaking (hence the need for more plays) and this could ultimately come down to play style preference, but that will work itself out as we can observe more blind tests.

  To sum it up though the game is solid, the idea is sound, the mechanics work great, and it is a lot of fun with tons of crucial decision making at every step, including set up.  Go get the free PnP and try it if you don’t believe us.  (Get it anyway so you can play it while you wait for all the sweet new races to get to you in your backer reward version)

  The second thing is that the very first game we worked with, Scoville, has launched on Kickstarter.  It was picked up by Tasty Minstrel and I am quite happy with the changes they seem to have made and with the game they will be shipping.  You can go here to read our original review.  Remember that this was a prototype from a year ago so some things have changed, heck some things changed within a week of our review because Ed Marriott, the designer, is just that awesome and takes feedback amazingly well and is great at figuring out exactly how he should use the feedback given.

  Just so you know we have already backed both games and hope that you will decide to as well.  Both games also offer free PnP versions so you can try them out, and trust me you will like what you see.  Both games live up to the hype.

  As always thanks for reading and you can follow us on Twitter @blankwallgames or on the web at www.blankwallgames.com