I conveniently planned my annual hometown/family visit around PAX Unplugged ’22. It was my first time attending any of the PAX conventions, and I had a fantastic time. It was packed and bustling the entire time I was there, but it also felt very laid-back, which was quite pleasant. There was a lot of excitement in the air and joy in people’s eyes as they demoed games at exhibitor booths and sat down to play games with their friends and family. I had a few meetings, but I mainly roamed the main hall observing and playing games when I could.
Here are some new and upcoming releases I checked out at PAX Unplugged ’22 that might interest you:
The First Look area was always poppin’…
• An Age Contrived is a unique, engine-building Eurogame featuring resource programming and an innovative use of components, which is coming to Kickstarter in February 2023 from Chris Matthew and Bellows Intent.
An Age Contrived plays with 1-5 players, and each player represents a god in the Eldranic pantheon with unique powers that can be unlocked. The player boards are conveyor belts with action spaces that can be upgraded. On your turn, you can either shift your conveyor belt, or take as many actions as you’d like, based on the resources available on your conveyor belt board. In addition to action spaces being upgradeable, you can also acquire new conveyor belt pieces to improve your engine.
Prototype components
Throughout the game, you contribute resources to build monuments which are constructed with magnet segments. Different players can contribute to building each part of a monument to gain some benefits, but the player who completes it, also gets points at the end of the game.
The way your conveyor belt and resources work together is unique, and it’s cool that you can modify your conveyor belt boards throughout the game. The layered engine-building in An Age Contrived seemed very satisfying; it seems like there are a bunch of cool options for you to improve your engine in different ways. It also has a great table presence as the the different monuments are built up.
Conveyor belt player board (prototype components)
• Speaking of table presence, Hickory Dickory looks very cool. This is a January 2023 release from designer Sawyer West and Plaid Hat Games that was being shown off and demoed at PAX. In Hickory Dickory, 1-4 players compete as mice in a royal scavenger hunt inside a cuckoo clock. I didn’t get a chance to try it, but I had a few people who did demo it tell me they liked it a lot, so I’m looking forward to playing it soon.
• I sat down with designers Pete Ward and Duncan Molloy from Rebellion Unplugged to play Joyride: Survival of the Fastest, an exciting racing game for 2-4 players with a lot of fun player interaction akin to Mario Kart.
Prototype components
The game board is double-sided, and on each side, you can customize it to add more or fewer obstacles and items. While you’re racing through the track, you can pick up items such as missiles and oil slicks, which you can use against your opponents. You can also crash into your opponents’ cars or push them into walls to force them to change directions, damage their car, and slow them down.
My player board with locked dice (prototype components)
Each player also has their own dashboard where you’ll be able to shift up and down to increase or decrease the amount of dice you roll to move your car each turn. Each round, you are able to carry over a few of the die results from your previous turn, so it’s not fully random, which is great. There are also different special abilities you can trigger while you race around the board.
When I sat down to play Joyride, I assumed it would be just like other racing games, but it is actually super interesting and strategic the way you can interact with your opponents, and use items and abilities to deal with the challenges on the board. I found myself digging it more and more each turn, and we ended up having a blast playing together.
Joyride is coming to Kickstarter in Q3 2023 along with Joyride: Duel, a standalone two-player version with a smaller map. If you’re a fan of unique racing games, this is definitely one to check out.
Joyride: Duel board (prototype components)
• I’m so glad I was able to hang and play some games with my good friend Taylor Shuss, especially his impressive, new two-player, asymmetrical, tug-of-war, deck-building game Stonewall Uprising from Catastrophe Games, which is based on the fight for gay civil rights in the 1960s-80s.
After playtesting prototypes of Stonewall Uprising a couple of times in Tabletop Simulator in 2020, it was so exciting to finally play the beautiful physical version together in person. Not only is the gameplay tense and thought-provoking, but I love all of the historical people and events on the cards. Unfortunately, our game was cut short since we started playing twenty minutes before the convention closed. I already loved what I saw and cannot wait to get my own copy to explore it further.
Me and Taylor closing down the con
• At the KOSMOS booth, I got a sneak peek of their upcoming North American releases, starting with Inside Job, “an almost co-operative” trick-taking game for 3-5 players designed by Tanner Simmons.
Inside Job is mission-based similar to The Crew, but since one player is an insider secretly working against the agents (other players), it also has a social deduction element to it. I love that Cédrick Chaboussit and Studio H‘s Shamans brought social deduction and trick-taking together in 2021, but Inside Job seems unique as well since it’s mostly co-operative, has social deduction, and incorporates missions. Inside Job is due out in Q3 2023.
Reiner Knizia‘s press-your-luck, dice game High Score, which was originally released in 2021, will be available in North America in Q2 2023.
In Q2 2023, KOSMOS will also be releasing Dimension: The Brain Game To Go, a pocket-sized solo version Lauge Luchau‘s real-time puzzle hit Dimension.
• City of the Great Machine is a one-vs-many Victorian steampunk themed game for 1-4 players from German Tikhomirov and CrowD Games. It features asymmetric gameplay and unique victory conditions, and it can also be played co-operatively/solo with a game AI. I didn’t get to play it, but it sure looked and sounded neat.
• I got crushed and still enjoyed every minute playing Power Plants, an upcoming 2023 garden-themed, puzzly, area-control game for 1-5 players from Adam E. Daulton (Fall of the Mountain King) and Kids Table BG.
Each turn in Power Plants, you play one of your patch tiles into the central garden, then you can either activate the “plant” power of the tile you placed or activate the “grow” powers of each tile adjacent to the one you placed. Power Plants is very thinky, yet it plays quickly and has tough, interesting choices when it comes to placing tiles and deciding which tile(s) to activate.
While I was at the KTBG/Burnt Island Games booth, I also checked out the latest prototype of Endeavor: Deep Sea, which is a reimplementation of Endeavor: Age of Sail from designers Carl de Visser and Jarratt Gray, co-published by Burnt Island Games and Grand Gamers Guild. I got a teaser of Endeavor: Deep Sea at Gen Con 2022, but it was awesome to see and hear more about it as they approach their Q1 2023 Gamefound launch.
Prototype components
The deep sea exploration theme is strong and interwoven very well with the game mechanisms in Endeavor: Deep Sea. You’ll be diving to explore the deep sea, performing research, then using your research to publish papers and complete conservation projects. It has tracks and specialists that will be familiar to anyone who’s played Endeavor: Age of Sail, and you can even promote your specialists in this version. Endeavor: Deep Sea seems like it’ll be highly-replayable as well since it’s scenario-based and features a modular board set-up. I can’t wait to play it!
• I briefly hovered over a demo of The Wolves, which is a wolf-themed, action-selection, area-control game from designers Ashwin Kamath and Clarence Simpson and publisher Pandasaurus Games. In The Wolves, 2-5 players compete to build the largest, most dominant pack of wolves over the course of a moon cycle. It looked and sounded interesting, so I hope to play it sometime.
• At PAX Unplugged ’22, I chatted with designer and founder of Stone Blade Entertainment Justin Gary about Ascension Tactics Inferno, a new standalone version of Gary and Ryan Sutherland‘s miniatures deck-building game Ascension Tactics. Ascension Tactics Inferno will be launched for crowdfunding on Kickstarter in Q1 2023 and features a new map, miniatures that can be transformed, quests, a four-player co-op mode, and more. The scenario-based Inferno is fully compatible with the original Ascension Tactics and can be played as a campaign or standalone.
Prototype components
At StoneBlade’s booth, I also played a partial game of Richard Garfield and Justin Gary’s new two-player, strategic lane-based combat, hybrid deck game, SolForge Fusion, which I ended up buying and have been playing almost every day since.
In SolForge Fusion, there are four different factions, and each faction has a ton of different algorithmically generated decks which you can buy via booster kits. Every deck is unique similar to KeyForge. The hook is that you combine two different faction decks and play against an opponent who does the same, over up to four deck cycles where your deck levels up after you re-shuffle it. The object of the game is to reduce your opponent’s health to 0 before they do it to you.
On your turn, you play either a creature into one of five combat lanes or a spell card, then you put the next level of the card you played into your discard pile. After both players have played two cards, you resolve combat. After three turns like this, you shuffle your discard pile with the remaining five cards in your deck to form a new deck for the next deck cycle.
Each player also has a forgeborn/character with unique special abilities that unlock as you progress through deck cycles. Since you’re typically playing (and leveling up) only two out of five cards each turn, the hand management decisions are super juicy. Plus, it’s very satisfying as you progress through each deck cycle and your cards get increasingly powerful.
I never played the digital SolForge game which SolForge Fusion reimplements, nor have I played KeyForge. I have limited experience with Magic The Gathering, but I liked it when I played it. Regardless, SolForge Fusion has me hooked at the moment, and I’m looking forward to playing it more.
