• In June 2023, Madrid-based publisher Salt & Pepper Games launched a crowdfunding campaign for Witchcraft! on Gamefound. Witchcraft! is an upcoming solitaire game from designers David Thompson, Roger Tankersley, and Trevor Benjamin, where you lead a coven of witches, and must prove their innocence, and defend a village from the supernatural. Witchcraft! was created by the talented design team behind 2022’s solitaire hit Resist!, features more excellent artwork from Albert Monteys, and sounds intriguing based on the theme and the publisher’s description below.
Witchcraft! is a fast-playing, card-driven solitaire game where you lead a coven of witches in a fantasy world where magic is real–and so are the monsters. Building on the hidden / revealed mechanism of Resist! you will decide when to use magic to defeat the challenges you face–revealing yourself to your fellow villagers and being imprisoned for witchcraft. As you complete missions and defeat enemies you will try to prove to the villagers that magic is not evil, and convince a jury that you are protecting the village. Three jurors will decide your fate and their conviction is strong. Can you persuade them? Or will evil overcome you and the village?
At the beginning of the game you assemble a coven of witches from families of women represented by a deck of cards. Selecting multiple witches from a family makes that family more powerful. Each family is focused on different tasks in the game–revealing challenges, increasing attack power, uncovering the conviction of the jurors, or capturing familiars to help you in your fight. The fight is real and each of the eight jurors face a different villain. Is it the Headless Horseman, Baba Yaga, the Scarecrow, or some other fiend? On setup you choose three jurors, their missions, and their unique challenges–providing 56 possible combinations with great variety in the types of challenges and monsters you will face. If you fail two missions or lose five villagers, you lose the game. Even if you defeat the missions you still face the trial, and you are only sure of your fate when you reveal the conviction of the jurors and see if you have done enough to persuade them.
• Meanwhile, Van Ryder Games teased us on Twitter about the upcoming Kickstarter campaign for Final Girl Series 3, which will add more content to the popular horror movie solitaire game Final Girl, from designers A. J. Porfirio and Evan Derrick. I’ve only dabbled in Porfirio’s Hostage Negotiator, which I enjoy, but I hear nothing but great things about Final Girl. Perhaps it’s time I finally give it a try.
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• For something a bit heavier on the solitaire front, GMT Games announced Fields of Fire III: The Parachute Regiment, a new standalone Fields of Fire game from designer Colin Parsons, which is a new P500 addition in June 2023. I’m very excited about this even though I’ve barely scratched the surface playing the original Fields of Fire, which was created by Ben Hull. It’s great to see this excellent card-based solitaire series evolve.
In Fields of Fire III: The Parachute Regiment, you command the 2nd Battalion of The Parachute Regiment in Arnhem, the Falklands, and Afghanistan as described in the publisher’s overview below:
Fields of Fire Volume III sees the long awaited introduction of the British to Ben Hull’s masterpiece of tactical infantry command. From the burning streets of Arnhem to war-torn Helmand Province, Afghanistan, in this new, stand-alone volume from the team behind Fields of Fire Deluxe Edition, we follow the 2nd Battalion of The Parachute Regiment, commonly known as “2 PARA,” across over 60 years of military history.
P500 cover image
As Britain’s elite Airborne Infantry, the Parachute Regiment are used as spearhead troops and are often inserted behind enemy lines, by parachute or in modern times by helicopter. Lightly equipped due to the nature of their insertion, they need all their training, resilience, and fighting spirit to survive until other units can fight their way to them.
About The System
Ben Hull’s Fields of Fire series is a solitaire game system that is designed to depict command & control of a rifle company in various conflicts of the 20th and 21st century.
The game is card based and utilizes two decks to play. The Action Deck, which replaces dice and many of the tables found in other tactical games, is used to control combat, orders, and various activity attempts. The Terrain Deck is based on a specific region and is used to build a map for the various missions your company must perform.
The units of the company are counters representing headquarters elements, sections, weapons teams, forward observers, individual vehicles, or aircraft. Missions can be played as stand-alone games or strung together into a campaign in which the player must manage experience and replacements. A single mission can be played in about 2-3 hours.
Highlights – What’s New in Volume III
• When the company radios fail, make do with more uniquely British options like bugles and hunting horns.
• Use unique British weaponry such as PIAT anti-tank weapons during WWII and vehicles like Scorpions and WMIK in the more modern theatres of the Falklands and Afghanistan.
• Urban Defensive missions! Fight amongst rubble and fires, and try to hold on to your pocket by whatever means necessary as the enemy attacks utilizing a completely new urban offensive enemy hierarchy chart.
• Experience the constraints of modern day combat as you try to determine whether groups of people and incoming vehicles are hostile or merely civilians going about their lives.
• Collapsing buildings, an enemy helicopter attack, special forces, mine-sweeping duties, night assaults, and much, much more!
