Brewin' USA & Adam's Apple Games

We got another new game over at House DSG. Once again, this little beauty was backed on Kickstarter. A few delays, but at only 2.5 months late that's not bad for a first time publisher. Some backers were worried by the lack of communication, but the creator updated us when he had news and kept quiet when he didn't so I didn't mind too much. He also promoted the hell out of his game during production and will be hosting a #brewmaster contest soon for players (we will be partaking!).

If you haven't realized by now, one of us, and I'm not saying who >.>  <.<, but one of us may have a small Kickstarter addiction. That same one of us might be slightly obsessed with board game youtube channels and particularly board game youtube series. So naturally, that person had to watch season 2 of Tabletop Deathmatch (which, if you haven't been following along, is a contest Cards Against Humanity hosts to find a new game they will publish). The second season seemed to be a bit tougher for competitors, as this time only 8 games were presented and all got professional quality prototypes. Brewin' USA did not win, but as top 8 out of 300 games you know it's got potential. This makes our 3rd purchase from games featured by CAH.

In Brewin' USA, players are startup breweries competing to be the first to launch 5 beers at the inception of the craft brew revolution.This is done by vying for area control. Each area also has specific beer preferences, so players will develop strategies to determine which beer to launch in which city. But be careful! You may not be the only one launching your beer in a city, and you will have to compete with all other brewers in a brew fest to determine who wins the market region.

Season 2 featured play testing as part of the contest. The original design for Brewin' USA got a lot good reviews. It was viewed as a good entry level euro, and a few judges thought it was similar to Ticket to Ride. Everyone seemed to find it easy to learn and play, and really enjoyed the amount of player interaction. The bottle caps were also generally liked and really played to the theme. Speaking of which, the theme is very strong, but most felt it was an accessible themes vs niche (although this was a debated issue), and very marketable. Most criticisms existed due to the lack of play testing at the time. Judges felt the additives seemed a little random (all incentive, no consequence...the reality that some of those additives would create gross beers). There was also the potential to get stuck on your turn because everyone needs basically the same cards, versus different cards (like in Ticket to Ride). Other than that, there were just some nit picks about balancing the card values, working with the hand size and board size, and cleaning up some mechanics (at that point it was more tactical than strategic).

Having done more play testing and tweaking, Brewin' USA moved to Kickstarter. They dropped the hidden objectives, made the map out of interchangeable tiles, and all around polished everything up. It got almost double it's goal, and the designer was able to get a to of craft breweries to join up-you will see their beers featured on the cards. And now that it is in my hands, I will say the box is stunning! Admittedly, not at all what I was expecting in terms of shape. It looks like a wine (or large beer) bottle box, and the bottom slides out sideways (there's a little hole to poke it out with). The components are also great. The cards are a nice linen texture,and the cardboard tiles are nice and sturdy. The colors look great without being blinding. And finally, it comes with real bottle caps for you to play with (currency if you will, with 5 sets of colored caps for each player). Now I'm not sure if future runs will include these or not, as the game was a hefty $45 and the publisher may want to drop price for future runs and include cardboard, wood, or plastic tokens instead. This is just my speculation though, so we shall see.

So, have we played this one yet? No. It just arrived in the mail yesterday, and it was all I could do to behave and not rip everything open at work. Hopefully soon--maybe this weekend. All the bottle caps (100+) came in individual bags, so it's going to take me a bit to get everything unwrapped ;)


Links to check out:
CAH Tabletop Deathmatch (season 2)
Ticket to Ride on BGG
Brewin' USA on BGG
Brewin' USA webpage
Adam's Apple Games

The Shadow Over Westminster & CounterClockwork Games

It's been a long road, but CounterClockwork Games finally got Shadow Over Westminster out! Our copy arrived in the mail today, so if you also backed this and were wondering when it was going to arrive (IF it was going to arrive), you can rest assured your copy is on its way or may already be waiting at your door.

For those of you unfamiliar with the game, it was a finalist on Cards Against Humanity's first Tabletop Deathmatch (which is a contest the company has hosted twice  to find new games by unknown designers and help them get publish; we also have Penny Press, a winner from the first competition, and you can expect to hear more about that game in the future). Up and coming game designer Robert Huss submitted his game and made it to the final 16. At GenCon 2013 his game was tested and analyzed by the CAH team and their friends, all experienced in different aspects of the gaming and publishing industries. While not publishing ready, Robert received some great critiques and exposure so he set out via Kickstarter in the footsteps of so many others, and with the aid of game publisher Zenion he raised the funds he needed and was on his way! Or was he?

SOW was due to ship in February 2015, but many publishers using Kickstarter are just starting out so delays aren't surprising. However Zenion went defunct, and there was dead air for a long time with the few updates posted only referring to convention demos. With Zenion being defunct, and speculation going around about bankruptcy or other monetary loss, backers started getting nervous. It took Robert a while, but he made good. Due to the Kickstarter being under Zenion's account, he did not have access to the original page for a while. However, he posted in the comments section, and eventually got control of the page. It was still listed under Zenion, but Robert was able to make updates and gain access to the original survey responses. And of course, there were more publishing delays. On the bright side everything is looking great, and he had all that extra time to build up hype and have his game played at conventions all over. A little over 10 months late, but that is the risk of backing a Kickstarter,

So, what exactly is this game? It is a cooperative deck builder where players act as members of an agency in London whose job is to save the world from an impending cataclysm. (the game provides 15 different ones, offering a lot of replayability). Heavy flavor text creates a wonderful environment and really sets the mood for this horror adventure.

Have we played it yet? No, but we will. There may or may not be another write-up about it, but once we get the rules down you can expect to see a play make its way onto our channel.


Links to check out:
CAH Tabletop Deathmatch (season 1)
Shadow Over Westminster on BGG
CounterClockwork Games