Welcome again to another fun fact filled extravaganza. We are here to bring you the latest drips and drabs of news. Of course by the time you are reading this, the Summer Sale for Codito has concluded, but never fear there are things of great excitement upon us. Since some of that news was already spoiled, this is going to be a shorter news post than you are used to. In light of a more extensive news coverage, please accept these two vignettes; one brought to you by USM and one brought to you by the Coding Monkeys.
Cities and Knights
Finally! After many months of waiting, USM has released to you their update for Settlers of Catan; introducing the Cities and Knights expansion. This has very quickly consumed vast amounts of my weekend. Cities and Knights is easily my favourite expansion of the Catan series; it adds a level of complexity to the game that challenges and expands your assumptions of strategy, while also still feeling much like the original game in question.
For what it’s worth, they’ve also expanded into a large number of scenarios that include just C&K rules, and some that include both C&K as well as Seafarers. These were never part of the original release of C&K but it does show you how development can expand and extend the ideas from a physical game outwardly.
If you are a fan of Catan, I recommend you try out this expansion. The expansion can be accessed through an in-game purchase once you have updated the game.
Lost Cities
Heavens help me, a Knizia product that I actually like. Last week saw the arrival of this little trinket into the market, and I was surprised. I think a large part of it is due to the polish that USM Coding Monkeys have brought to the product, but also the fact that it’s based off a game from earlier on Knizia’s development history. It is based on a reasonably solid gaming mechanic.
Despite my earlier protestations against this sort of thing, and even though it is an iPhone build (that you magnify 2x), I am going to make this my feature review for this week on Wednesday. Perhaps that is itself significant of USM’s talents that I overturn such reservations. Blood bath or accolade, I think I might be tipping my hand here.
Lost Cities – TheCodingMonkeys
Warhammer Trailer
We are also aware of this trailer, depicting a title for Spring 2013. It’s just a teaser at the moment:
Review By: Angelus Morningstar
Completed a Masters of Jurisprudence at University of Sydney. I am an activist, dramaturge, and instigator of strange mind experiments.
I’m a storyteller, and I mostly tell stories about people. These aren’t always stories you’ll find written down, they can be stories told over a coffee, told by firelight, told through art act and lifestyle. Of course, we all tell stories. We love our little fictions, lies and dreams – I just like to embellish a bit more than most.
My current project of substantial size is called Eidolon. It can be found here:
http://www.eidolon.me
Angelus: Edit required - Lost Cities iPhone app is from Coding Monkeys as you noted in your first paragraph. :)
Also, I think a game designer with games such as Tigris and Euphrates, Ra, Ingenious, Medici, Lost Cities / Keltis might deserve a little more of our attention and respect. :) I know that your objection is with his newer, simpler iphone only puzzle games (one might call it non-euro games) and especially with their implementation, but your statement taken out of context seems misleading. Also such games might appeal to someone who prefers simpler puzzle based games and maybe they require a different category on your site.
Can't wait for the Lost Cities game to be a universal app. I wish Coding Monkeys and Codito could make iOS ports for all the Euro games out there. :)
Any idea if there is a Powergrid iOS app on the horizon. In a Codito interview they were asked if they would be making Powergrid (Friedemann Friese), and they said that "someone else" had got the rights to make the iOS version of the game, but they did not say who.
@APML Thanks for the heads-up, fixed the error.
I'm asking....who are the beta testers of A.I. At USM ?? Seafarers scenario , 4 players, Yellow play a Monopoly card IN a crucial point of the match, it gains 18 cards after that, then it asks some exchanges....the other 2 cpu bots do FOUR exchanges with it.....GREAT!!! Then during the match it seems always a 3 bots Against human player..if you ask for an exchange it is impossibile to realize it, but the exchanges between bots is a matter of a daily.....and the robber is always my best beige our during the match of course...
Yeh, i gotta agree here. I've been playing C&K quite a few times now and have yet to lose a game against the AI.
Spectromancer was released as well... Expensive weekend ;)
USM definitely did NOT make Lost Cities. We can thank TheCodingMonkeys for that extremely polished app. :)
(I agree about Knizia, I like maybe 3 of his games, all of which are at least 10 years old. Lost Cities is one of them.)