TECHNOLOGIES IN BOARD GAMES Today, within the framework of this article, I would like to discuss the integration of technologies in board games, namely virtual and augmented reality, neural networks and artificial intelligence. The market of board games is quite conservative regarding the use of IT technologies. Yes, there have been talks about their use for a long time, and at exhibitions you can meet smart gaming tables and similar things, but there is still no full-scale use of information technology. So let's figure it out - what are the pros and cons of such integrations and do the world need new technologies so much? CONS Well, I would like to start with the disadvantages of using technology and, probably, the key one of them: Due to the use of technology, the user loses the feeling of playing a board game. Yes, such a problem can really occur, because when using new technologies, the user is forced to use some gadget. This distracts him from the game process, unfocusses his attention on the game table and, as a result, instead of a warm and pleasant evening, he is constantly stuck in the "number". As an excuse, I can say that such a problem can occur in the case of not quite correct game design. If the program or site is made in the same color design as the game (that is, completely omniscient), then the transition of the user will be perceived seamlessly and will not cause discomfort. The main thing here is not to overdo it, so that you don't get a video game at the end. A good example is the game from the company FFG called "The Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-earth". They managed to make the program in such a way that it integrates into the gameplay as succinctly as possible. Using technology makes the game more expensive And this is absolutely true, because now the publishing house must also pay for the work of developers, website support and bear other costs that are also included in the price. The..

 Today, many thousands of people play flash games dedicated to the development of personal virtual farms in various social Internet networks. They grow virtual crops, sell them, earning virtual money for the purchase of virtual equipment, seeds or elements of the exterior. Uwe Rosenberg's "Harvest Trilogy" (Agricola, Le Havre, At the Gates of Loyang) allows board game lovers to do almost the same thing. Agricola, as you know, was the #1 game in BoardGameGeek's overall tabletop rankings for a long time, until it lost the honorable "gold" to good old Puerto Rico, falling to second place. Le Havre ("Havre"), which came out a year later, firmly established itself in the top ten and is currently in 6th place in the overall standings. The third part of the trilogy - At the Gates of Loyang (hereinafter simply "Loyang") - in my opinion, is greatly underestimated and is now in 113th place. Despite the fact that these games are very different, they also have undeniable similarities, which we will talk about. According to Rosenberg himself, "Loyan" was created even before "Agricola" and, in fact, the first part of the trilogy took a lot from this prototype. Therefore, it makes sense to consider "Loyan" as a prequel rather than as the final part. Perhaps that is why Le Havre stands out somewhat among the games of the trilogy, even by the parameter that gave the trilogy its name. The mechanics of crop harvesting in Agricola and Loyana are identical: the player sows the field and removes a resource unit from the field each round. In Havre, everything is done more mechanistically and abstractly from reality. Everything is simple there: the player has at least one unit of wheat - get one more, has at least two cows - get one more. There is no need to sow fields and build pens, resources multiply by themselves. And what did you want? A game about a port city, not a farm. After all, many of the city dwellers do not even know about how the harvest actually turns out!..

 Today, a pilot game was played in "Roboral". Impressions from the game are the most positive. It turned out to be extremely fun to chase robots around a strange room, breaking down every minute and arriving at a completely different place than you planned! The essence of the game is simple. There are works, there is a map with numbered flags. The goal of the game is to go around all the flags on the map in order. Whoever is first, well done. The difficulty is that the track is covered with a network of conveyor belts, here and there lasers stick out from the walls, gears are spinning on the floor, etc. Players play the role of operator-programmers, and the success of the "racers" depends only on their ability to navigate the complex industrial environment. And also from the cards in the hand... This is where the main trick lies. A lot really depends on the program cards in the hand. There are no turns - you drive straight. Acceleration did not come - you spin in place. And there's nothing you can do about it... We've had moves several times, during which robots simply turned left and right. Obviously, a situation may also arise when the robot will be forced to go beyond the edge of the map simply because there are no cards other than "gas, Seryogo!" did not sleep in the hand. And still a lot of fun to play. The inscription on the box with the game says: "A frenzied race filled with computer-driven chaos!". And so it is, hell take it and eat it! But to make your way to the cherished flag through a crowd of scrap metal that has come to life, or to accurately shine a laser in the back of the enemy is terribly pleasant. What is characteristic, despite the conflict of the game, that it seems that there were no quarrels at the table even once! Everyone jostled, shot at each other, flew off the field, dumbfounded and cursed at bad cards. There was an atmosphere of silly fun over the table, like a game of water pistol war. The game was liked by..

 Town is a 2-4 player board game by Shun and Aya Taguchi. Since I've played Glenmore, one of my favorite mechanics has been tile activation. I just really like it. The game itself is played over four rounds. Everything is fine with the design, it is more than suitable. The picture on the box is good, the buildings are a bit cartoonish. The playing field is two-sided with three types of resources: stone, fish and wood - pre-printed on the map. The box is nice and small, with a great organizer that has enough room for more tiles or additions. The game is very simple. Each turn, players will either place a worker on a square on the map, activating the eight squares around it, or build a building. There are twelve buildings to choose from plus five cornfields. Every time you build a house, you get victory points. At the end of the round you need to feed your workers (at which point everyone sighed). This was already seen in Agricola or Tsolkin, but here feeding is not burdensome: only one fish or corn per worker, and this is easily achieved, especially if you are building a field. If you want, you can exchange three coins for a resource of your choice.  There are several interesting buildings available. Fields produce wheat and stand one tree, and also yield 3 WP. Other buildings give you software or money for resources. The Pawn allows you to trade two resources for two others, while the statue gives you 10 programs. The bar and the well just bring VP, and the bookstore and gold mine produce coins. There are four more special buildings: cathedral, residence, castle and watchtower, which give you VP at the end of the round/game depending on the surrounding tiles - for workers that activate buildings, constructed buildings and empty squares. Players need to think carefully about where to place their workers in order to get the resources needed to build the right buildings to get the bonuses. As the game progresses, the tile placement area..

 Dungeon Twister is a dueling game with a minimal impact of randomness. At the start, players place 8 characters and 6 objective cards each on the dungeon tiles, hidden from the enemy. The goal of the game is to be the first to score 5 victory points. Points are usually awarded for killing enemy characters and for getting your characters out of the dungeon — beyond the enemy's starting line. A character standing on an adjacent cell with a closed tile can spend an action point to turn it over. New characters and items are placed on the inverted tile. Having turned over a tile, the player decides how to place everything on it (except his items), which is a rather important advantage. Each tile has a cage with a mechanism. The staff on it can spend an action point to turn that tile 90 degrees in the direction indicated by the arrow, or a matching tile with the same number if it's already flipped.  In the database of both players, the same sets of characters and items, but they are very different and interesting in their own way. For example, a goblin is fast and weak. However, due to his weakness, you get extra software if you bring him out of the dungeon. There is also a wizard: frail, but able to use powerful magical items unavailable to other characters. You'd expect a game with secret placement of units, tons of fantasy characters and items, and rooms that rotate as the game progresses to be simple thematic filler. But actually Dungeon Twister has nothing to do with them. This game is closer to chess than Descent.  When characters meet in battle, players simultaneously play a card from their hand, the value of which is added to the character's base strength. The loser gets a wound. Injured characters become items that can be carried by their teammates, but are essentially useless cargo until they are healed. They cannot attack and have a base strength of 0, although they can defend. As for combat cards, you can play as many +0 cards..

 SolForge Fusion is a hybrid card game from Richard Garfield (Magic the Gathering, Solforge, etc.) and Justin Gary (Ascension). Half decks are generated by a special algorithm, each of them is unique. Kind of like Keyforge, yes. You choose two factions, mix them and form a deck. One of the unique features of SolForge is that when you draw a card, it automatically levels up. You start with weak cards and end with very strong ones. In addition, your leader Forged is also leveled. Each leader has three abilities that you can use during the game. ABOUT THE GAME Quick layout, simple rules. You start with 50 lives. There are three stacks of cards in front of you: Level 2 cards, Level 3 cards, and the starting deck. You and your opponent take turns making moves, taking control of the forge, which turns each turn, indicating who moves first that round. As a rule, you can play 2 cards at a time. The first to play the card that controls the forge, then the opponent, then again he and again the opponent. Cards are placed in one of five slots on the field. You can play both creatures and spells. When both players have finished their turn, a battle is played out in all slots at the same time. Buffs, debuffs and damage from phase to phase are preserved; they can be tracked with dice or tokens. 3 player moves - one cycle. At the end of the fourth cycle, the one with more life wins - unless, of course, you reduced the opponent's life to 0 even earlier.  SolForge is distributed in two ways. First, there is a starter set with 4 random decks (one for each faction), 2 paper play mats, 12 minion cards, 26 parameter modifier cards, and 2 paper Kowalski counters. RRC - $34.99. Second, there are boosters with 4 random decks and 4 bonus cards. RRC - $29.99. Let's analyze the pros and cons. Is the game worth the price? PROS OF THE GAME — The gameplay is well-thought-out and very fan-friendly. There is a lot of strategy here, but at the same time, the game is not so..

 "Yukon Airlines" is the first game that came out from under the wing of the author Al Leduc, as well as the first localization of RollinGames. That's why I think it's important to talk about this game in more detail! In the game, we will have to take on the role of a seaplane pilot who transports travelers to various points in the Yukon. In addition to this, you also need to improve your seaplane! At the end of the game, whoever earns the most money by transporting passengers wins! GAME PROCESS To understand the gameplay, I will briefly describe how your game will go. The game is divided into 6 rounds, where in each round we have to play 4 phases.  Phase 1: landing. In this phase, the player takes all passengers (cubes) of the same color from any cell, and each digital cell brings its own bonus.  Phase 2: Flight. At this stage, we use ticket cards to transport passengers to various points in the Yukon, but we need to take into account the amount of fuel, because it will not work to make too long flights without it. Also, after the trip, you can upgrade your gaming tablet by improving various indicators or unlocking new abilities to make it easier for you to transport passengers. ;)  Phase 3: Income. In this phase, we receive income from transportation, as well as completed missions.  Phase 4: Maintenance. This round is preparation for a new day. All players draw cards and roll dice. PERSONAL EXPERIENCES To be honest, a bit above I tried to talk about the game in a neutral way to be as impartial as possible, but now I want to say everything I think about it. The history of the appearance of the game is quite sad. In 2014, Al Leduc's father died and he decided to honor his memory with this game. The author transferred all his love for his father in one cardboard box. In addition to his father working as a pilot in Yukon Island, he also left many cute and very heartfelt moments in the game that remind him of his..

 I recently received a parcel. I wanted to buy "Neuroshima Hex!" for a long time, and it finally happened. But now it's not about this masterpiece of Polish play building. And about the fact that the same person also sold Empires of the Void, which I seem to have heard something about once. I thought about the purchase, decided to read... and found nothing. Almost. Next, BGG and the game site were studied, which turned out to be richer in information. As a result, the game has already been on the table twice, acquired a bunch of printed components and managed to like it, although it did not overshadow Eclipse. But about everything in order. I will admit right away that I played only Eclipse among 4X-cosmostrategies, which I will compare with it in the course of the story.  So what is Empires of the Void? 4X? So! However, the main reference of the author of the game, in my opinion, is an attempt to speed up the gameplay as much as possible by adding his own "spices" to the classic recipe. Let's start with something simple - there is practically no space exploration as such. The galaxy consists of 7 tiles, which are laid out openly right from the start of the game. At the same time, the central tile is always the same, the others are spread around randomly. There are only 7 tiles in the box, i.e. they participate in every game, except for the option for 2 players. At the same time, they are large and bilateral. The meaning of the latter escapes me, as both sides are completely identical. The 3 fattest planets are located in the central part of space, and 2 in the rest. Actually, the planets and options for interacting with them are the main feature of the game. Unlike "Eclipse", all the planets here are unique and have their own completely intelligent and different inhabitants. In addition, they are pathologically peaceful - they will not respond with fire even to repeated attempts to seize by force, they will easily obey after the first hit. They..

 Hi to all! Over the past few days, we've received a ton of great games. Therefore, it is with great pleasure that we want to inform you about fresh arrivals and product updates in our store. Get acquainted with the novelties and what's new in Lelekan-chiku. Hurry up, the games are great and will satisfy all tastes, be the first in time)..

 A game I've never heard of. Not that I care much about the games over the hill, just what reaches my ears through the hype of the saint. I have enough new products on the Russian market, I would have time to buy them, but trying new things in online areas is completely out of bounds for me. But thanks to friends, this also happens... So, the game is a variation of one against all. Only here everything is the opposite: one hero and several lords. The hero supposedly woke up somewhere, and the villains are trying to send the poor guy to the other world. According to reviews and rules, I got the impression that it is better to play dueling than we actually did. We played two games in a row, with a change of sides. Actually, let's take a closer look at them... HERO The owner places the hero figure on one tile of the field and chases away. You can look into the distance, or you can just take a step into the unknown. Playing for this side, you don't know the map and you don't even have an idea in which part you are. And to give you motivation - the game comes with missions that you need to find and do. The research element in all its glory. Moreover, the ruler breeds all kinds of animals that the hero meets on his way. If the animal jumped out unexpectedly or out of nowhere, then you lose self-control, and if you saw it from afar, then everything is normal. And now you are climbing through the tunnels, having absolutely no idea where you are going, fighting back every step. The game has a lot of tools that help you cope with hardships and wanderings. These are the mechanics of light, where you firmly fix the status of these rooms, plus the monsters there are weaker (after all, in the light it is easier to plant any chthon in the eye), and a clock with echo location, where the owner can answer what is the distance to the object, about which you ask Separately, I want to emphasize the mechanics of noise. If the owner moved a monster that the hero..