Exploding Robot

A proud member of the UK Gaming Media Network. Also an Exploding Robot.

Playing With Myself - Blood of the Zombies

(Written by Aaron)

In order to celebrate Fighting Fantasy’s 30th anniversary gaming legend Ian Livingstone has spent over two years putting together a new book. Blood of the Zombies is a labour of love and a gift for the generation of children who devoured the game books during the 80s and early 90s. Ian has stated that he doesn’t expect to make much money off the book and he just seems to be genuinely glad to provide his now grown up 30 something fans with a new adventure.

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Aaron has bought himself some Deadlands dice (despite his constant piss taking of official dice sets when they appeared in the New Releases) so he’s taken an action shot of dice and character sheet. NERD.

Aaron has bought himself some Deadlands dice (despite his constant piss taking of official dice sets when they appeared in the New Releases) so he’s taken an action shot of dice and character sheet. NERD.

Have You Played… Battlestar Galactica?

Battlestar Galactica is, at its core, a cooperative game. You and your fellow players take to the table as crewmembers of the aforementioned spaceship, and the few hours you spend at the board chronicles your ongoing journey through space, and the crises that occur during it.

And boy, are there crises. A whole deck of them, in fact, and it’s these crisis cards that create the chewy centre that the crunchy, sugary, sci-fi-enhanced shell surrounds.

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What’s In The Shops This Week? (09/07/12)

(This post transmitted via the astral plane by Aaron)

MAGIC.

Hello, what’s out this week? I’m not sure as I’m a spirit now but I’m getting something MAGIC over the astral internet…

If the mortal form of Esdevium Games is still bound to your plane then you may find a release sheet MAGIC.

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What’s In The Shops This Week? (02/07/12)

(This post written by Aaron’s ghost)

Hello, sorry about last week. I went to London for an exciting interview and my reward was to catch a hell-spawned illness on the tube. Hooray.

But don’t worry, because I’m dead now and that leaves me more time to look at the new releases every week. Head over to Esdevium and look at this weeks’ release sheet.

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Review: Planetoid #1

Hmm.

I don’t envy the first issue of any series. In order to be considered properly successful they have to do a whole multitude of things: Introduce characters, set the story, have some form of closure as a self contained story, and (most importantly), make the reader want to come back for more.

Planetoid manages all of these, but perhaps not quite in the right order.

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What kind of Board Gamer are you?

(Written by Abi)

I’ve asked myself this question over and over. Fumbled with board games whose names I’ve forgotten. Found myself on specialist websites ogling their wares. I’ve consulted experts, witch doctors, and cornered close friends for a session of intimate over-sharing in an effort to discover the answer. Yet it still seems to elude me.

Well, it did – I think. I had a bit of an epiphany, if you can call a self-indulgent rant such a thing. This moment happened to me when fellow ‘bot Chris and I were leaving the UK Games Expo in Birmingham. We were laden down with games and expansion packs, trekking through the heat towards the car, which unbeknownst to either of us would soon belch horrifyingly hot air at us as we attempted to enter it. We were still reeling from the Expo, high on stacks of cards and dizzy from too many multi-coloured dice, our minds ruffled with a thousand new rules applied to a hundred new worlds. The sweet nectar of new board games was simply dripping from our skin. And suddenly I knew.

Suddenly, I just knew what board games, upon being offered to me, I would tell to fuck off. Such moments of clarity, of epiphany, rarely occur and thus Chris spent the entirety of our arduous journey back to the car having his ear bent about which types of board games made me want to rend the flesh from my own face and which made me do one of my many little happy dances.

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Have You Played… Quarriors?

Quarriors.

Quarriors. 

Quirriors.

Yeah. Quarriors is, to put it bluntly… A thing.

Stay with me.

It’s a sort of competitive deck-building strategy and economy management game, except you don’t build a deck and there’s hardly any economy and there’s an awful lot of luck involved in winning. So it isn’t that at all.

So. Quarriors is a thing, because it’s definitely something, but it isn’t any of the things that it looks like it is. 

We’re good at this, aren’t we?

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