In the recent Nintendo Direct Nintendo announced some pretty cool additions coming the the Switch catalog in the next few months.
But one stood out to me more than the others I was a big fan of the GameBoy game Donkey Kong.
I had been known to enjoy a game or two of the original arcade Donkey Kong back in the day. Obviously I was not even in the same universe as those giants depicted in the documentary King of Kong when it came to playing the game.
Heck a lot of the time my access to a wide variety of arcade machines of any kind was when the fair came to town or a visit to the coast. Such was life in a fenland market town in the late seventies and early eighties.
So you can imagine my surprise and delight when playing Donkey Kong on the GameBoy when instead of repeating the same four levels once the fourth and “final” level had been completed defeating Donkey Kong and rescuing Pauline. There was a new level to complete.
The original Donkey Kong had been turned into a platform puzzler!
The game offered 97 additional levels to the original 4.
How far did I get back in the day when I was playing it? I didn’t complete it for sure but I got pretty far.
Now for some reason I missed the actual Mario vs Donkey Kong and its sequels that were released on the GBA and DS. I think it was parenting/married life at the time distracting me, and maybe a Pokemon addiction.
So to get a second chance to play Mario vs Donkey Kong on the Switch next year is quite exciting.
As far as I can tell looking into the game that my assumptions that this is a more colourful (ie not black and white) version of Donkey Kong with some new game mechanics might be correct.
The game introduced the Mario minis a kind of Lemmings influence on some levels. Which in the sequels became the focus of the game.
Nintendo and the developers they have entrusted with doing the remasters have been a fantastic job. I wish some others would take a leaf out of their book. And this is why I’m excited for this release. Nintendo have earned my trust and I know this release will be faithful to the original.
Other titles announced that I’m excited about, the original first three Tomb-raider games, Paper Mario remastered, Contra: Operation Galuga, and Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD. And I’m sure I’ll talk more about them in the future. Some I’m aware of and have never played!
It’s hard to remember when I backed something on Kickstarter without logging in and checking.
But I think it was the later half of last year that I backed the Kickstarter for Terraforming Mars the Dice Game.
I’d been tempted by the lure of a lighter version of the game that used dice. Who doesn’t love a game with dice? The Rahdo thoughts on it sold the game to me. My previous experiences with dice versions of board games (such as Roll for the Galaxy, Biblios the Dice Game, and Nations the Dice Game to name a handful in my collection) had also been good. Even when I hadn’t played the original version.
But that’s not the case when it comes to Terraforming Mars the Dice Game. I had at least played the original once before when it first came out.
If my memory isn’t playing tricks on me Chris, Jonathan, and myself played Chris’s copy during the initial hype that surrounded the game. And boy was it one of the hot games when it was released along side Great Western Trails. Everyone was talking about it. Supply was not able to keep up with demand for sure.
I did enjoy it. But not enough to add it to my collection. It was a fun engine builder that rewarded multiple plays, and knowing what the cards were. A noob playing for the first time against a more experienced player would definitely be thrashed.
I definitely hadn’t played any of the numerous expansions for the game. And despite owning the iOS app version of the game I’ve never actually got round to playing that either.
So why did I back the dice version again?
I wanted that lighter more accessible Terraforming Mars experience. Something that I was more likely to get to the table.
I should be better at keeping my pulse on what each of the Kickstarter projects I’ve backed are doing. I knew that Terraforming Mars the Dice Game was shipping in certain areas. But hadn’t twigged that it had started being sent out in the UK and EU. I was a week late to the party on that fact.
So at the start of the week I was hoping there might be a chance the game might be in my grubby mitts by Friday. But as the days passed it was looking more and more unlikely. Until I got the notice DPD were picking up from the shipping company yesterday. Even with that news I wasn’t convinced it’d be with me in time. I was thinking more realistically I’d get the game Saturday.
However I was very pleasantly surprised to get the DPD message to say the game would be delivered this morning. Phew the game session plan had been saved.
As the comment on the Instagram post shows I was very pleasantly surprised when I opened the packaging. Inside was not only the Kickstarter edition of the game (it has the promo cards) but also card sleeves and the playmat.
I really don’t remember adding them in the pledge manager. But I must have.
Naturally before leaving home to play the game I did sleeve all the cards. I had them.
This evening Ben, Harrison, Dave, and myself travelled across space to transform the red planet.
Before the others arrived I did set things up ready to teach and play. So I shuffled the decks, drew the randomly chosen awards and milestones from a dice bag, drew eight bonus cards, and obviously chose a side of the playmat to use.
Despite none of us having played the game before we had the corporate era expansion added in plus the promo cards. Or all in as it’s known.
I had the Interplanetary Cinematics as my corporation.
Watch as I live blog this post as WordPress lost everything I wrote below this point, and I now get the joy of rewriting it.
The bgstat chose me as the first player which meant Dave got an extra resource at my expense.
Although my corporation gave me lots of wild resources to start with, and an on going cost reduction (helps if you remember that part). When it came to doing a production action it was a lot weaker than the other corporations.
My actual production engine to get me dice and the necessary resources to play cards was pretty weak compared to the others. It only ever got me three dice.
My main incentive for doing the production action was to reset my cards with actions on, and refilling my hand. Almost the opposite to the others who were getting many more dice than me when doing production.
I was kinda forced into exploring other ways of getting more dice such as action cards or even instants.
Over three fifths of my points came from having focused on end game scoring. I won two of the three awards, got two of the three milestones. Plus the majority of the instants I played also gave me points. I really did out perform the others in these areas.
One reason for this I think was because they were resource aka dice rich and focused less on these areas.
It might also have helped that one milestone fitted in with the way I was building an end game points engine! And the second milestone was one of opportunity that I could grab it before the others got close.
I loved the bonus cards. Like Scythe and it’s factory cards the choice which to go with is hard because they are all good and it’s hard to decide.
Being able to cycle cards quickly looking for ones you want is a great mechanic.
This is a very easy game to teach. Which is what you want for this weight of game. The iconography is also quick to pick up. Not overly overwhelming like say Guilds of London.
I think there is a fair bit of variety in set up, corporations, bonuses etc that replay ability will be pretty good.
For me the evening was a double win. A victory at the table and time with my friends.
Oh and really happy I backed this. This is TM for me.
I had an interview this morning at my previous place of employment. It went well because I left with a job offer. Though a two month notice period did put that at risk.
But an offer to start immediately by working weekends helped swing things back in my favour.
Which basically means until my notice period is up I’m working two jobs!
The implication gaming wise means during the next two months I’m not going to be able to make club nights or weekend gaming sessions. A necessary sacrifice.
However it does make tomorrow nights gaming session extra special.
Three back to back life events updates in a row and no gaming stuff. I know not good enough.
If life hadn’t decided claiming Ebony wasn’t enough of kick in the emotional nads. It decided physically it needed to torment me as well.
Just after midnight last night a kidney stone decided it no longer wanted to be cooped up inside but wanted to see the big wide world instead.
I have a high pain tolerance but when this happens it really does test my limits. I think the previous time this happened I described how intense the pain was. Breaking out in sweats, throwing up just from the pain.
Early on while still able to I got mum to take Nico and Loki. Probably a good idea. Fur ball company often helps when one of them leaves us. It’s their presence, being happy just to be curled up next to you. Not demanding anything. Listening, boy are they good listeners. All stuff you need at moments like this.
I was then lying with a bowl in the conservatory trying to survive the pain. Why there? It was cool, and when you are sweating so much from the pain it helps believe me. Plus it was also next to a toilet. Which I would need.
What helped get me through was the hope that this would be all wrapped up so I could make the interview I had at 8:30am.
As the clock approached 8am the pain still there I needed to contact the interview and work.
Although out of the kidney the stones were now in my bowel causing just as much pain until they were passed.
I was in no position to make those calls myself. Just attempting was making me do multi coloured yawns or more accurately what little was left in my stomach.
It would need mum to make the calls for me.
Unable to give mum the numbers to call, she would need Google. The flaw in the pain induced plan. Mum doesn’t know how to use Google!
So between expelling bile I told her to get my brother to do it.
I was unable to correct mum when she told my brother it was a chest pain. A mistake that would worry my friends at work.
Once those stones had finally passed out of the body I was right as rain. Feeling like I’d been sparing with Tyson and getting a few kidney punches, and very very drained.
I was then able to contact my friend let her know how I was. That’s when I found out about my mums lack of biology knowledge. I’m glad she didn’t call an ambulance, which she was close to doing.
As I was writing this tale of suffering I’ve got lucky and another shot at the interview. That’s a big big relief.
I’m now recovering and recharging from that marathon pain session.
Ebony and her brother Toby were trouble egging each other on all the time.
But they were beautiful souls.
Ebony always wanted attention and was my special girl.
The last few weeks Ebony, like Strider decided sleeping downstairs was better than going upstairs at night. Meaning Mum slept downstairs as well. Yes Mum had a proper bed to sleep on.
Ebony hadn’t been her usual self with food the last few days either becoming very fussy.
The signs has been there that soon we would no longer be sharing the same path.
However even when you know the inevitable is coming, it doesn’t make it any easier.
We knew she wouldn’t make it through the night. So before I left mum after tea I gave Ebony a hug, and thanked her, told her I loved her and asked her to say hi to the others for me.
Today has always been a tough day for me. Even after 35 years the pain of my Dad’s death has not eased.
The proverb “time heals all wounds” on this anniversary seems so hollow.
Dad’s passing has always meant September has never been a month where emotional I’m in a good spot.
But the pain is now doubled with Nan leaving us just eight days later.
It truly feels like September is the month my heart and soul shows how broken they are.
The only signs to the outside world is I may become more reclusive and avoid the outside world. Which might mean I cancel plans at the last minute and piss off friends. But that is unavoidable. It’s hard to give the true reason. I’m one of those irrational folks that will gladly help anyone in anyway I can, but not be able to ask for help when I need it. Sometimes that mask slips. I’m sure I’m not as good at hiding it as I think.
I miss them both dearly.
But I remember the good times and their love. May they both be in peace wherever they are.
I do like deck construction. It’s a side of ccgs like MtG that I get immense enjoyment from.
However I have over the more recent months come to appreciate more the other aspects of game formats offered by this type of game. Such as preconstructed decks and draft.
I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy these differing ways to participate in a game before. It’s just my preference was for playing with decks I’d constructed.
But as I took an extended break away from the competitive side and the constant very expensive arms race. I wanted to return to playing these types of game casually with my friends and without the expense.
As I’ve documented in previous posts I’ve found official MtG precons for Standard/Pioneer/Commander/Game Night Kits and the Card Kingdom Battle Decks great as casual pick up and play sessions with friends.
Now I’m trying to bring that casual side to Dice Masters. Particularly using cards from sets that I already own.
Sadly in the Dice Masters world there are no precon products apart from starter/learning sets that do not give the full blown Dice Masters experience. But are great for teaching the core ebb and flow of the game.
Which is how I fell into and loving the draft format with the draft packs.
But at £10 a pack purchasing two packs a time can soon mount up. I needed a way to get more value out of any draft packs purchased, and my dated collection.
Luckily the MtG community had an answer. The cube. I’ve already written about constructing a cube for Dice Masters.
So at the moment draft whether using official packs or a cube is my preferred way to play Dice Masters with friends.
Which brings me after that rather long introduction and justification to the fact that once again this Tuesday Dave and I played Dice Masters by drafting the two Dark Phoenix Saga draft packs.
I’m enjoying our two player draft experience but in an ideal world we’d have three or four drafting and playing their teams against each other.
The first two games I was royally beaten by Dave. Game one saw me purchase two early explosion basic action dice. They helped whittle Dave’s life down but I wasn’t able to capitalise on it.
Game two I just wasn’t able to get anything going to container his bloody doubled up attacks or overcrush.
Our third and final game of the evening saw me get a consolatory victory so it wasn’t a complete white wash. My key to victory in this game was my Mystique Freedom Force comboing with Madelyne Pryor Sisterhood.
Basically I kept throwing Mystique in to chump block and pump up the loyalty counters on Madelyne Pryor, and when a suitable character die was in the used area move it to the prep area.
Madelyne at the end was getting pretty pumped at the end +7A and +7D iirc.
The three games were all we had time for before the early closing of social club (our hosts).
Did I pull a Master Mold?
After all that’s the thought that was eating away at me whilst the two draft packs remained unopened. The temptation to find out in the days since their arrival excruciating. But I managed to resist.
However we pulled no Master Mold between the two packs.
I have to admit I was a little disappointed. But that’s the major drawback of the ccg model that you live with.
Now for the bit related to the post title…
So I now have my first cube.
It’s probably the laziest one you can do. I just threw the four draft packs together. It really doesn’t get simpler than that.
It’s a modern cube.
Which means I used draft packs from Modern legal sets. In this case two draft packs from The Dark Phoenix Saga and Secret Wars.
So it’s kinda a chaos draft experience due to the fact I’m using two sets.
Nice thing is this all fits into a MtG Commander deck box!
However the play testing of this cube will have to wait until our next Dice Masters session due to the evenings time constraints.
The nice thing is that once I get more draft decks from these sets I can curate the experience better, like including a Wolverine. There were one or two cards that had abilities that triggered if Wolverine was present. But those thoughts are for another day.
Well for two or three days I have been. And didn’t think you wanted more posts on my current fixation.
The plan was for September to get off to an epic start of gaming after the disappointing amount that took place in August.
However best laid plans etc meant that this start to the month has been a damp squib.
For instance today was meant to be Twilight Imperium 4 again. And it would have been if British Gas had come to upgrade mums meters at the time they told her (8am).
In my defence my mum organised this without checking with me first.
However as the morning went on and no sign of a British Gas engineer I had to make a call about if the game went ahead.
The guy didn’t turn up until after midday. Apparently they didn’t know they had to come to mums until they thought they had finished their last job for the day and got told they had mum to do.
This is what a disappointing month of gaming looks like
So with no Internet, and having dog sitting duties whilst the engineer was next door I tried getting mums dog Ebony to settle. But she just wouldn’t. She’s an old dog who doesn’t handle changes to routine that well. Which meant it was nigh impossible to watch any dvd. But I tried a couple episodes of Blake’s 7.
So no gaming but at least mum has a new smart meter for her gas and electric.
I’m hoping Tuesday still happens and I can draft Dice Masters with Dave, and finally get the gaming off to a start for the month.
On the arm front the arm is starting to get sore again. But not nearly as bad as before. So I’m still popping the pills to control things to allow me the use of the arm and to try and rest it as much as possible.
Some gaming stuff did happen in the last week such as…
I had been putting off getting the recent Rolling Realms promo packs when they were released due to cash flow issues at the time.
But now I have them and they are added to the Rolling Realms box. Which now is so full you couldn’t fit another card in it. Well not with out a bit of knife work on the insert.
I did finally manage to get the custom Dice Masters playmat image that I purchased shared with Patriot Games for printing. It was too large to upload via their website. So hopefully that arrives soon. Just hope Gav is able to find the playmat I originally had now. I know the dice bag I ordered off etzy has been posted. So with a fair wind it will be here by Tuesday.
Other arrivals in the week were two Dark Phoenix draft packs. Can’t wait to draft these. The temptation to crack them open has been huge. I want to know if I have the current meta defining Master Mold Endless Sentinels in one of them. So far I’ve been good and resisted.
Wow did I just sneak in Dice Masters to this post? Oops. Bait and switch.
Thanks for reading this far and catch you in the next post.
“OMG Darren! Just stop. You need to write about something else for a while. Give us a break from all this Dice Masters ramblings.”
But, but, I actually got to play it last night.
Dave and I met up and played some games of Dice Masters.
We started off playing the learning teams from the TMNT set. So two characters each, and three basic action cards in the middle.
Starting off with poor dice rolls and being forced to basically buy basic action dice is not a great start to a game of Dice Masters. But thems the way the dice roll sometimes.
With that sort of head start it wasn’t a surprise that Dave got to claim the first victory.
I have to say I was a bit disappointed with the cards selected for the teams in this learning game. The two characters in my team didn’t have any synergy at all. Their abilities were pretty pointless.
Our second learning game was the Secret Wars Origin packs. Now these were more fun. I had the Groot led team, whilst Dave had team Spidey.
I thought this worked better as a learning game. Groot’s ability to stop a character from blocking for the turn when fielded was very useful in putting a stop to the Spider-Man blocking ability. Much to Dave’s annoyance.
For this second game I was able to go on and get the win.
Game three saw us jump right in and do a two player draft with the two Secret Wars draft packs I had.
Wow the difference in card quality and design is significant. The cards felt so much better. Although I do have one complaint. The trigger abilities by an asterisk need to be more clearly marked on the cards. So it is clear which is an on going ability and which is the triggered one by rolling a side with an asterisk.
They do foil cards now! Wow I like that.
During our draft I thought that I had drafted a Reed Richards when in fact I had accidentally taken a second Beast! How that happened I don’t know. It was not my intention. I had wanted a second Fantastic Four team member to benefit from a buff that Invisible Girl gave other Fantastic Four members. It’s why I specifically drafted a Namor with the Fantastic Four icon on.
What a blunder!
Despite losing. I just couldn’t handle Galactus. I kept throwing bodies in front of him, sometimes enough to KO him. But when he also had Thanos with him. It eventually wore me down. Although Beast was annoying as a blocker with his reroll when KO’d. We had a lot of fun.
I don’t think in this game either of us bought a basic action die.
Draft works really well like this. Much simpler than opening multiple booster packs.
Glad I ordered two Dark Phoenix draft packs now (might after drafting them, use them with the Secret Wars draft packs create a Modern cube for drafting).
It was so much fun playing the game again. Boy have I missed playing it. And now once I create some cubes, or teams I can play with my friends whenever we want.
I think I mentioned briefly in a previous post the idea of creating a Dice Masters version of an MtG cube.
So what is a cube?
Basically a cube is a large pool of cards selected to play a limited version of the game, ie draft.
A cube is a casual format. Apart from I think CardKingdom there are no commercial cubes to purchase. A cube is normally put together by a person to play with friends or gaming group.
Usually a cube reflects a theme or mechanics that the person putting it together enjoys. So the cube could be a tribal cube containing cards that are tribes the creator likes playing like elves, slithers, dinosaurs, etc. Or it could be cards from MtG sets that the creator enjoyed playing, or a pauper cube with just commons.
There are usually at least 360 different cards in a cube, but can be more depending on how many players the cube is designed to support.
A cube is also a living thing. As you play them they get tweaked, new cards added, etc.
A cube is a very personal thing. It’s an expression of the person that created it. But they are fun. If you like the draft format that is.
So what about Dice Masters?
I think it is possible to create a cube for Dice Masters.
Currently draft in Dice Masters uses the blind draft packs that contain 2 or 3 basic action cards (depending which set draft pack you are using), 12 cards and 2 dice for each of the 12 cards.
It is this draft pack that I will suggest we try and recreate over the old draft of using booster packs.
I think as a minimum our Dice Masters cube should support up to four players (but could be built to support more players).
So with this in mind our cube when finished will have
48 cards (a mixture of character and action cards), that’s 12 cards per player
12 basic action cards, that’s 3 basic actions per player
96 dice to go with the 48 cards
Obviously these numbers will go up depending on the number of players we want to support with the cube.
Now the hard part choosing the cards to include in your cube.
Here are some ideas:
Pauper – only common cards from a set/sets
Only rare and super rare cards
Only certain teams, so just Avengers or X-Men for example
Cards only from certain sets like D&D
Hero team vs Villian team
Only Villians
Only female characters
No global actions
Only cards with global actions
No cards over a certain purchase cost
Only promo cards (are there 48 promo cards?)
You get the idea.
When it comes to play. Before hand I’d sleeve the cards. Ideally I’d sleeve the basic action cards a different colour.
Shuffle the basic action cards deal 3 per player.
Then shuffle the rest of the cards and deal 12 to each to player.
After that you follow the Double Rainbow Draft rules that Wizkids publish here.
This is a great format for breathing life into those cards from older sets or even cards you don’t use in newer sets. Let me know in the comments below if you tried building a cube and how it went when you used it with your friends.
In the meantime I will post on here any Dice Master cubes that I create.
