Game Chef - 46 through 50

Most Likely To Succeed (+ battle cards) by Tom Lawrence and Josh Hall-Bachner

The Good: Yay to destroying yearbooks!  Yay to a battle card system where you have to worry about your resources, which are the reasons you need to deal with stuff!  Rah, rah rah!


The Bad: Doing it as an inmate in an asylum is perhaps not the most sensitive of skins to have on this, particularly if you're building a game that deals with personal trauma.  Also, it would have been nice to have the battle cards as card rather than text.


The Other: My desire to purchase and burn all the highschool yearbooks with any poetry that may be attributed to me is high.  I will tell you that this game had an appeal to me when I first read that.


Would I Play It? Yeah, maybe just with the cards to see what came out of that too.

A Small Piece of the Sun (+ sheet + supplement) by Keith Stetson

The Good: Okay, reading through stuff on the various forums and let me point out something done better.  The question at the end asking about Coyote answered with a straight yes made me giggle, it was a little bit of getting it in a sea of not.  The stones mechanic is interesting, I think more games need to involve coins of some kind since a large number of them are bent on 4,5,6=success.


The Bad: Look, I know animal spirits are cool, or the new thing or whatever.  Maybe you might just want to stick with an area considering something like an armadillo and a beaver don't really live in many of the same places, and since we're dealing with many many Nations and not just some Umbrella under which everything fits.  Just putting that out there.  Also, gotta love the "savage" font used in the subject headings.


The Other: Flowchart is helpful at the end, because some of the methodology is a little blurry.  Not by a lot mind you, but enough that the flowchart is appreciated.


Would I Play It?  I'd rather play Kingdom of Nothing, more secrets, more coin flipping, less appropriation.

Last Chance by Pat Gamblin

The Good: I geeked out over the cover.  I thank Chris for that too.  Also, the idea of drafting skills seems appealing to me right now.  Steal that idea folks!  I'm also loving the roll everything at once, figure out how it goes.  It's a reminding me a little of what I plan for Air.


The Bad: The rules get a bit murky at times, particularly when it comes to picking Aspects.  I should really have it's own little section.  It's not that murky though, I went back over it once and got what I had missed.


The Other: I geeked out over the flavourful skill stuff too.  It's like when I first grabbed the Serenity RPG and smiled at all the titles for things.  I adore it when games take the time to do that kind of thing.


Would I Play It? Lock and load, we're going in!

The Last Word by Orion Canning

The Good: There's a lot to like here.  I like the defined characters and what they can do, I like that there's a list of things that the players will be doing, and they're diverse enough that it really can push if your stuck.  I'd even have a "if you're all stuck, everyone draw a card and then that's what the start of the story is about."


The Bad: I really would have kept it at four players tops, or if you're going to have more rotate some of the roles since everyone knows who everyone is and there isn't any level of secrecy.  Well, maybe keep the Lantern.  I will also, gently this time because I'm feeling ill, that perhaps reading up on a figure is a good idea before using it.  Yes, Coyote is a trickster.


The Other: I enjoy the extras, there's a lot of effort that went into them.  They need their own special little mention.


Would I Play It? Breaking my rules of not saying yes to games I'd have to modify but change Coyote into something else and I would actually.

Coyotes in Dark Alleyways by Peter Borah (PeterBB)

The Good: This is a great little game where you have one bad ass character that will always survive, but it's the cost that you're really negotiating over.  I also think that it's great in how your whole goal as the mystery side is to make the main character go, "Really, that!?"


The Bad: I think the sheets could have given a bit more in the "this is some of the stuff you can do" way.  They're not really bad, but more examples of "this is something you might want to do" rather than just the description would have helped.  Again, minor quibble.


The Other: What? They used coyotes, as the animal.  It's a pretty awesome game?  Did you expect me to say something else here?


Would I Play It? Yes, and this game is so easily hacked that I recommend people do that.