Top 10 Most Anticipated Games Gen Con 2017

 

Welcome to August! As of this posting, we have a short 13 days to Gen Con 2017!

This is going to be a special year, as it’s the 50^th anniversary and Gen Con is on pace to sell out, which is a first in the history.

Our coverage of Gen Con will also be increased this year, as I have 10 interviews scheduled with game companies, plus I plan to stop by many other booths and do interviews, so it’s going to be a busy time!

DDO Players Gen Con 2017 Coverage is brought to you by the Skullsplitter Dice Company.

 

 

 

Here is my list of the top 10 games I’m looking forward to most checking out at Gen Con 2017.

Note that some of this games will be released for sale, at Gen Con, but some will just be available to see/demo in the companies booth.

 

 

 

10.The Walking Dead: No Sanctuary Publisher Cryptozoic Entertainment

 

 

The Walking Dead: No Sanctuary is a cooperative board game of desperate survival set in the world of the popular AMC television series. No Sanctuary puts players in the roles of iconic survivors from The Walking Dead, working together against desperate odds as they navigate a variety of scenarios. Whether the survivors are scavenging for supplies, fighting off waves of the dead, or even standing toe-to-toe with the living, the group must find a way to work together even when its members’ interests may be at odds.

No Sanctuary features a unique leadership mechanic in which players take turns assuming the role of the group’s leader. Each turn, the leader must choose the group’s approach by drawing two event cards and choosing one. Since players cannot discuss this decision, the pressure is on the leader, and the leader alone will pay the price if the group is unable to follow the approach for the turn. Make enough bad decisions, and the leader may have to relinquish his role and let the next survivor take charge of the group.

My Take – I love the walking dead, both the TV Show and Comic. And zombie games are always fun, I like the aspect of the “leadership mechanic” that should add a twist and make replayability better as well.

 

9.Catacombs & Castles Publisher Elzra Corp

 

Catacombs and Castles is a standalone game featuring a “Catacomb” team of heroes vs a “Castle” team of heroes. The game serves as an introduction to the Catacombs world and dexterity game system, so it features simplified, fast game play with some new mechanisms.

As in Catacombs, players flick pieces around a board to simulate combat, with cards and special powers dictating how you can move and attack.

 

My Take – A dungeon crawler with the added dexterity element, sure sign me up!

 

8.Big Trouble in Little China: The Game Publisher Everything Epic Games

 

Big Trouble in Little China the Game sends you and up to three other players on a wild adventure to experience the unknown and mystical underworld of Chinatown. Each brave character uses their own unique talents and abilities to take on various missions throughout Little China; working together to gain enough Audacity to take down Lo Pan, the Three Storms, and a slew of other powerful henchmen, in this cooperative, replayable, cinematic experience.

You will venture through the iconic locations in Chinatown saving the helpless and thwarting evil plans, all the while discovering weapons and rare magics to use to your benefit. Player actions are powered by thematic dice that are rolled each round. These dice will be used to take part in combat, testing your luck taking audacious actions, and get players in and out of “Big Trouble.” But beware: roll bad luck and suffer the consequences!

My Take – Any that has seen this cult classic movie, knows what fun it is, so I can only imagine how much fun it will be to play it as well, plus it will be a great excuse to repeat movie dialogue while playing with my friends

 

 

 7.Fallout: Wasteland Warfare Publisher Modiphius Entertainment

 

 

 

In Fallout: Wasteland Warfare, players build their own crew from a wide range of factions, allies, and iconic characters from the Fallout series, then play in apocalyptic games of 3-30 high-quality 32mm scale resin miniatures through a huge variety of iconic scenery and settlement buildings, from the Red Rocket to Sanctuary Hills, Nuka-Cola vending machines and wrecked vehicles. Settlements include buildings, defenses, and resources that impact the crew’s army list and abilities in the wasteland.

Fallout: Wasteland Warfare includes an entire narrative campaign arc as well as unique random missions with narrative-style objectives, and crew caps recovered in missions can be used to improve the crew’s perks, weapons, gear, and upgrades for the next encounter. In either player vs. player or tournament mode, players try to survive the tabletop wasteland.

 

My Take – I’m not a big miniature game player, but this peaks my interest for sure, Fallout is a great series of computers games, with wonderful story telling, and this sounds like, this will include all of that plus more. And they even have dog meat.

 

 

6.Apocrypha Adventure Card Game Publisher Lone Shark Games

 

 

The Apocrypha Adventure Card Game allows you to play it as a cooperative card game, or with a game master as a role playing game. The world is on the brink of an apocalypse, set in motion by monsters only your characters can see. Gameplay is story-based and features deck construction and character growth. Over time, characters will unlock repressed memory fragments that will add new powers. Each mission has a unique setup and goal, which often involves hunting down a true threat hiding among the cards at the nexuses that characters investigate. The game will be released in a base box that will contain one chapter expansion.

My Take – what do you get when you cross the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game, with monsters and horror elements, this game which is right in my wheel house, looks like serious creepy fun

 

5. Dungeons & Dragons: Tomb of Annihilation Board Game Publisher WizKids

 

Tomb of Annihilation Board Game is a cooperative adventure design in the same series as Castle Ravenloft that’s based on the “Tomb of Annihilation” storyline for Dungeons & Dragons: 5th Edition.

My take – I loved the other games in the “adventure series” games. Ravenloft, Legend Of Drizzt. Tile laying and dungeon crawling combined into one, this one is going to add the jungle and of course, the tomb will be deadly, so what’s not to look forward too?

 

4.Kaiju Crush Publisher Fireside Games

 

Kaiju Crush is a light strategy game with limited grid movement, shared objectives, and intransitive combat on a modular board.

In the game, players choose one of four giant monsters to play and proceed to crush buildings and fight other kaiju for victory points. On each player’s turn, they choose to play either their own movement card or the shared movement card to land on and crush a city tile (a.k.a. a building). The player picks up the city tile and drops a territory marker in its place. City tiles score different points and territory markers can yield victory points based on objective cards that show goals like connected or unconnected territory markers, the number of city tile groups a player claims, and shapes created on the city grid.

My Take – Gaint monsters fighting each other and crushing buildings! What’s not to love, I loved the video game Rampage, and this is pretty much the board game version of it.

 

3.Hafid’s Grand Bazaar Publisher Rather Dashing Games

 

Bid, haggle, and trade your way to the top in this raucous trading game of set collection and player negotiation for 2 to 6 players.

Acquire spices, textiles, livestock and other exotic goods by bidding on caravans from foreign markets across the ancient world. Manipulate the market – and each other – using your shrewd bargaining skills to trade with your fellow merchants and collect resource sets to maximize profits.

Hafid’s Grand Bazaar is played in a series of rounds based on the number of players. Each round consists of four phases during which players will take turns bidding on caravans, influence, and customers; collecting goods from caravans; trading and negotiating with each other to collect sets of goods; and selling their goods for maximum profit. Goods are divided into five categories, with five different items in each category. Players can see which categories of goods their opponents are holding by the symbols on the backs of the cards, but do not know the specific item the cards represent in those categories.

My take – Rather Dashing Games never disappoints with great fun games, and this sounds as if the streak of the great game will continue, plus the bidding aspect of should make for some great spirited fun around the table.

 

2.Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Friends and Frenemies Publisher Jasco Games

 

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Friends and Frenemies, an expansion for Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Board Game, includes six new characters (Dawn, Riley, Tara, Anya, Faith, and Oz, who can be either human or werewolf); two new big bads (Spike & Drusilla, and Dark Willow); and a new board expansion that includes additional Initiative locations.

 

My Take – it’s not a secret, that I’m a big fan of Buffy, Spike & Drusilla are 2 of my favorite “big bads” so yes and yes.

 

1.Legendary: Buffy The Vampire Slayer Publisher Upper Deck Entertainment

 

Legendary: Buffy The Vampire Slayer is the newest addition to the Legendary series. In Legendary, a semi-cooperative deck-building game, 1 to 5 players use fan-favorite characters including Buffy, Angel, Willow, and Giles and attempt to stop a Big Bad and their nefarious Schemes. Players win the game if the Big Bad is beaten four times, and lose if the Big Bad is able to complete their Scheme.

Based on the popular TV series only, Legendary: Buffy the Vampire Slayer features a light/dark track that influences characters’ strength, which is meant to boost the thematic feeling.

My Take – Again Buffy. I have never played the Legendary series of games, and I think this is the best way to jump in head first because as I said, Buffy. They had me at Buffy.