Episode #29 is live!

Jon and Dirk finally get around to discussing ‘Solium Infernum’, a tabletop-digital “hybrid” strategy title where you aim to become the lord of hell. They wheel around and talk about the light worker placement game ‘Stone Age’ and why it might be a great entry point for casual fans. After our hosts wrap up what they’ve played with a brief revisiting of ‘Command and Colors’, Dirk reveals his newest tabletop project, ‘Futbol Strategy’, and Jon provides an update on ‘At the Gates’ and his plans to revisit the game’s victory conditions and strategic trade-offs.

Solium Infernum is one of those games that makes you scratch your head as a designer. Not because it’s bad, but because it’s good. It grabs you not with flash or spectacle, but tabletop-like rules and interesting systems. The game almost provides that roguelike feeling of exploration, mystery and harsh consequences. Like most titles of that sort, it takes some work to get into, and is not something you can enjoy casually.

And that’s where the head-scratching comes in. The game is fun and has a passionate audience, but it’s also unforgiving in many ways. As a designer there’s always a tension between trying to produce games that as many people as possible can enjoy, while also unapologetically covering new ground and accepting that the most beloved games are those which took chances.

We’re hoping to have Vic Davis on at some point in the near future, which is really exciting as I really admire his ambitious and unique designs. While his style is quite different from my own, in many ways I see his company and the games he’s produced to be be a model for my own endeavors with Conifer.

– Jon