This week, see if you can deduce the latest offering from Crash Games, and try to avoid the loss of sanity induced by the horrors within Strange Aeons. Dapper vulpines, crafty castles, and deep space sights round out the rest of this weeks’ spotlight!

Dead Drop

by Crash Games

Dead Drop is a quick-playing card game of deduction and spycraft for two to four players. To win, you must figure out the hidden value of the cards inside the ‘dead drop’, and then maneuver your opponents into giving you the cards necessary to match the cached secrets.

I got the opportunity to play this with the folks of UnPub during Origins, and pretty much had a blast doing so. The rules are light and quick to learn, while the strategy of what information to give or conceal is one you’ll need to master on your own.

Throughout the ages, the pursuit for knowledge has been a driving force. Those with a thirst for truth have been known to thrust themselves upon the path the leads to enlightenment. Many travelers have given their lives to obtain the kind of information that wields the power to create and to destroy; to protect and to betray; to share and to obscure.

UpWorks: Ultimate Modular Miniature Castle Building System!

by True Adventures

Designed by Jeff Martin, the mind behind True Dungeon and the Dwarven Forge tile set, UpWorks is something similar, a modular tile-based system for building castles and structures, rather then terrain.

I’ve managed to hold off on backing the two prior Dwarven Forge projects, just because I’d have nowhere to put all of the loot they were offering, but I find myself tempted by this one again. On the other hand, the design seems much less free-form then before, as the frames for constructing each floor are only available in specific sizes, and the price tag in general appears to be significantly higher to build the more impressive structures.

For decades fantasy enthusiasts have dreamed of a modular castle building system that would allow them to quickly create beautiful customized structures. Who hasn’t dreamed of building a massive wizards’ school, a gigantic castle wall to repulse invading goblins, or a ruined castle leveled by dragonfire?

The Unlucky Fox: An Illustrated Mystery

by Scott Plumbe

And now for something, completely different.

Set in Victorian-Era England (and elsewhere!), this illustrated novel bears the subtitle of: ‘The Peculiar Story of a Dapper Young Fox Out to Solve a Family Mystery in India’.

Excellent artwork along with a fun story marks this as a novel well worth the read (there’s a preview chapter available), but I do confess some concern about the $30k goal being met. This project isn’t to print the book, it’s being released as a serialized set of PDFs, and the goal seems a tad too high for this project to fly.

As the Empire teeters on the brink of conflict, our unlucky fox strives to unravel his mother’s riddle, fulfill his promise to guard the artifact, and safeguard his honour… all without putting a whisker out of place.

Strange Aeons

by Uncle Mike’s Worldwide

That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die.

Strange Aeons is returning to print with a freshly-revised 2nd edition ruleset for this skirmish-level miniatures game based off of H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos. In addition to the rules, they’ve also revised and revamped their miniatures line, from Cultists, to Deep Ones, and beyond.

Players build squads of valiant agents from the Threshold Agency – mankind’s only shield against the unimaginable forces that lurk beyond the veil – and do battle with the foul Lurkers, who seek to pave the way for the return of their dark gods.

Combatzone Scenery

by … Combatzone Scenery

A proper tabletop and a selection of terrain always improves the look and feel of any miniatures game, and space-based systems are no exception. Offering some keen backgrounds and terrain pieces that aren’t quite just another asteroid, one interesting note is that they’ve modeled the bases to match up with the official tokens used in the X-Wing miniatures game, making for an easy swap between the two.

Now, if only the postage wasn’t so high, I’d happily pick up a mat or two and several sets of asteroids from these folk.

We wanted to start this Kickstarter to create a range of scenery and gaming mats to be used together to create an instant battlefield. The scenery has been modeled by Bulldoguk, whose past projects have found themselves onto many, many forums. Some of his other work can be found at www.tanksandtrolls.co.uk