#226: Grand Austria Hotel, Chronicle of Crime and Managing a Game Collection
Timecodes
Grand Austria Hotel Overview 01:03:11
Grand Austria Hotel Review 01:07:51
Chronicle of Crime Look Back 01:31:50
News with Tony T 01:38:38
Managing a Game Collection 02:20:08
Opening Banter and Reviews
Feature Review: Grand Austria Hotel
In the thick of the Viennese modern age, exquisite cafés are competing for customers. Inspiring artists, important politicians, and tourists from all over the world are populating Vienna and in need of a hotel room. This is your opportunity to turn your little café into a world famous hotel. Hire staff, fulfill the wishes of your guests, and gain the emperor's favor. Only then will your café become the Grand Austria Hotel. The start player rolls the dice, sorting them by the rolled number and placing them on the corresponding action spaces. On a turn, a player chooses one of the six actions and carries it out. The number of the available dice in the corresponding action spaces determines how much the player gets from the action. They then remove one of the dice and can carry out additional actions. With the different actions, a player can get the necessary drinks and dishes, prepare the rooms, or hire staff. But no hotel can grow without guests. To choose wisely which guests to attract and to complete their orders brings some important bonus actions. The staff cards also have different advantages, but the game ends after seven rounds and no player can do everything they want, so whoever makes the right decisions and finds the best way to create bonus actions will win. With 116 different cards and a new set-up in each game, Grand Austria Hotel provides a huge replay value. Each game stands on its own and demands new tactics and strategies.
Designed by Virginio Gigli & Simone Luciani
Published by Lookout Games
Lookback Review: Chronicles of Crime
Chronicles of Crime is a cooperative game of crime investigation, mixing an app, a board game and a touch of Virtual Reality. With the same physical components (board, locations, characters and items), players will be able to play plenty of different scenarios and solve as many different crime stories. Players start the app, choose the scenario they want to play, and follow the story. The goal being to catch the killer of the current case in the shortest time possible. Using the Scan&Play technology, each component (locations, characters, items, etc.) has a unique QR code, which, depending on the scenario selected, will activate and trigger different clues and stories. That means players will be able to get new stories way after the game is released simply by downloading the app's updates, without any shipping of new physical components involved. The VR experience only requires a mobile phone. Players simply put the VR glasses (optional buy) onto their mobile device, and put the VR glasses on their nose, holding their mobile device in front of their eyes, to immerse themselves in the game's universe and search for clues in a virtual world. The game comes with 1 tutorial and 5 scenarios, but more can be downloaded directly inside the app! Each session last around 1h to 1h30 minutes and many scenarios are connected to each others in order to tell a much bigger story.
Designed by David Cicurel
Published by Lucky Duck Games
Gaming News by Tony T
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