This past weekend, my wife and I celebrated our seventh anniversary.  Like any good geek couple shackled with the responsibilities of jobs, school, and parenthood, we didn’t have our hopes set too high for a night on the town or a weekend away.  Instead, we celebrated the only way we knew how – by cracking open a brand new game.  Lucky for us, it made our anniversary a memorable one.  Why?  Because Eminent Domain might just be our favorite game so far.

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October is quickly drawing to a close, and before you know it we’ll be in the full swing of the holiday season. While I personally don’t enjoy the freezing weather that’s right around the corner there’s just no getting around it…. Winter Is Coming.

But let’s stave off that feeling of dread by reliving the past week on Perpetual Geek Machine!

On Monday we reviewed the terrible movie with a “message” Birdemic: Shock and Terror.

On Tuesday we took a look at the awesomely depressing see through card game Gloom.

On Wednesday we posted episode #00036 of our bi-weekly podcast.

On Thursday we reviewed the prequel to the John Carpenter horror classic The Thing.

On Friday we took a look at Voodoo #1, one of the new comics under DC’s “New 52″ line. We did not like it.

And now, you’re blast from the past link! (Something old on the site that we think you might like!)

Here’s our review of the offense based card drafting game Nightfall. Werewolves, Vampires and Demons… oh my!

(This game was discussed at length in Episode #00025 of the Perpetual Geek Machine podcast.)

Feels like it’s been awhile since we’ve taken a look at an analog game, feels good to get back in the saddle! This week we’re going to take a look at a game that’s been burning up the charts in the board game world, the card development game 7 Wonders!

In alot of ways 7 Wonders is like Civilization (the PC game) the card game. You can try and acquire victory in different ways, such as through as military or scientific means. There are tech trees involved that allow you to build up in areas when you specialize the types of structures you focus on. And, like it or not, you end up fighting with your neighbors. So yeah, it’s an awful lot like Civilization except for one glaring difference. 7 Wonders is super easy to learn and only takes about 30 minutes to play (as opposed to the 5 hours that the PC game does). It’s been awhile since a game is blown me away as quickly and as thoroughly as 7 Wonders has. Not since Dominion have I fallen so head over heels for a game, but 7 Wonders is very quickly rising to that level in my collection.

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The deck-building style of game has certainly taken the analog game world by storm. For a type of game that didn’t even really exist a few years back it’s all but exploded since Dominion hit the scene. Here in this column alone we’ve look at both Dominion and Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer, but there have been loads more.

Newest out of the gate is Nightfall, a game of vampires and werewolves and all the dark things that seem to fight for the night. The big twist to this game is that it’s entirely offensive, which is a big departure from Dominion and others that are largely solitaire group experiences where you’re all taking turns just trying to build the best deck, with limited interaction between players. In Nightfall it’s kill or be killed, and all your moves and card drafts only serve to help you hit the other players harder and faster than they’re hitting you. It’s certainly different, but is it good?

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Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer is a new deck building game, which means you’ll be acquiring cards to build a powerful deck over the course of the game. Each player will start with the same weak 10 cards that they’ll use to buy new cards in-game to enhance the power of their deck and use those cards to kill monsters. The game is similar in setup and execution to the very popular Dominion, in that you’ll buy and use cards to acquire more cards. It’s kinda like Magic: The Gathering but instead of buying booster packs of cards for real-world dollars you’ll buy cards in-game with game resources.

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