The Binding of Isaac is a hugely successful videogame, and thanks to two extremely lucrative crowdfunding efforts that netted around $8 million, you could argue that its a highly successful card game as well. The videogame fits almost too perfectly into begin turned into cardboard, with its roguelike genetics being suited to the randomness of dungeon crawler, variable bonuses and and player powers sitting well within the tabletop realm. There's around eighty thousand people who have some kind of variation of the tabletop game. So surely its extremely good because well funded games are always amazing, aren't they. I'm approaching this as someone who is away from the hype canoe sailing down the river rapids of marketing and excitement and so this is probably going to be dull in comparison. I'm also someone who is a fan of the game, and has spent many an hour running around randomly generated dungeons of blood and filth. For those unfamiliar with the videogame, you play
In an age of gaming where some games not only rely on one, but multiple rule books, all with fiddly explanations and play through examples, it's always refreshing to see a game that shouts and claims complexity, and at the same time condenses it into a ten page rule book that fits comfortably into the palm of our hand. This is what people like me like to see when they have been asked to write a few lines on our first thoughts of a game. That the first barrier to entry is potentially a very small one, which means getting to the table doesn't involve a huge amount of careful planning. Which takes us to Bellum of Mutants and Men, where the Sapient Kingdom face off against the Gobalos in a naming convention I can only guess is to avoid some kind of potential copyright claim against Van Hammock Games. A monochromatic tale of protecting your keep from the opposing forces, where resources are quite literally your hand of cards and you play out the tale on a cloth board which