Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew
Banned
Assuming 3DS is next-gen, I'll take one on DS.
Jason Rohrer with music by Tom Bailey: Diamond Trust of London
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1. What is it?
An indie game for DS that virtually no one has played. It's basically a board game, but the kind that can't be done on a real board. The goal is to move your pawns where the opponent isn't in order to collect diamonds, and if you are both on a sector bet more than him to collect the totality of it. Moves and bets are made secretly and simultaneously so you need to guess what your opponent will do. The trick is you can spy to know the planned moves of your opponent and react to being spied by modifying your plans. With bets, the "winner takes all" mechanics encourages risky/safe behaviours and spying adds a lot to the tension. You can also bribe the NPC to go in a sector of your liking: if you are in the same sector, he will take all the diamonds you have in your pockets.
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You are a merchant operating for the Diamond Trust of London, illegally trading for Blood diamonds in Angola a year prior the Kimberley Process is put into action to regulate diamond business. You have one year to collect as much diamonds as you can by sending three mercenaries in the country. You are competing with an Antwerp based company which you'll have to outbid if you want to acquire diamonds. Also here is a UN inspector trying to regulate the market, who will seize any diamond he can find and block any trading in the sector he is in. Luckily you can bribe him to block your opponent. But was your bribe higher than your opponent's?
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2. Why do you feel it is underrated?
No one played it. Because it had a confidential release on cartridge exclusively, sold on the creator website only, not many people has had the chance of playing it. I feel it would have a great success if it was remade for the 3DS and given online play.
3. Why should we play it?
Because it's an excellent two-player board game, the kind that can't be done on a real board. The strategies and deceptions needed in this game makes you want to play one more game so that you can show your opponent you're the most sneaky of the two.
If anything, you'd be supporting an indie creator who went out of his way to create a physical release of his game on a Nintendo cartridge-based console. And was successful.
You can buy it there: http://diamondtrustgame.com/
A very complete article about how the game was made has been put on polygon: http://www.polygon.com/2012/11/14/3...-three-years-two-publishers-and-a-garage-full
IIRC, this was released on Kickstarter and it over delivered on dev's estimates. Knowing that, I would say it's pretty successful. They can always release it on eShop if they haven't already. Clearly their strategy to make it rare.