This past Sunday concluded the 51st annual GenCon gaming convention in Indianapolis and my eighth time attending the event myself. While ninety-nine percent of GenCon is tabletop gaming, RPGs, CCGs, board games, and basically anything other than video games, there is still the occasional digital presence at the event. Several companies had some sort of digital presence this year but one in particular I decided to check out was Asmodee Games. While at their booths I got an intro to the digital version of their game Scythe as well as a bit of hands on time with Catan VR.
Scythe is kind of a Catan-ish style game where you choose one of seven factions (the video shows five but the build I looked at had seven), expand your faction and explore new regions, gather resources, and fight your opponent’s forces and possibly steal their resources. There are several actions that can earn you stars and points, and getting six stars will end the game, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you win; whoever has the most points wins. The game itself is pretty complex and if you have experience with games like Catan, you might pick up on Scythe pretty quickly. Thanks to the reps at the booth I was able to get ahold of a Steam code for the Early Access build, so in the coming weeks I’ll be writing up an article about my experiences with that coming from a complete newbie perspective of Scythe, both physical and digital.
As for Catan VR, the game has been out for a couple of months now and I got to give it a go via the Occulus Rift. Needless to say I suck as much with the VR version as I do in real life. That aside though, the VR version is really simple to use provided you know how to actually play the game. All you need is one button on the Occulus controller to roll the dice and make selections. You’re able to see which cards you have and during the trading portion of a turn, you can quickly respond to someone’s offer. You can also choose a quick build option to see what you have the ability to build with your current resources. I’m not sure if the VR version has a tutorial built in, but if you are familiar with Catan and want to give it a shot in VR, I’d say check it out.
