Free From the Yoke & The King Is Dead [#Itchmas Day 9]
Coming in tardy and hurried, but certainly still appreciated, we have:
Generational Slavic post-occupation reconstruction in Free From the Yoke, by Fyodor Kasatkin and Mina McJanda. Built on the core bones of the phenomenally inventive Legacy: Life Among the Ruins and dialed in to a specific fantasy setting, this game puts your play group in the steering chairs of people in power as a nascent nation is built. How will you take the opportunities and grievances that are set before you? What does this future we're creating look like?
The King Is Dead, from the feted darlings of the indie scene Meguey Baker and D. Vincent Baker, is also a fantasy skin on a pre-existing framework about filling a power vacuum at a transitional time. Slightly more of a traditional succession crisis, The King Is Dead builds and iterates on the Mobile Frame Zero: Firebrands core identity, more firmly grounding characterological stakes and context. The cards-handling sub-theme threading between minigames feels a little under-baked, but this game is a firm favorite to break out and get folks invested in a fractious battle of wills over.
You may be noticing some deliberately curated similarities between these two choices.
#12DaysOfItchmas