It’s certainly not unheard of for publishers to concoct settings and “worlds” that connect disparate games along lines of theme or setting but rarely is this approach applied to Eurogame-styled titles. Eurogames, barring expansions, tend to exist in their own universes with no narrative connectivity or resonance between them. AEG, who came up with this crazy idea of creating a “living” game world that would change as a result of organized play and other events in their long-running Legend of the Five Rings CCG, has come forward with a concept that attempts to do exactly that. The product line is called Tempest and the setting is a kind of ersatz Venice circa the Renaissance, with nominal historical trappings shunted aside in favor of in-game fiction, recurring characters and groups, and generalized themes of control, deceit, treachery, and politics.

Out of the gate, this idea runs into some issues because the games- Love Letter, Dominaire, Courtier, and Mercante- fall in line with the typical thematic expectations of the Eurogame genre, which is to say that narrative and specificity are de-emphasized in favor of mechanics and process. The Tempest idea emerges unfortunately as little more than fluff text and artwork justification, and the overwhelming sense I get from these titles is that none were specifically designed to be Tempest games. Continue Reading…