Is IV Studio My Favourite Publisher of 2024?

It’s been about 9 months since a huge box of games arrived at our studio from IV Studio, thanks to the publishing team. I had obviously seen a bunch of the things that IV Studio had released, and was pretty excited about what I was going to find in the box. Excitement was probably an understatement, because once I finished playing all the games in the box, I was pretty excited for what this company was going to do next!

Our gaming group already has TEND backed on Kickstarter, so we are excited for when that game hits our table after fulfillment. But IV Studio has a history of producing high quality, strong mechanical games. I took a look at three IV Studio games in 2024, and all three are games that not only stayed in my collection (a rarity at this point), but have also been getting played!

Moonrackers – for a long time, Dominion has been my go-to deck building game, but two things are holding me back from playing Dominion more. First, deciding which cards to use from my 7 boxes takes a lot of time, and finding a good mix is sometimes hit and miss if you aren’t using one of the pre-loaded ideas in the rulebooks. Moonrackers, in my opinion, is a much more involved experience that mixes a good amount of social interaction with solid deck building mechanics. It’s different enough that it’s something that feels familiar, but still feels internally new.

Here is a bit from our Moonrackers review:

“In Moonrakers, players are building decks, obtaining ship parts, and trying to fulfill contracts with the ultimate goal of reaching 10 prestige points and winning the game. The bulk of the game will be taking and negotiating contracts, which will require players to play a set number of cards of a certain type, along with rolling 0-4 hazard dice that could lose you prestige if not countered with a shield or ability.”

The thing is, most of the contracts available in Moonrakers are going to be tough to complete alone, so negotiating with other players to complete the contracts is a must. How many coins or prestige will you offer other players to help you? Will they also be required to roll one or two of the hazard dice? Why is that guy so keen on helping out even though he doesn’t want any rewards at all?”

Fractured Sky – Fractured Sky was such a unique game for me because I generally have no desire to play games with even a vague reference to area control. The area control in this game isn’t like anything you see in others, and to be honest, the only reason I got this game to the table so quickly after the box arrived was because of the outstanding production.

What I learned, however, is that the mechanics of Fractured Sky are so damn interesting. Competing for the various resources the board has to offer, building ships and other things, attempting to control regions, hidden information. This game had a little bit of everything, and I was here for it.

Here is a bit from our Fractured Sky review:

“In Fractured Sky, players will be placing air ships, buildings and more onto the central board in order to out-rank their opponents and gain resources and starfall that equate to victory points. Players take an action on their turn which ranges from placing an airship with a value beneath it, spending resources to build fortresses, markets or skimmers which will give them bonuses on certain sky islands, and more.”

Each round, an increasing number of hidden star shard locations will be laid out face down, and players will need to have the most value in points beneath their airships (plus their various bonuses) to out maneuver their enemies and obtain the shard.

See, throughout the round, players can use actions to look at these facedown cards to see where a star shard might be hidden that round, and then they have the option to choose a resource from that location. Once they choose a resource, it will provide a bit of evidence for all other players – for example, if the star shard location has wood on it that you took as a reward, everyone at the table knows that at least one secret star shard location has wood. There are also hidden objective cards that come into play at the end of each round with one being revealed and scored, with the winning person getting another starfall.”

The final game from IV Studio I played in 2024 was Mythic Mischief, but we have an article planned for that game all on it’s own in a week or so, so stayed tuned for that. Rest assured, however, that I can confidently say that IV Studio is our designer of the year – their games have been utterly fantastic, and we cannot wait for more!