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Merauder posted:They are literally exactly the same, the physical game just takes longer because you have to shuffle the cards. That extra time makes the game not worth it when Dominion exists as a much better game with slightly longer set up/tear down time.
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Dec 17, 2014 00:37
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chaoslord posted:That extra time makes the game not worth it when Dominion exists as a much better game with slightly longer set up/tear down time. Which is a fine opinion to have, but I think it's not really fair to say that the "game is poo poo" when in reality the game is good as evidenced by the iOS version. Better way to present that is "Physically the game is good but overstays it's welcome vs. other games in the genre such as [X]", or something similar. Not trying to be super apologist here or anything (I haven't played my physical Ascension games in a lonnng time thanks to the iOS version existing), but there's positive criticism and negative criticism, and the former is generally preferred, right?
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Dec 17, 2014 01:08
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Merauder posted:Not trying to be super apologist here or anything (I haven't played my physical Ascension games in a lonnng time thanks to the iOS version existing), but there's positive criticism and negative criticism, and the former is generally preferred, right? No it's not. Ascension is a terrible downgrade from the game it's trying to rip off. The iOS version only gets a pass due to lack of competition, because Dominion's online implementation was programmed by monkeys who thought plaintext passwords were a good idea.
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Dec 17, 2014 01:22
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Merauder posted:Which is a fine opinion to have, but I think it's not really fair to say that the "game is poo poo" when in reality the game is good as evidenced by the iOS version. Better way to present that is "Physically the game is good but overstays it's welcome vs. other games in the genre such as [X]", or something similar. As a board game it's trash. It's extremely random and there's not much strategy to it, and the bookkeeping takes a weirdly large amount of time (including setup/teardown but also counting all the random crap you have to check for depending on the cards that come out). Especially weird are specific cards that have specific interactions like that one where if you play two you can banish one to take another turn or penumbral/umbral edge where you'll practically never see both of them in a single game. As a phone game it's great, because I'm looking to kill 5-15 minutes vs an AI and the game keeps track of all the shuffling and bookkeeping and rules interactions and I just get to play a random card game for a while. It's also not a whole loving gigabyte like Magic is. And there's basically no other competition at all aside from Playdek's own implementation of shittier card games like Penny loving Arcade.
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Dec 17, 2014 01:38
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Probably not OP material, but I found it on SU&SD's site and thought it was fitting.
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Dec 17, 2014 02:00
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Merauder posted:Which is a fine opinion to have, but I think it's not really fair to say that the "game is poo poo" when in reality the game is good as evidenced by the iOS version. Better way to present that is "Physically the game is good but overstays it's welcome vs. other games in the genre such as [X]", or something similar. The thing is, saying this means you are comparing them on equal terms, implying they're fit for the same purpose. People play games on their phones for very different reasons than they play games in person, and parasyte's post really highlights that. It's like saying a game is a terrible gateway game, but a great "gamer" game. The people you play with make the different context, we just tend to imply the latter. Speaking of a terrible gateway game, I played Puerto Rico for the second time this weekend. The first time I'd played, it was a 5 player game, and it was pretty terrible. People took forever, and I had no clue what to do. This time around, it was a 3 player game, one person was very familiar with the game, and the other hadn't played before. I really enjoyed it this time around. I got a good shipment setup, getting tobacco production before anyone else, and was the only sugar producer. I lost by 2 points to the experienced player, who bought a lot of buildings with the income from his factory. It was a fantastic game, and I'm looking forward to playing again.
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Dec 17, 2014 02:32
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Megasabin posted:Why is Kemet so expensive right now? Is it out of print? It's 55-70 dollars on Amazon. Pretty sure it's MSRP $70.
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Dec 17, 2014 03:16
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Gimnbo posted:How similar was it to Smash Up? You may have missed a raft of money there. Not that similar. I designed it for 4 players, each player had one faction and started with 100 "units" (score, life, whatever). Each card had two abilities, one that only a certain faction could use, and one that anyone could use (thus, you were never stuck with cards that weren't useful in some capacity). If you hit zero "units" you are eliminated, and you can't go over 100 unless you're the zombies. So basically it's a "Take That" Nerd Bait Player Elimination game. Maybe it could have made some money, but would I be able to live with myself afterwards?
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Dec 17, 2014 03:39
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Big McHuge posted:Maybe it could have made some money, but would I be able to live with myself afterwards?
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Dec 17, 2014 03:49
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I mentioned in this thread that we've half-heartedly pretended a virus was zombies in Pandemic. Well, let me tell you, once you go whole-hog with that concept, Pandemic becomes the best zombie board game ever made. You can do it with just a handful of house rules. House Rule #0: This is the only one really required. Rename the four viruses after different kinds of zombies. We chose: Fast Zombies Slow Zombies Voodoo Zombies And my son christened the last one "atomic zombies" and said they glow in the dark. Kinda weird, but it made for some creepy stories later! House rule #1: when outbreaks occur, every player in an affected city has to narrate or describe some kind of zombie action. House rule #2: If possible, give a name from some kind of popular zombie movie/book/show to your character. I was a Dispatcher, and named myself "Metsfan" after the never-seen radio operator from that one story in the World War Z book. House rule #3: if you lose the game, you have to describe your character's last stand.
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Dec 17, 2014 03:55
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Poison Mushroom posted:Probably in a swimming pool of $100 bills. Maybe I'll dust off my prototype and tinker with it once work slows down.
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Dec 17, 2014 04:08
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Big McHuge posted:Maybe I'll dust off my prototype and tinker with it once work slows down. You just need an artist to start printing money. There is always space for a new zombie game on Kickstarter.
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Dec 17, 2014 04:48
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echoMateria posted:You just need an artist to start printing money. There is always space for a new zombie game on Kickstarter. Pretty much. All those poor starving artists in the world and they just don't realize the ticket to the easy life is right in the front of their face. Coming soon. Killer Zombies and the Quest for the Magic Entrails.
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Dec 17, 2014 04:57
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echoMateria posted:You just need an artist to start printing money. There is always space for a new zombie game on Kickstarter. Pfft, Artists. Introducing Cards Against Zombies.
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Dec 17, 2014 05:05
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So there's a game store in Longview Washington that I just found out about and they have a board game night every Tuesday. After several years of being without a regular gaming group I decided to go give it a shot. Trip report: Dominion: My first request for the evening at the extensive urging of this thread and my first time playing Dominion. Yep, Dominion's pretty fun. We used the recommended setup out of the book for four players, the owner did a good job of explaining things, and it was easy enough for me to grasp the basic implications of managing a growing deck right from the start. I lost which is fine as I was a bit like a kid in a candy store regarding options. Early game going for Militias seemed helpful but mid- to late-game I didn't focus enough on snagging Duchies or Provinces like I should have. Looking back on it I can already see ways to better approach things next time. Definitely looking forward to playing this again. Gravwell: A game about moving along a track trying to get from point A to point B before anyone else, the catch is that everybody plays various valued movement cards simultaneously, which resolve in alphabetical order (the cards are all named after periodic elements, representing the fuel you're dumping into your ship's engines) and movement happens in relation to other bodies of mass on the board, i.e. other players' ships along with a couple of derelicts. The bulk of the cards move you towards the nearest object, whether that's in front of you or behind you, some cards move you away from the nearest object, and a few don't let you move and pull everyone towards you instead. Play happens over a series of six rounds divided by drafting cards from assorted stacks, one face up and one face down, to form your hand for the round. Then players all play a card simultaneously, resolving in alphabetical order, which means that if you go last you could find yourself moving in the wrong direction due to shifting ship positions. Also once a round you get an Emergency Stop which means you can just discard your move for the turn and skip it. I also thought this was fun. It took the guy explaining it a few tries to sort things out when a slightly calmer reading of the manual might have gotten it across quicker, but once play started we picked it up pretty fast. It's basically a game of trying to predict how everyone else is going to move and planning your own moves, and the timing thereof, accordingly. You know about half the cards they have so you can make some guesses, but you don't know everything. Sometimes it's better to just plonk down a big "go towards objects" card if you're trailing behind but once you start getting out in front things get trickier because there are fewer cards which push you so it becomes a bit of a timing/prediction game. It played pretty quick and I managed to win with a precisely planned move, which was cool. Tsuro: It's Tsuro. We played a couple games, it was inoffensive and quick. Now I can say I've played Tsuro. King of Tokyo: This is what we finished the night with. I had some fun with it though it took me a few rounds to really grasp what sorts of approaches to employ. It's a dice-based game so kinda random and swingy, but a five player game also didn't take super long (about 40 minutes). I lost but managed to not die through a combination of cards that let me roll to negate damage and reroll other peoples' dice, it was neck and neck between two other players until one of them rolled well enough to give them the last victory point they needed before the other player could rack up more VP with a card that gave him points for hoarding money.
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Dec 17, 2014 07:07
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Broken Loose posted:Recently, I finally got to play One Night Ultimate Werewolf with most of my regular crew. I've had the game for a while and even played it a bunch, but I hadn't yet played it with my regular Avalon gang. My group really enjoys ONUW, we'll play a dozen games in a row sometimes. When you say the day round can be solved if "the players have more than 2 minutes to discuss it", what exactly do you mean? In my experience, some games will be trivial to solve, but those games aren't that common. The game is totally random, and it sounds like that's what you and your group dislike about it. If you ask me though, everyone losing because of "one jittery person with trust issues" is hilarious and exactly the kind of thing that makes that game so fun. I'm not upset if I lose a game of ONUW; some of the best games are where you think you have it figured out, and it turns out everything you thought you knew was an elaborate lie. The game is all about creating situations for people to lie in really clever ways; that's why the night round is such a mess, if you can untangle that mess just a few moments faster than the other players, you can lie about it. Even if you're not a werewolf you should be lying because maybe someone switched your card or maybe you can get a werewolf to out himself. I know I'm going to lose some games for stupid reasons and win some games for stupid reasons, but it doesn't bother me because trying to lie and catch people lying and just figure out what the hell is going on is so much fun and an entirely different experience from any other bluffing game I know of.
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Dec 17, 2014 07:32
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parasyte posted:As a phone game it's great, because I'm looking to kill 5-15 minutes vs an AI and the game keeps track of all the shuffling and bookkeeping and rules interactions and I just get to play a random card game for a while. It's also not a whole loving gigabyte like Magic is. And there's basically no other competition at all aside from Playdek's own implementation of shittier card games like Penny loving Arcade. The AI is pretty horrible and will happily load up its deck with crap 1 value cards instead of doing the clever thing and leaving points unspent. Asynchronous multiplayer is where it's at. Have a shitload of games and go through them when you want to spend 10 minutes.
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Dec 17, 2014 08:20
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I just bought Dominion. Is the strategy really as straightforward as I recall it: Trash the Copper and Estate cards asap, buy tons of Silver/Gold, then go for the Duchy/Provinces? I played this game hundreds of times against the AI when that fan-made app was free on the iPhone, and I recall doing this almost every single game.
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Dec 17, 2014 08:38
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Vegetable posted:I just bought Dominion. Is the strategy really as straightforward as I recall it: Trash the Copper and Estate cards asap, buy tons of Silver/Gold, then go for the Duchy/Provinces? I played this game hundreds of times against the AI when that fan-made app was free on the iPhone, and I recall doing this almost every single game. Trashing is a strong mechanic, but Big Money + one trashing action is very rarely going to be the optimal strategy. It's a good enough baseline that I'm not surprised it was able to beat whatever fan-made AI you were up against, though.
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Dec 17, 2014 08:47
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Vegetable posted:I just bought Dominion. Is the strategy really as straightforward as I recall it: Trash the Copper and Estate cards asap, buy tons of Silver/Gold, then go for the Duchy/Provinces? I played this game hundreds of times against the AI when that fan-made app was free on the iPhone, and I recall doing this almost every single game. Even in the base game, the diferent realm cards can give you some alternatives. For example, missing a Chapel means no trashing, and Remodeling early in the game means your deck will slow down too much and lose to Big Money (the "buy a bunch of Silver and Gold and then go for VPs" strategy you talk about). Another example: you have no defense on that deck so you're going to lose aganist a few Militia/Witch cards. And that's before talking expansions, which give you more options. Basically, Dominion hasn't been solved yet.
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Dec 17, 2014 08:56
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Vegetable posted:I just bought Dominion. Is the strategy really as straightforward as I recall it: Trash the Copper and Estate cards asap, buy tons of Silver/Gold, then go for the Duchy/Provinces? I played this game hundreds of times against the AI when that fan-made app was free on the iPhone, and I recall doing this almost every single game. Haha, no. Or rather, you've grasped the most entry level of strategy for the game. What you're describing is commonly called the "robo-money" strategy, and it's essentially the speed test for a given kingdom. A deck that buys nothing but Silver, Gold, and a little card-draw or trashing will usually take four Provinces by turn 15, if another player doesn't interfere with attacks or other effects. So any deck you build should either work faster than Robo-Money, or have ways of slowing Robo-Money down. Robo-Money is a perfect example of what game designers call a FOO (First Order Optimal) strategy, a strategy with a low-skill in to high-power out ratio. They're actually extremely useful for new players, since they give you a solid handle to grip when you're learning the game. But you're meant to move beyond them when you encounter a level of play that outstrips it. And unfortunately, writing an AI for Dominion is hard. (Or rather, writing an AI that functions for variable setup is hard. Some kingdoms are functionally solvable to a script, but it takes a website full of nerds pounding on it for a couple years to refine an optimal script, as in the link above.) Well beyond the scope of your average unofficial fan program. So you were probably never forced to move beyond your FOO strategy and see the game underneath the tutorial level. Play Dominion against an experienced player, and I guarantee it will be a different experience altogether.
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Dec 17, 2014 08:59
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Yeah, I skated by most of that first game I played without picking up any moats because while a couple people bought militias early on nobody bought as many as I did and we eventually hit a point where nobody wanted to play any in favor of using their actions to play villages/markets/mines, but I can absolutely tell that with more aggressive players and the curse deck in play that I would want to grab some defenses early on.
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Dec 17, 2014 09:00
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ConfusedUs posted:I mentioned in this thread that we've half-heartedly pretended a virus was zombies in Pandemic. Hi Felicia!
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Dec 17, 2014 09:08
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Just got 'Il Sesto Senso' (the Italian version of Mysterium). The Dixit-like cards look nice and it seems that they are smartly designed (ie they could reference a number of different thing and are intentionally misleading by themselves), which could counter the replay-ability issues that I'm worried about. Gonna give it a spin tonight and report. Along with the game came a sealed envelope with the name of the game on one side and "Don't open this until you have won at least 10 games" on the other 
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Dec 17, 2014 13:58
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Dixit Legacy
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Dec 17, 2014 14:19
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Speaking of which, what's the thread's opinion on "Legacy" games? I followed a LP of Risk Legacy (that didn't get through all the content, as far as I remember), and found it very cool. Me and my gaming group absolutely love Pandemic, and I was thinking that maybe I should get Pandemic: Legacy next year. Will I be a horrible person who supports bad games if I do so? 
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Dec 17, 2014 14:25
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It's just going to be a card that says "NERD" on it. No, but in all seriousness, Mysterium sounds like a neat idea, but aside from the replayability issue (which sounds from your description at least potentially alleviated), I'm wondering how much fun the Spirit will end up having. It sounds like the co-op aspect adds a lot of passivity to the gameplay on that player's side, as opposed to other asymmetric deduction-type games where the solo player is usually an antagonist of some sort and can at least spend his time devising a plan for how to thwart the players next turn. But in this, since you get a fresh hand of Dream cards, it sounds like you can't really do that?
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Dec 17, 2014 14:27
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Well, it's a different type of game, since it is a full co-op experience. As the ghost, you are trying to help the investigators are much as possible. So the fun comes in attempting to play combination of cards on a particular investigator that will allow him to deduce the who/where/how as quickly as possible. You have to take into account how the investigator will analyse the clue. Also, the game states that as soon as you place cards for one player, the players can already start discussing it, so there isn't as much downtime because while they think about one set of cards you gave them, you can start to think about how to use your cards to give clues to the next investigator. Also, there's the fun of watching the investigators get completely sidetracked when you didn't spot a detail in the card you gave them that points in completely the opposite way 
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Dec 17, 2014 14:48
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Does it use the same art as the Eastern European versions? I heard new art was being commissioned for the French version...
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Dec 17, 2014 14:53
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Oh yeah, all the figuring out what cards to give to people and enjoying the confusion and all that sounds like a great experience. I guess I'm tainted by playing with people who like to overanalyze things and would probably take 20 minutes analyzing the cards while the Spirit sits in silence growing increasingly more frustrated that he's not doing anything.
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Dec 17, 2014 15:06
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Kai Tave posted:Yeah, I skated by most of that first game I played without picking up any moats because while a couple people bought militias early on nobody bought as many as I did and we eventually hit a point where nobody wanted to play any in favor of using their actions to play villages/markets/mines, but I can absolutely tell that with more aggressive players and the curse deck in play that I would want to grab some defenses early on. You really want to avoid the situation where you have more actions than you can use. If you have five cards in your hand but one is a dead Action card and one is an Estate you started off with, then effectively you just have a 3-card hand. So you Militiaed yourself and paid money to do it! Think how much better off you'd be if that card were a Silver or something else you can use. Occasionally this happens by simple bad luck but it shouldn't happen to the extent you have to plan around it. McNerd fucked around with this message at 15:15 on Dec 17, 2014 |
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Dec 17, 2014 15:08
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Hyper Crab Tank posted:Oh yeah, all the figuring out what cards to give to people and enjoying the confusion and all that sounds like a great experience. I guess I'm tainted by playing with people who like to overanalyze things and would probably take 20 minutes analyzing the cards while the Spirit sits in silence growing increasingly more frustrated that he's not doing anything. Just watch Richard misinterpreting all the clues his wife's giving him: http://youtu.be/vxh4oB0ATrI
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Dec 17, 2014 16:08
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Rexides posted:Speaking of which, what's the thread's opinion on "Legacy" games? I followed a LP of Risk Legacy (that didn't get through all the content, as far as I remember), and found it very cool. Me and my gaming group absolutely love Pandemic, and I was thinking that maybe I should get Pandemic: Legacy next year. Will I be a horrible person who supports bad games if I do so? Risk legacy is 10x better than risk. Risk is real bad though, so that's not saying much. When my group did risk legacy we basically engineered situations that would allow us to modify the board. After a few "oh poo poo!" Moments we'd be all excited to play again until we realized each time it was still risk. Just a little better.
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Dec 17, 2014 16:18
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FISHMANPET posted:I gave Stonemaier Games $239 today, for Viticulture, Tuscany, the metal coins, and Euphoria. I know the conversation about Jamey Stegmaier's customer service was from a few pages back but I just wanted to mention how ridiculously on-top of things that guy is Someone on BGG noticed there was a misprint in Tuscany that Jamey didn't see from the proofs (from what I can tell it was a "mirroring" issue, and minorly affects the gameplay) - and when he realized his mistake he made a video talking about it and apologizing, posted a bunch of options for people to "fix it" and then AFTER all of those things decided to send anyone a sticker sheet to correct the mistake at a cost to himself - and REFUSING to let people pay him for it. From the latest email he seems to have compromised with people that seem to just want to throw money at him by accepting that people will increase their pledge on the next game...
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Dec 17, 2014 17:49
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How are Viticulture and Euphoria as games?
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Dec 17, 2014 18:00
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Deceptive Thinker posted:I know the conversation about Jamey Stegmaier's customer service was from a few pages back but I just wanted to mention how ridiculously on-top of things that guy is If their next game is Scythe, that sounds pretty exciting. But yeah, I'm really impressed by the service, even though I am afraid that the game itself (Viticulture/Tuscany) will kinda bore me.
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Dec 17, 2014 18:01
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It bored me. I just think Archon has become my worker placement game of choice, and neither of his offerings came close to displacing it.
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Dec 17, 2014 18:24
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echoMateria posted:Just watch Richard misinterpreting all the clues his wife's giving him: http://youtu.be/vxh4oB0ATrI Oh god, I got to agree though, those associations were pretty bad (fisher of men? what?), and I know the red/white card made me think of how the colors are arranged on the nun card... but then she turned it upside-down and nope, that wasn't what she had in mind. ... but it did make me want to play the game, so there's that.
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Dec 17, 2014 18:30
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GrandpaPants posted:If their next game is Scythe, that sounds pretty exciting. But yeah, I'm really impressed by the service, even though I am afraid that the game itself (Viticulture/Tuscany) will kinda bore me. The next game is Between Two Cities, and it's the first Stonemaier game that he hasn't designed himself. KS begins next month. Everyone in my group who has tried Euphoria and/or Viticulture likes them, or at least thinks they're OK if not what they'd rush to play. Both games have the added bonus of scaling well to six players without taking geological time to play. It's also pretty hard to get bored playing base Viticulture as the game usually runs fewer than ten turns.
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Dec 17, 2014 18:38
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I'm excited for Viticulture because it's wine themed and my wife loves wine so maybe if I give her enough wine I can convince her to play with me. RE: Legacy games, ls "Legacy" a brand or just a concept? And either way what other "Legacy" games are there besides Risk? Looking at the Kickstarter, for Tuscany (Viticulture expansion) it sort of has a Legacy feel to it, because it wants you to slowly add expansions in over time. But I thought it was a Hasbro trademark and all they'd released was Risk: Legacy. But now I see Pandemic Legacy is a real thing, but will it actually be called Pandemic Legacy, or something else?
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Dec 17, 2014 18:41
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