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Rutibex posted:Talisman is the Icecream sandwich of games, lots of calories and zero nutrition. 
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Mar 8, 2015 17:33
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Also, played my copy Argent yesterday. Dammit, I really wanted to like this but I think it's suffering from Level99 syndrome: neat idea that kept growing instead of having an editor come in and chop away the cruft. There's a lot of interesting ideas in the game: Worker placement with unique abilities, conflict in the form of fighting over action slots, the endgame having random victory conditions that you have expend resources to reveal over the course of the game. Ultimately though, the game just collapses under the weight of all the poo poo they just kept piling on. In a typical game you have: - A unique starting spell for each player - 6 different worker types - 10 room tiles, most of which have 4 separate slots with unique placement requirements and/or rewards - Items which are all unique - Supporters which are all unique - Spells, each with three different levels of spell on them - Legendary spells - Resources to track: Gold Mana Marks Merit Badges Wisdom Intelligence Influence Points The victory conditions (of which there are 12) Complicated is fine, but what kills this game for me is there are so many places where it could have been streamlined to little loss. For example, there are Intelligence counters, which let you learn spells, Wisdom counters, which let you level up spells. Why not just condense all of that down into one token type? The other major problem is the actual card text/rulebook. There's a distinct lack of technical writing, which means there is a ton of stuff that is unclear/flat out not answered. The game has been out less than a month and there are already a 3 pages of rules questions on BGG, a 3 page FAQ thread, and a dedicated manual rewrite in the works from a frustrated user. I was gonna write more but now I'm bummed out. Crackbone fucked around with this message at 17:36 on Mar 8, 2015 |
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Mar 8, 2015 17:34
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Rutibex posted:Talisman is the Icecream sandwich of games, lots of calories and zero nutrition. No, because an ice cream sandwich has substance. It's more like salmiakki-flavored cotton candy, and I think that might be giving it too much credit.
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Mar 8, 2015 17:36
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So has anyone else played Homeland? The description above sounded great
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Mar 8, 2015 18:04
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tarbrush posted:So has anyone else played Homeland? The description above sounded great Yeah I'm interested in playing it now too, especially if it has zero spoilers for the show.
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Mar 8, 2015 18:20
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Crackbone posted:
I think this'll vary according to taste, naturally, but I can see an argument for why you want INT and WIS separated: 1) Spells (and the schools you learn them from) count towards Voter conditions (school supremacy). Being able to acquire multiple spells of different schools lets you spread out your breadth of potential Voter satisfaction. They also give you essentially an extra action choice, which can be very flexible and powerful. So you'll naturally want to acquire a ton of them if possible. Hence, INT is a great resource for voter spread, acquiring spells before your opponent can get them, upping the breadth of your action options. 2) Upgraded spells obviously give much more powerful effects (albeit at a greater cost) within a certain type of action. They also tend to give you a better chance of getting a single school's supremacy. So, WIS is great for upgrading the spells that you've already acquired and locking down your chances of getting a single school's voter, or multiple schools if you gain enough WIS BUT: 3) Having the resources separated means you can't reach spam out to gain a bunch of spells early in the game with a single resource and then improve them all with that same resource. Splitting it up makes you have to work to gain both depth and breadth (likely to the exclusion of other resources) whereas having it be a single resource would likely make the Spell game too powerful compared to other resources and rewards in the game. I personally like the pain that occasionally arises when I have a ton of WIS that I've stockpiled to improve my awesome spells but I'm *just* shy that one INT I need when the perfect additional spell flips. But I can see why it might be off-putting.
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Mar 8, 2015 18:46
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thespaceinvader posted:It's a fun filler-length word game and a great gateway game, but it's not a lot more than that. But for the price, and the size, it really doesn't need to be. I played paperback once and I didn't like it. It's possible that it was because we were playing late at night and I was playing with a bunch of min-maxers who are largely not good at word games(myself included), but the game dragged on and on because everyone was trying to get all their synergies working every turn and then someone would play an attack and everyone would try to re-optimize all their moves again. By the time the game ended everyone was more than ready for it to be over. It's a really cool concept, though.
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Mar 8, 2015 18:48
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Ultimately my point is there's already a ton of tension from other points of the game. A solid streamlining would make the game more accessible, less AP-prone, and play faster without losing much. The line for "fiddly" is subjective, but Argent is way over my persona line. It doesn't help that the rules/card text is pretty lousy, which makes it even harder to grasp.
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Mar 8, 2015 19:07
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Crackbone posted:Ultimately my point is there's already a ton of tension from other points of the game. A solid streamlining would make the game more accessible, less AP-prone, and play faster without losing much. The line for "fiddly" is subjective, but Argent is way over my persona line. It doesn't help that the rules/card text is pretty lousy, which makes it even harder to grasp. Huh. I agree the rules could have used another pass for clarity, but the card text is, imo, about as straightforward as you can get. We read aloud every new Supporter, Spell, or Vault card as they're drawn and I've yet to see any of my players confused. It does seem to be pretty divisive, though. In my local (Seattle) gaming chat and among my friends, the reactions seem to trend pretty strongly towards either outright love or quick distaste. I've only seen one or two people say they've played and give a moderate to meh opinion.
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Mar 8, 2015 19:11
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I played Puzzle Strike for the first time, and it seems really fun. The instruction book isn't well written at all, and doesn't lay stuff out in a very easy to understand manner. I'm mainly confused RE: the different actions you get per turn. Do you start with a red arrow / purple arrow, etc, like you start with a black arrow? Or do you have to play actions that generate those arrows?
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Mar 8, 2015 19:19
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sector_corrector posted:I played Puzzle Strike for the first time, and it seems really fun. The instruction book isn't well written at all, and doesn't lay stuff out in a very easy to understand manner. I'm mainly confused RE: the different actions you get per turn. Do you start with a red arrow / purple arrow, etc, like you start with a black arrow? Or do you have to play actions that generate those arrows? You start with one arrow that you can use for any color and that's it as far as actions.
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Mar 8, 2015 19:21
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You start with a Black arrow and nothing else. Also, while this doesn't excuse any mistakes in the manual, if you want to learn the game with 100% certainty that you're playing right, you should play a few games against bots at the Fantasy Strike homepage. It's rules-enforced and very clear when you generate things like arrows.
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Mar 8, 2015 19:21
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Ok, that's the way we played it because it made the most sense, but apart from saying that there are different color arrows, I don't think it ever mentions the fact that black = everything. Anyway, I like the way that it takes a lot of the same ideas as Dominion and changes them around in a fairly satisfying way. The chips are also much easier to deal with than a deck.
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Mar 8, 2015 19:25
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Oh, I had another question that I didn't find an answer for in the book... What's a ! chip? That's attack chips at least, right? Is it also special power chips from your character?
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Mar 8, 2015 19:30
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Tiny Chalupa posted:We can agree to disagree. I feel dominion is eh. Way too much bloat for a really basic game. What exactly do you mean by "bloated"? Do you mean "I don't like this game, why would they make expansions for a game I dislike", or do you actually think the mechanics are bloated somehow?
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Mar 8, 2015 19:34
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sector_corrector posted:Oh, I had another question that I didn't find an answer for in the book... What's a ! chip? That's attack chips at least, right? Is it also special power chips from your character? ! Chips specifically have that symbol in their banner. There are actually only two of them: one in the base game (Master Puzzler) and one in the Shadows expansion (can't remember the name). They're super powerful so they're marked differently to prevent abusive combos.
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Mar 8, 2015 19:39
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JoshTheStampede posted:I cannot imagine what three people were doing to make KoT last an hour+. Usually I give it a pass on player elimination because it goes so fast once people start dropping dead. One guy wound up as a sidekick so it was 2v1 but just focused on energy to deny the other player good cards since he was terrified of winding up in a position of hitting his teammate, the single player had a jetpack so she could avoid damage easily, and everyone kept rolling hearts and healing up (while outside Tokyo). Then the sidekick got random mutation, stole the jetpack, and never attacked again lest she take it back. That was about the time I sat there staring at a ceiling fan figuring out if I could make it spin backwards without consciously blinking. Turns out I can, if only for a few moments, something about the shadows and peripheral vision. With how much the single player was in Tokyo I'm gonna assume they were forgetting to award stars once they got focused on killing each other. E: I also have an issue with sloppy wording on some powers. Burrowing says "deal 1 extra damage on Tokyo" and if it said "[...] damage while on Tokyo" (which other cards use) it would mean the opposite. I think a synonym like "against" would have been appropriate there. Bruceski fucked around with this message at 19:47 on Mar 8, 2015 |
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Mar 8, 2015 19:40
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Lottery of Babylon posted:What exactly do you mean by "bloated"? Do you mean "I don't like this game, why would they make expansions for a game I dislike", or do you actually think the mechanics are bloated somehow? I don't think he can explain that usage, probably won't respond to you or the other 6 people that said the same.
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Mar 8, 2015 19:53
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KoT depends on the group I'm playing with. Some go easy, and don't do much attacking. Some go hard, and attack as much as possible. Lots of attacks definitely speed the game up over all.
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Mar 8, 2015 19:57
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Dominion is too bloated with mechanical depth (actions as a resource?  ), and at the same time it's too basic. It's lacking basic features that we've now come to expect from deckbuilders:- It doesn't have enough different resources. I'd recommend Donald X in addition to money, also adds resources like "swords", "diamonds" and "fairy dust". We gamers like a good challenge, and there's nothing more challenging than not drawing enough of any one resource to buy anything. - Random rotating markets. I think it goes without saying that more randomness is better, as it gives the less-skilled player a chance to randomly win, and it also helps with those few hands where you draw a lot of the same resource (broken!) by filling the market with crap that needs a different resource. As a stopgap fix for Dominion, instead of using a random or cherrypicked selection of piles, I suggest taking all the cards in the box, shuffling them together into one huge deck, and dealing out six or seven of them at a time (any more than that would give too many options and cause analysis paralysis) in a market row. It's not perfect (see previous point about too few different resources) but it's a big improvement over staring at 10 piles of cards like a deer in headlights. - Bad theme. It should instead have a good theme like D&D or Warhammer 40k, or preferably Cthulhu Zombies. This improvement alone would put the fun factor through the roof. - Lack of combos. I looked through all the cards and there were no combos printed on them. What's the point of playing a card game if the cards don't combo off each other? Donald X needs to get off his rear end and do a new version where the Smithy gives you +3 swords if you play a Village before it. Until then Dominion will be a game for only the most casual of scrublords. - No interaction. This is simple to fix, just add a HP resource and allow the players to attack each other with certain cards. When you run out of HP you're eliminated. This ups the stakes and makes the game more exciting for everyone.
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Mar 8, 2015 20:10
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For me personally, I just play Big Money strategy in Dominion, amass property, and rarely touch any other cards if I can help it. Making the really complex turns for an end result I could do a much easier way kind of bores me, honestly. I understand it, I recognize it's a well structured game, I'm just not a fan in general of the pacing or theme and it's one of those games where the longer the game is, the less I care if I win. Yet I realize on big game nights at friends' places I'm probably going to have to play it anyway several more times in my life, which is why I'm always on the lookout for better games that can be played with ~10 people, like the Coup expansion.
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Mar 8, 2015 20:20
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Whew. I played a six player game of someone else's copy of Firefly. Sheesh - more randomness than I would like, and it took forever to get around to being my turn, despite never really getting much done on my turn. Maybe it's better with fewer players, but it really does just seem like whoever gets lucky with card draws will win the game. I think by the end we were all just glad for it to end.
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Mar 8, 2015 20:36
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sticklefifer posted:For me personally, I just play Big Money strategy in Dominion, amass property, and rarely touch any other cards if I can help it. I guess somebody has to be the pace car.
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Mar 8, 2015 20:38
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Best decks are Gardens decks, make your deck as lovely as possible and still win.
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Mar 8, 2015 20:39
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sticklefifer posted:For me personally, I just play Big Money strategy in Dominion, amass property, and rarely touch any other cards if I can help it. Making the really complex turns for an end result I could do a much easier way kind of bores me, honestly. I understand it, I recognize it's a well structured game, I'm just not a fan in general of the pacing or theme and it's one of those games where the longer the game is, the less I care if I win. Yet I realize on big game nights at friends' places I'm probably going to have to play it anyway several more times in my life, which is why I'm always on the lookout for better games that can be played with ~10 people, like the Coup expansion. Literally the entire point of the game is to build a deck that gives a better end result than Big Money. If you're not even attempting to do that, then you're not actually playing the goddamn game; you're just pissing around waiting for it to end. And I, too, find games that I won't bother to put in the effort to play kinda boring. Also, just how many people at once have you been playing Dominion with if "~10 people" is even in the same paragraph?
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Mar 8, 2015 20:49
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GrandpaPants posted:In Alien Frontiers, I've never felt the need to adapt too much to other people's strategies since so much of the game revolves around throwing down the dice. After a handful of games, each game of Alien Frontiers just feels the same as the last, since your decisions are almost entirely gated through your dice roll results (pending a few of the technology cards) and the routes to victory are clear as day. I used to feel the same way and thought Alien Frontiers was kind of dull, but it has grown on me since playing against AIs on iOS. Playing against the computers has forced me to change my playstyle and become far more flexible. I won for the first time in a game against high-level AIs last night 
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Mar 8, 2015 20:52
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Paper Kaiju posted:Literally the entire point of the game is to build a deck that gives a better end result than Big Money. If you're not even attempting to do that, then you're not actually playing the goddamn game; you're just pissing around waiting for it to end. And I, too, find games that I won't bother to put in the effort to play kinda boring. Probably four, if he's looking for the Coup expansion. It implies they have six people or thereabouts playing a short game and the remainder need another short game to fill in.
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Mar 8, 2015 21:00
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Paper Kaiju posted:Literally the entire point of the game is to build a deck that gives a better end result than Big Money. If you're not even attempting to do that, then you're not actually playing the goddamn game; you're just pissing around waiting for it to end. And I, too, find games that I won't bother to put in the effort to play kinda boring. I'm pretty sure people use "big money" to describe buying limited actions, not literally none, and that's as much a strategy as anything else. I'm the same way, I like having a few powerful cards rather than a "dream combo," and I pretty much play that way in every game.
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Mar 8, 2015 21:06
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sector_corrector posted:KoT depends on the group I'm playing with. Some go easy, and don't do much attacking. Some go hard, and attack as much as possible. Lots of attacks definitely speed the game up over all. KoT is susceptible to a 3 player scenario where any outsider player who focuses on attacks instead of hearts to knock one player out is then at the mercy of the other player to kill them and win. The player in Tokyo rolls for claws, the other two roll for hearts, repeat a dozen times until Tokyo has a good claws roll or somebody wins on points.
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Mar 8, 2015 21:09
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Gort posted:Whew. I played a six player game of someone else's copy of Firefly. Sheesh - more randomness than I would like, and it took forever to get around to being my turn, despite never really getting much done on my turn. Maybe it's better with fewer players, but it really does just seem like whoever gets lucky with card draws will win the game. Yup, total loving garbage game.
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Mar 8, 2015 21:10
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Memnaelar posted:Huh. I agree the rules could have used another pass for clarity, but the card text is, imo, about as straightforward as you can get. We read aloud every new Supporter, Spell, or Vault card as they're drawn and I've yet to see any of my players confused. It's not that the text itself is confusing, it's the lack of technical writing skills and/or clarifications about interactions, combined with the volume of stuff. At any given point you have 8-10 rooms, 10 voters, 3 spells with 3 levels, 3 vault items, 5 supporters, each doing different things, and that's not counting the items you've already procured or your current resource count. It's an AP nightmare, and I just can't guarantee I'm not going to be playing with people who won't take 10 minutes staring at the drat table every time their turn comes around. You could easily have dropped 20-30% of things in the game and ended up with a tighter, cleaner ruleset with less to get bogged down in. Combine INT and WIS, make spells 2 levels only, combine Gold and Mana into the same resource, make all supporters immediately give their benefit when drawn, kill merit badges as a gating mechanism - almost all of this would result in little functional difference in game mechanics except to make it more about important choices and less about trying to memorize the current boardstate. Crackbone fucked around with this message at 21:23 on Mar 8, 2015 |
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Mar 8, 2015 21:18
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I know Munchkin is kind of eyeroll for most board game veterans, but my wife really liked the idea of buying the Adventure Time version. Anyone know any good rule modifications to make the game like snappier and less drag on for loving forever like most Munchkin games? I'm worried she'll absolutely hate it the first time she tries playing it. Rule modifications besides just not playing it I mean.
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Mar 8, 2015 21:55
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Somebody had a prestige system that bolted on to make the game less rear end, but I don't have a link unfortunately
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Mar 8, 2015 22:01
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jeeves posted:I'm worried she'll absolutely hate it the first time she tries playing it. Why on earth would you be worried about that? That is the logical response to Munchkin.
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Mar 8, 2015 22:10
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jeeves posted:I know Munchkin is kind of eyeroll for most board game veterans, but my wife really liked the idea of buying the Adventure Time version. Anyone know any good rule modifications to make the game like snappier and less drag on for loving forever like most Munchkin games? I'm worried she'll absolutely hate it the first time she tries playing it. Just buy the Cryptozoic Adventure Time card game. It's not really a shining jewel but it's leagues better than Munchkin. https://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/144728/adventure-time-card-wars-finn-vs-jake
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Mar 8, 2015 22:16
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Oh man I never thought I'd see this emoticon outside of the Australian Politics thread.
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Mar 8, 2015 22:24
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bobvonunheil posted:Oh man I never thought I'd see this emoticon outside of the Australian Politics thread.
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Mar 8, 2015 22:26
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Crackbone posted:Also, played my copy Argent yesterday. Dammit, I really wanted to like this but I think it's suffering from Level99 syndrome: neat idea that kept growing instead of having an editor come in and chop away the cruft.... I don't really think the mechanics overload is inherently bad, so there's most likely bias with what I'm about to say. The first play of Argent I had I couldn't tell if it all its mechanics came together into something worthwhile or was just a mess of ideas crushed together. After a few plays I'm confident there is a richness here that does benefit from its complexity. There was already the point made of INT and WIS counters having a reason for being separate. The complaints about unique card effects is pretty accurate...with all Level99 games. The more I mess with their published products, the more I wish they could create consistent iconography in their designs. quote:The other major problem is the actual card text/rulebook. There's a distinct lack of technical writing, which means there is a ton of stuff that is unclear/flat out not answered. The game has been out less than a month and there are already a 3 pages of rules questions on BGG, a 3 page FAQ thread, and a dedicated manual rewrite in the works from a frustrated user. Speaking of consistent and communicative rules, yeah, Argent (and BattleCON for that matter) is awful at clarity. I think there's not too much here that can't be handled with a "house rule on the spot" handwave, but YMMV. If this type of stuffs is insufferable for you, I would heavily recommend waiting for a proper reprint (or at least time for a good FAQ/Errata pdf to release). TL;DR: Argent does suffer from a lot of problems that Level99 games published products do in regards to clarity of graphics design (so much unique mechanics text... on tiny one-sided cards...) and rules ambiguities at the smaller stuff.
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Mar 8, 2015 22:27
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I'm thinking of getting Archipelago. I've seen it mentioned several times in this thread and it seems to be well regarded. My friends and I tend to go for more non-confrontational games, which usually means co-op. We're open to all kinds of games though, provided it doesn't take a week to learn the rules. Is Archipelago very number-crunchy or AP-inducing? I understand Dead of Winter does similar things in terms of mixing co-op and versus, but apparently poorly. What does Archipelago do better than DoW in this regard? Are the expansions any good? I like the idea of a solo puzzle of sorts. Also: how much text is there on the components (including expansions)? I assume English rules can be downloaded from BGG or elsewhere. Sorry for the pile of questions. Here's a trip report, since that's a thing: I went to a friend's house and we played a couple of games to pass time. First we tried to solve a mystery in Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective, which was great. Even though it's perhaps not a board game in the truest sense, I love it dearly for all the pondering and A-HA! moments it brings. Hanabi was alright, although my being a bit hungover caused me to make a few blunders - we usually manage to get high scores. Then we tried our hand in saving a sinking Soviet gnome submarine in Red November. My friend passed out from drinking vodka halfway through (in the game that is) and although I and another friend did a last-ditch Hail Mary attempt to stop the missile launch, everything went to poo poo all the same. It isn't a brilliant game, but I like the theme and the desperate juggling of crises around the poor old sub. Also vodka. Finally we played Forbidden Island. I played for the first time and although I had fun and there were some great moments, I probably would have liked a little more complexity (I understand Forbidden Desert is better in this regard). Very much a family game, I'd say.
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Mar 8, 2015 22:31
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Does anyone know where I can get the Mage Knight Lost Legion Vassal Module? I cannot seem to locate it.
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Mar 8, 2015 22:46
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