|
I edited it to lump Timmy and Vorthos together since in designer games that's basically the recipe for "ameritrash" (and less controversially, most war gamers). You could probably tease apart the two with further analysis. For example Cosmic Encounter isn't very Vorthos but feels Timmy as gently caress with a slight streak of Johnny. Likewise, some traditional war games aren't very Timmy but are pure Vorthos crack, if you mutate the definition of Vorthos to include real life. Simulation games in general seem like they fit a different archetype that's not catered to by Magic Edir: I'm realizing that Dominion basically caters to all the archetypes to some extent, just like Magic, except Vorthos. I'm also realizing that Dominion feels more like drafting Cube magic or other limited formats, and has less in common with other designer board games that evolved from Catan/Risk For me at least, Dominion has way more in common with a Magic:TG Cube than say Agricola or Puerto Rico, for example. The big Johnny appeal fozzy fosbourne fucked around with this message at 16:28 on Apr 6, 2015 |
# ? Apr 6, 2015 16:12 |
|
|
# ? May 14, 2024 23:05 |
|
I hate to admit it but a lot of what I like about wargames is probably a mix of Johnny and Vorthos with a little Melvin, in that I like games that take a period of history (preferably an underexplored one) and attempt to convey a sense of what happened there through its mechanics. COIN is a great example, the interactions between the factions are mechanically brilliant and also tell a story about the conflict. e: and yeah my favorite thing about Dominion is making dumb gimmicks work, I once tried to put together a deck using Chancellors and Adventurer.
|
# ? Apr 6, 2015 16:29 |
|
fozzy fosbourne posted:Dominion seems like a Johnny game with some Spike, too. Big Money is Spike as hell. I'm having a hard time coming up with other primarily Johnny board games. If the players take it seriously, Innovation is a Johnny game (never do this, especially not with 3+ players). Theme-light deduction games like Scotland Yard or Zendo match as well. I think creative games like Big Idea can also appeal to Johnnys. I think it's usually difficult for a pure-Johnny game to succeed, though. Board games are such a small market that a game almost always has to appeal to multiple demographics, and I seem to recall that Wizards' polling said that even within MTG Johnny only makes up about 10% of their player base.
|
# ? Apr 6, 2015 16:30 |
|
Yea, games that feel Timmy to me are games where you roll a buttload of dice. For example, Race for the Galaxy is a Johnny game, Roll for the Galaxy is a Johnny / Timmy game. A bit of a non-sequitur, can a co-op game appeal to Spike?
|
# ? Apr 6, 2015 16:31 |
|
Maybe LOTR LCG? I haven't played it that much.
|
# ? Apr 6, 2015 16:34 |
|
That's so
|
# ? Apr 6, 2015 16:47 |
|
For the board game thread, we should name our own archetypes (Rutibex/Broken Loose/Tekopo)
|
# ? Apr 6, 2015 16:50 |
|
Having a game night tonight and one extra person is dropping in last minute to make 6 total. A lot of my games have 5 max. Small World is very popular with this group but I don't have the 6 player board. How many extra spaces is it? Could I feasibly just do a print-n-play of some extra land tiles and tack them on?
|
# ? Apr 6, 2015 16:57 |
|
KomradeX posted:
Why would you quote my entire megapost just to ask that question?
|
# ? Apr 6, 2015 16:57 |
|
jmzero posted:I don't think I've ever taken it in a Blitz game; it certainly feels like something you want to take early in a long game (but I also might not be valuing correctly). Overall I wish I had more big blocks of time to play Mage Knight; I enjoy blitzes enough, but I think the game is better geared towards longer play sessions. I think the issue of trashing/not-trashing is just the fact that Mage Knight has such a variety of setup possibilities. So, like Dominion, not only do you have random sets of cards available, but you also have a board that changes the relative value of each of those cards. On top of that Mage Knight has a modular variant scenario system, which can have drastic effects on your strategy as well. Trashing may be good in a 2-player co-op blitz, but bad in a 4 player Volkares camp scenario, with the Magic Groves variant turned on, etc. Figuring that out for each particular play is part of the appeal of Mage Knight. It is so variable that it is impossible to "solve" Mage Knight with a single tried and true optimal strategy.
|
# ? Apr 6, 2015 17:28 |
|
Wait, how is King of New York in the bad games crew. I mean sure it's not perfect, but it's not Dungeon Quest BAD Also poor Tekopo... couldnt have given him a bad war game no one's heard of or something?
|
# ? Apr 6, 2015 18:29 |
|
NRVNQSR posted:If the players take it seriously, Innovation is a Johnny game (never do this, especially not with 3+ players). Theme-light deduction games like Scotland Yard or Zendo match as well. I think creative games like Big Idea can also appeal to Johnnys. You don't have to take Innovation seriously for it to be Johnny -- a big part of being Johnny is that you don't necessarily care if you win as long as you get to do some big impressive thing (otherwise they'd just be Spike). Most deckbuilders that support huge chains of actions can be Johnny -- Dominion, Ascension, Star Realms, Puzzle Strike, etc. Seasons is very Johnny. Engine building games like Agricola and even Puerto Rico can also be pretty Johnny. I have strong Johnny tendencies so I'm just digging around in my brain for games that have evoked that feeling.
|
# ? Apr 6, 2015 18:29 |
|
blackmongoose posted:For the board game thread, we should name our own archetypes (Rutibex/Broken Loose/Tekopo) Only if 2011 Tekopo and 2015 Tekopo are different archetypes. Or maybe the transition could be an archetype? Probably too much thought for something that's gonna end up being super fucky goony in execution.
|
# ? Apr 6, 2015 18:31 |
|
Someone should make an alignment chart. I'm actually kind of impressed with how well those topic flags work together as a makeshift tag.
|
# ? Apr 6, 2015 18:33 |
|
Bonk posted:Having a game night tonight and one extra person is dropping in last minute to make 6 total. A lot of my games have 5 max. The Necromancer promo squeezes a sixth asymmetric player into the game, and the extra components required are minimal/replicable. Edit: What the hell is a Vorthos? Did I skim past something important or did I just have a stroke?
|
# ? Apr 6, 2015 18:39 |
|
Vorthos is theme-first guy
|
# ? Apr 6, 2015 18:43 |
|
Dre2Dee2 posted:Also poor Tekopo... couldnt have given him a bad war game no one's heard of or something? Labyrinth: The War on Terror would have been the ideal.
|
# ? Apr 6, 2015 18:51 |
|
Or Campaign for North Africa
|
# ? Apr 6, 2015 18:53 |
|
I'm just happy to be on the left wing of the spectrum As far as the Magic scale, I am 100% Johnny. I'm often thinking about ways to tinker with a games rules before I even play it for the first time. I always made twice as many Magic decks as I ever played with, just for the fun of creating weird, unworkable, combo engines. I spend more time working on, and finding cool homebrew boardgame projects to make than I actually play My next P&P is going to be Barbarian Prince I think. It looks like it's in the same vein as Tales of the Arabian Nights, a kind of choose your own adventure. Has anyone tried it before? http://dwarfstar.brainiac.com/ds_barbarianprince.html Rutibex fucked around with this message at 18:56 on Apr 6, 2015 |
# ? Apr 6, 2015 18:54 |
|
On the topic of making Magic decks, are there any good wargames or wargamelikes that use pre-battle army construction (other than miniatures)?
|
# ? Apr 6, 2015 18:55 |
|
StashAugustine posted:On the topic of making Magic decks, are there any good wargames or wargamelikes that use pre-battle army construction (other than miniatures)? Mage Wars, though it's more of a skirmish than a "war game".
|
# ? Apr 6, 2015 18:57 |
|
Went for 4 days of boardgaming, here's a quick listing of all the stuff I played: Equinox: It's a pretty simple two play tile-laying game, where the aim is to get hexes to be in your colour. It was alright: slightly random but it wasn't bad. Not something I would buy but there is a pretty good level of decisions to make. I think once you know the tiles available the game does become better. Pax Porfiriana: Still an awesome game. Managed to win on the third topple after I got given a few outrage, getting enough money to both buy the topple and Teddy Roosevelt. Game was awesome as always. Can't recommend it enough. Race for the Galaxy: Rftg really has grown off me to be honest. It was alright to play and I managed to do well but the game just doesn't seem to interest me as much as I used to. I think there was a bunch of expansions and we used goals (I don't really understand the purpose of goals to be honest). Knockout: Filler game from Victory Flag games. You play gentlemen fighters trying to knock each other out. When you punch someone, they get less cards, meaning that they are more likely to lose. It plays relatively quick but the game feels kind of uninspired. X-Com: Played twice, once as the Scientist, once as a Squad Leader. Game was BOOOOOOORING. It felt like the game was playing me rather than me playing the game. Felt like I was just reacting to stuff rather than making choices. Scientist gave you the choice of doing stuff at least. Having everything end up being the exact same mechanism (for combat or research) feels really uninspired. Game seems to snowball either as a loss or win, with no middle ground. It just felt really flat and boring. It wasn't exactly a bad game, it's just a boring design with some novelty added thanks to the app. Pairs: A Pub game by James Earnest. Feels a lot like blackjack to some extent. On your turn, you either ask for a card or pick one (discarding the cards in front of you). If you ever get a pair, you get that card as points. The points on a card is both the points value of it and how many of them are in the deck. If you reach X number of points, you lose. Quick playing and quite fun. Greenland: Its the first time I tried this Phil Eklund game: it has a few things that remind me of Pax Pro, but you are desperately trying to survive while scoring points. Lots of chrome, as the standard for Eklund games. Meticulously researched. Would recommend since it is a very weird and interesting experience. Neue Heimat: City building game/block auction game. Can be extremely dickish when playing with the right group. Was hilarious but I'm bad at auction games. Modern Art: It's modern art. Probably the only auction game I am good at. Sell paintings, act like an art snob to make the game better. One of the few Knizia games I actually like. Guildhall:I can't remember much of it, but basically you play different roles of different colours on your tableau and if you have more copies of a particular role, you get a more powerful effect. Once you get all 5 colours of a role, you gain the guild and can exchange it for points/powers. It wasn't bad, but didn't blow me away. Pictomania: The highlight of the weekend, played 3 games of it. I'm really bad at it but the game is so enjoyable. Everything works, the scoring system is really smart and encourages you to draw fast and well and make good guesses. I really can't recommend it enough. Loony Quest: Video-game like board game in which you draw a line on a transparency and then overlay it on a map, avoiding obstacles and scoring points. It was charming and it has a bunch of penalties that make the game harder. It still didn't exactly grab me. Machi Koro: This was probably the shittiest game I played the entire weekend. This game made me quit a game for the first time in about 5 years. We played the expansion with the Ascension-like market. People had Sushi Bars and I rolled a 1 three times in a row, losing me overall 12 coins. Couldn't roll two dice because i kept losing money and didn't have enough to build train stations. Even if I did, someone had built loads of restaurants from 6-10 and I would have lost money on them instead. This game is truly the worst poo poo ever, and I didn't even get in with a negative mindset, I WANTED to like it. Red7: A game a bit like fluxx, in that the winning rule changes all the time. The aim is to be always 'winning' at the end of your turn according to the current rule. I kind of like it but it does seem kind of random. Mushroom Eaters: This seemed really cool: a game that attempts to replicate the experience of eating 'shrooms and having a trip. You get 3D glasses that make the board look really trippy, but my eyes got tired half-way through and I had to take the 3D glasses off. Also, it is difficult to tell the difference between the player colours when the 3D glasses are now. The game itself is really loving boring and mundane though, in terms of mechanisms. You gain various things which are just VP points, you can lose them easily and therefore having them or not is completely meaningless. The game just consists of playing cards to move from 0 to 3 spaces (you can increase these with a resource as well), so the game is basically 'go on good stuff, avoid bad stuff'. By halfway through, everyone wanted it to end. Game was just boring and no one gave a poo poo who won at the end. Hanabi: It's Hanabi. I'm not a huge fan and we lost after taking a risk. Don't really know what to say that hasn't been said already before. Coconuts: You have a monkey-catapult which launches rubber/plastic coconuts into cups, you win if you have the most cups. You have some random event cards that you can play to make stuff easier. It was funny but I think I was forcing the laughs. Hamsterrolle : Dexterity game where you place stuff into a big wheel and the weight of the items makes it tiff. Get rid of all your stuff and you win. A pretty standard dexterity game without a good enough gimmick to make it actually good. Eggs of Ostrich: 3 Player card game in which you have to gather eggs into your sacks but you have to be careful that your sacks don't break (by having too many eggs in them). You basically get to decide which of your sacks to use or if to skip your go altogether (which makes it more likeyl that your opponents sacks get broken. It's a fairly okay 3P game. Star Wars Armada: I actually kind of liked it: played the imperials and the game felt suitably Star Warsy. My TIEs got ripped apart but my Victory Class Star Destroyers owned. Managed to win the game. Probably still won't buy in because I want to keep going in X-Wing and I like the competitive aspect of X-Wing. Cuba Libre: Played as the government. Game went really well, we ended up going to the last Propaganda card and everyone was in it till the end. 26 July managed to sneak in a win. If you can get a copy of it, I think this is the best introduction to the COIN series. Keyflower: I really liked it. Interesting worker placement/auction hybrid. I'm not sure about having the winter tiles being an open auction at the end: you can build up to something that you just don't get the points for at the end, but I don't mind the risk too much. Castles of Mad Ludwig: A better version of Suburbia. I like the castle building aspect of it more than the boring hexes of Suburbia. The auction system is also better. I really like the game even though I can't get my head around the auctions and always wing it because I can't be bothered to think about it too much. Leader 1 Hell of the North: THE best cycling game ever. Game really shines. It has everything that you would expect to be in competitive cycling, but the game is also really simple mechanistically. The way that the Peloton works, how you can break, how you have to use your cyclist together in order to help each other through segments, it all fits together really well. Managed 3rd place in my first race, and came in 1st on the second race after I did a miracle break right at the start and the others couldn't catch me up until the end. If you like cycling/racing/energy management games, I would recommend it. Wir Sind Das Volk: This is a simulation of the East/West Germany struggle, from the end of the war until the collapse of the Soviet Union. You either play as the East or the West and have to build up your part of Germany economically while keeping up your standard of living so that it doesn't reflect too negatively with the standard of living in the other part of the country. The game was very interesting but I dunno about the balance: the West has a hard time since they have to be constantly on the attack while the East just has to hold out. I'll probably buy my own copy, I think the balance (like Twilight Struggle) settles after a few games. Witness: It's a game of chinese whispers centered around solving crimes. It has a tin-tin like art (I think). It wasn't all that exciting. Room 25: Won as the traitor guard easily. Game is pretty boring to be honest and I almost won randomly. I love Cube but the game isn't as great as the film. Oregon: Meeple placement game in which you place based on a coordinate system. You gain points by going next to buildings. It has some interesting decisions but it feels overly random and every turn you are just making the best decision out of your combination of cards. Not much to the game. Empire Engine: The developer of the game came to the gaming weekend but even then I have to say that this was a fun little filler. Really easy to play and a lot of mindgames in play. I think it plays best with 3. Would recommend it, it has just been released by AEG. Trumpet: A hilarious trick-taking game. It's a game in which you start with no trumps, and then you have one trump, and then a slightly higher trump and so on until ALL the suits are trumps (although some trumps are better than others). I was drunk and tired so I thought it was hilarious to say 'And that's a trump' whenever someone played any card. Game is hilariously bad. Quartermaster General: A non-wargame in which you play cards and keep supply lines open. 3 players a side, with the UK/America/Russia on one side and Italy/Germany/Japan on the other. Managed to invade Australia as Japan. I liked it, it was light enough to work and did not outstay its welcome. Game we played came really close as well, only 3 points difference (although I've heard that runaway victories are possible). Boom Runaway: Card game in which you are attempting to win cards by not busting over certain amounts when you total everyone's card. I'm not explaining it very well but the game was alright. Potato Man: Trick taking game. Has a few interesting innovations (for example, you have to play a different colour suite from everyone else). In the end though it is just about having the right cards. Not nearly as good as bottle imp for example. 7 Wonders: Base 7 Wonders is pretty boring I have to say. Northwest passage: I really liked this game, it's about finding out the Northwest Passage. You build up channels and islands and map them out and you get points by finding the northwest passage and getting back to Greenland. Has a really cool ice mechanism, where your ship can get stuck in ice if it is too north and you are forced to go out in your sled, but you have to be careful lest your sled gets stuck somewhere once the ice melts. If you can't make it back to greenland in time, you lose points for all your dudes that can't make it back. I really liked this: the theme was conveyed in the mechanisms of the game extremely well.
|
# ? Apr 6, 2015 18:59 |
|
Durendal posted:
Somebody needs to explain this to me like I'm a 10-year-old or something, mostly because I don't know the other games that are being mentioned in that post. Is it that they're recommending stuff that doesn't even relate?
|
# ? Apr 6, 2015 19:01 |
|
Rocko Bonaparte posted:Somebody needs to explain this to me like I'm a 10-year-old or something, mostly because I don't know the other games that are being mentioned in that post. Is it that they're recommending stuff that doesn't even relate? They're not terribly similar and are also very bad
|
# ? Apr 6, 2015 19:10 |
|
Rocko Bonaparte posted:Somebody needs to explain this to me like I'm a 10-year-old or something, mostly because I don't know the other games that are being mentioned in that post. Is it that they're recommending stuff that doesn't even relate? People like different games from this thread and that's bad. The OP asked for sci-fi/space-themed games, so they're actually very related. admanb fucked around with this message at 19:15 on Apr 6, 2015 |
# ? Apr 6, 2015 19:12 |
|
Rocko Bonaparte posted:Somebody needs to explain this to me like I'm a 10-year-old or something, mostly because I don't know the other games that are being mentioned in that post. Is it that they're recommending stuff that doesn't even relate? Space Alert good, Cosmic Encounter bad.
|
# ? Apr 6, 2015 19:14 |
|
Rutibex posted:Mage Wars, though it's more of a skirmish than a "war game". Yeah, Mage Wars is loving great. It plays like a miniatures game and you have room to be versatile with your list. All the mages lend themselves to different strategies as well, definitely check it out. Gutter Owl posted:Labyrinth: The War on Terror would have been the ideal. Yessssss
|
# ? Apr 6, 2015 19:16 |
|
StashAugustine posted:On the topic of making Magic decks, are there any good wargames or wargamelikes that use pre-battle army construction (other than miniatures)? I've never played it, but Warhammer Diskwars gets mentioned every once and again and uses that sorta mechanic.
|
# ? Apr 6, 2015 19:18 |
|
StashAugustine posted:They're not terribly similar and are also very bad To elaborate, they're similar only in that they're also space themed.
|
# ? Apr 6, 2015 19:20 |
|
Summoner Wars as well.Dirk the Average posted:To elaborate, they're similar only in that they're also space themed. Which is literally what the OP was asking for. Context is important.
|
# ? Apr 6, 2015 19:20 |
|
No amount of context will make them not bad tho
|
# ? Apr 6, 2015 19:24 |
|
admanb posted:Which is literally what the OP was asking for. Context is important. It's like someone saying they like Galactic Civilizations and then recommending them Dead Space instead of something in the same genre. None of the recommendations touched on mechanical similarities, which makes them mildly useless at best.
|
# ? Apr 6, 2015 19:31 |
|
admanb posted:Summoner Wars as well. …and the context is that it's a case of “vaselification” — i.e. games being recommended for very vague and poorly formulated nostalgia or glitz (or just outright incorrect or uninformed) reasons, often in spite of being thoroughly outdated and poorly designed in comparison to modern implementations of the same idea. All the games they suggest are bad suggestions, especially in relation to what initially sparked the question, offered for no particularly coherent reason other than what amounts to a fundamentally useless “it's fun”.
|
# ? Apr 6, 2015 19:33 |
|
That's not vasel-anything, people have been coming up with any possible justification to recommend their favorite things forever -- just look at any fan forum. The fact that those games are actually related by the one criteria the OP asked for puts it one step ahead of that, regardless of what the goonsensus is on how good or bad those games are.
|
# ? Apr 6, 2015 19:39 |
|
ThaShaneTrain posted:Played some games: Thanks, I didnt even know that existed but it sounds good. I like Pandemic but it always feels a bit too predictable and easily deterministically solved. This sounds pretty cool though That reminds me, is there a site that keeps price history of board games across websites (MM/CSI/BGW)? I.e. like Camelcamelcamel for Amazon or isthereanydeals for Steam games?
|
# ? Apr 6, 2015 20:20 |
|
Tekopo posted:Pax Porfiriana: Still an awesome game. Managed to win on the third topple after I got given a few outrage, getting enough money to both buy the topple and Teddy Roosevelt. Game was awesome as always. Can't recommend it enough.
|
# ? Apr 6, 2015 20:27 |
|
I did a PBP ages ago but you'll need archives to reach it
|
# ? Apr 6, 2015 20:29 |
|
Tekopo posted:I did a PBP ages ago but you'll need archives to reach it I do have archives, but I was hoping for something a little more succinct. I'll probably look for that pbp anyway though.
|
# ? Apr 6, 2015 20:36 |
|
admanb posted:That's not vasel-anything, people have been coming up with any possible justification to recommend their favorite things forever -- just look at any fan forum. The fact that those games are actually related by the one criteria the OP asked for puts it one step ahead of that, regardless of what the goonsensus is on how good or bad those games are. But he didn't really ask for that criterion at all. Going by that picture, he liked Space Alert and something else, and wanted some other recommendations. None of the ones provided make any sense in that context. And yes, all of the reasoning behind the bad recommendations is indeed an example of vaselification.
|
# ? Apr 6, 2015 21:04 |
|
|
# ? May 14, 2024 23:05 |
|
It's not hard to find the thread. http://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/comments/31eb7g/space_alert_or_eminent_domain/ I don't know why you guys are helldumping that particular thread, it's just a dude asking for sci-fi game recommendations and then getting them. Goons are weird
|
# ? Apr 6, 2015 21:16 |