|
Banana Man posted:Could someone kindly break down the differences between codex and millennium blades? I'm having trouble wrapping my heads around them. Isn't millennium blades more a "ccg's the game", vs codex which is more of a card game?
|
#
?
May 10, 2017 06:03
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 12, 2024 13:21 |
|
|
I want a 199X game where the entire thing is manipulating the secondary market to profit off a fictional CCG based around release dates and big tournaments.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2017 06:10
|
|
|
Codex is a game inspired by MTG. Millennium Blades is a game inspired by the experience of MTG. Millennium Blades owns.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2017 06:20
|
|
|
Millennium Blades is a board game, Codex is a dueling game a la Magic the Gathering. Millennium Blades owns, Codex is divisive around here.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2017 06:33
|
|
|
Hmm which game is better with more than 2 people?
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2017 07:10
|
|
|
Millennium Blades, hands down.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2017 07:17
|
|
|
They're very different games. Codex is a two-player game that uses Magic-style mechanics and deckbuilding elements to vaguely simulate the experience of playing Warcraft III. It has a multiplayer variant, but it feels like a tacked-on afterthought and isn't very good. Millennium Blades is a multiplayer game that uses a real-time market and tableau-building elements to vaguely simulate the experience of playing Magic. It has a two-player variant, but it feels like a tacked-on afterthought and isn't very good. If you're still confused: Millennium Blades was created by David Talton, a designer best know for adapting 2D fighting games into tabletop games. MB was a long-running pipe dream of his, which he eventually funded through Kickstarter. Codex was created by David Sirlin, a designer best known for adapting 2D fighting games into tabletop games. Codex was a long-running pipe dream of his, which he eventually funded through Patreon and Kickstarter. gutterdaughter fucked around with this message at 07:21 on May 10, 2017 |
|
#
?
May 10, 2017 07:18
|
|
|
MB doesn't simulate playing Magic, it simulates the aspect of BEING a Magic player. It's an important distinction. The game is about collecting, trading, opening booster packs, deck building, new set releases, and tournaments, the elements that make up collectible card games.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2017 07:31
|
|
|
Note that the "card game" component to MB is basically just playing cards that combo with each other for abstracted tournament points. And then once you figure out how your opponent's decks work, find a way to counter their bullshit.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2017 07:39
|
|
|
I just realized that if you held a gun to my head and made me pick between Yomi and Battlecon, it wouldn't even be a discussion, but if you made me pick between Pixel Tactics and Puzzle Strike, I'd pull the trigger myself.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2017 08:15
|
|
|
PMush Perfect posted:I just realized that if you held a gun to my head and made me pick between Yomi and Battlecon, it wouldn't even be a discussion, but if you made me pick between Pixel Tactics and Puzzle Strike, I'd pull the trigger myself. Exact opposite for me. BattleCON and Yomi are both golden cows for me, but I look at Pixel Tactics and it's like I'm lookin' at a perfectly acceptable car that I sold to a stranger. (Anyone wanna buy a shitload of Pixel Tactics?)
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2017 08:19
|
|
|
PMush Perfect posted:I just realized that if you held a gun to my head and made me pick between Yomi and Battlecon, it wouldn't even be a discussion, but if you made me pick between Pixel Tactics and Puzzle Strike, I'd pull the trigger myself.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2017 08:28
|
|
|
I played City of Horror the other night, and...Mall of Horror might be better? None of us had played City of Horror before, but I had played Mall. Most of the game people were double checking the rulebook and the game aid to check what all their powers do, their items do, the city locations do, and none of it ever added up to any super interesting plays. The armory burned down, and I imagine the water tower would be just as anticlimactic, despite what SUSD say. After the end of the game (we ended it a little early for time reasons fwiw) half the players would disinterestedly murmuring stuff about "oh, I forgot/didn't realize this character did this, oh well". Maybe it was a problem of no one being familiar enough with all the different parts and symbols, but when I played Mall of Horror with a bunch of new gamers it was incredibly tense. The most memorable part of Mall, jockeying for position in the security room, seemed to have been really diluted. Maybe it was the wrong group of people, maybe it wasn't the right number (although 4 should be fine), but I still have to give the point to Mall of Horror.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2017 08:50
|
|
|
Tekopo posted:Yeah, Yomi is so much better than BattleCON, it's unbelievable. You just have to be careful about what characters to pick.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2017 09:38
|
|
|
terebikun posted:I played City of Horror the other night, and...Mall of Horror might be better? None of us had played City of Horror before, but I had played Mall. Most of the game people were double checking the rulebook and the game aid to check what all their powers do, their items do, the city locations do, and none of it ever added up to any super interesting plays. The armory burned down, and I imagine the water tower would be just as anticlimactic, despite what SUSD say. After the end of the game (we ended it a little early for time reasons fwiw) half the players would disinterestedly murmuring stuff about "oh, I forgot/didn't realize this character did this, oh well". Maybe it was a problem of no one being familiar enough with all the different parts and symbols, but when I played Mall of Horror with a bunch of new gamers it was incredibly tense. The most memorable part of Mall, jockeying for position in the security room, seemed to have been really diluted. Maybe it was the wrong group of people, maybe it wasn't the right number (although 4 should be fine), but I still have to give the point to Mall of Horror. I know what you mean about 'what do the symbols do', I seem to recall there's even a couple of character abilities that just use a symbol that's the same as a card symbol but actually have some other rules tied to them? There's no quick reference card, so you have to basically have the manual open at the relevant page all game. I think forgetting what a character does is ENTIRELY on your players though, they're once per game actions that are critical to your ability to win, like MOST of the tension in the game is to do with flipping your characters, and you only have two. You'd have to be pretty unengaged to forget those? There are actually two boards to City of Horror (it took us WAAAAY too many plays to realise this) and on one side its a lot harder than the other. We found that the hard board games were GREAT, but the easy board games were questionable. It's a lot like battlestar, in that the actual fun of the game isn't really generated by the boardgame, more by all the accusations, double crossing and politicking done during the game. You absolutely have to be trying to cut deals the whole time, otherwise it's incredibly bland. We've had games of City of Horror that have gone down in the annals of history for double crosses and backstabs, tainting players reputations forever! (In a lighthearted way of course.) By no means do I think its a great game, but certainly for our playgroup its allowed some great experiences. I'll have to check out Mall of Horror if you think it might be better!
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2017 09:45
|
|
|
PMush Perfect posted:I mean, objectively, I get that Yomi is tuned like a watch, but I will never have a playgroup dedicated enough to find that depth, and it just loses something when not played in person. BattleCON is much easier to get someone to play, since everything is right in front of them, and they get that "Ohhhhh" moment much sooner.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2017 09:50
|
|
|
Tekopo posted:I found it almost impossible to get people to play Yomi casually, and I've so far only managed to get one person to play it regularly with me, and that's because he was already a Fighting Game player and knew the score when it comes to Superturbo. Which is what Yomi is, just Superturbo the game.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2017 09:52
|
|
|
!Klams posted:I know what you mean about 'what do the symbols do', I seem to recall there's even a couple of character abilities that just use a symbol that's the same as a card symbol but actually have some other rules tied to them? There's no quick reference card, so you have to basically have the manual open at the relevant page all game. I think forgetting what a character does is ENTIRELY on your players though, they're once per game actions that are critical to your ability to win, like MOST of the tension in the game is to do with flipping your characters, and you only have two. You'd have to be pretty unengaged to forget those? It's not great that there are a lot of proofreading errors where game stuff like item names are different in the manual from the actual cards (i.e. tear gas grenade is actually a can of mace). The players were a little scatter-brained as to their powers (and I found out after the game a couple of them had totally misunderstood their powers, like the Blonde or the Grandma) but we had 3 characters per player, not two. On top of a hand of items and 6 different city tile powers, I think it's a little understandable to drop the ball on some things. Unfortunately, that's pretty much where the game is made or broken. We played with all A side tiles, which meant they were the quickest of all things in the game to understand, but most of them were rarely used. I will admit it may not have been the greatest group for the game, since at least one of the four players dislikes direct conflict, but I still didn't think the game would fall as flat as it did. With that said, one girl has asked to play again (and the girl who dislikes direct conflict suggested we play Dead of Winter instead) and if there's a game that would reward more plays it's definitely this. Still, Mall of Horror's simplicity made it instantly stand out, and I don't know how many more plays of City of Horror I'll be able to get so that it catches on.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2017 10:03
|
|
|
terebikun posted:It's not great that there are a lot of proofreading errors where game stuff like item names are different in the manual from the actual cards (i.e. tear gas grenade is actually a can of mace). The players were a little scatter-brained as to their powers (and I found out after the game a couple of them had totally misunderstood their powers, like the Blonde or the Grandma) but we had 3 characters per player, not two. On top of a hand of items and 6 different city tile powers, I think it's a little understandable to drop the ball on some things. Unfortunately, that's pretty much where the game is made or broken. Sorry, you're totally right, it is 3 isn't it. I think we just always have someone die so quickly I'm used to only having two, lol. Fair enough, when its the first time you've played you might not realise how important they are and having three where it's not clear what they are is a fair amount to bother to remember. Yeah, like, I totally appreciate its not very good. It's maybe just one of the few games I've played (possibly because we hosed up the rules) where it's almost impossible for everyone to survive to the end and score, and that makes a really good social game, because it forces plea bargains, trades, etc. Like if you get to near the end of the game, and you've got everyone surviving, then everyone votes against you / throws you to the slaughter / wont give you stuff, and all of a sudden you're utterly hosed. So you have to walk that line, you HAVE to pay your way and pull your weight, you can't just look out for yourself and play your own game, you HAVE to get involved in the muck and mire of the politics. That's basically all I like about it. I'm loving terminally bored of zombies in any capacity, the rules are indeed unclear, flavour is lacking and the board is kind of dull, but getting into a desperate plea bargain to vote for another person to die in exchange for all your stuff, convincing everyone and then not giving anyone a thing is just funny every time. Getting faux angry with someone so that people assume you'll vote or act one way and then playing a card that totally fucks someone else is always amazing. I guess I just kinda like a game where 'being a dick' and 'being honest and nice' are both equally valid strategies, and they don't involve playing the 'Be a dick' card or putting more meeples on the 'honesty tile' but actually just... you know. Doing it for realsies. !Klams fucked around with this message at 10:46 on May 10, 2017 |
|
#
?
May 10, 2017 10:40
|
|
|
Gutter Owl posted:Exact opposite for me. BattleCON and Yomi are both golden cows for me, but I look at Pixel Tactics and it's like I'm lookin' at a perfectly acceptable car that I sold to a stranger. You just reminded me that Achewood is dead and now i'm sad. Thanks a bunch, buddy!
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2017 11:27
|
|
|
Tekopo posted:Yeah, Yomi is so much better than BattleCON, it's unbelievable. Hot take here wow Yomi, like all Sirlin games, is a soulless and joyless exercise in game design. Battlecon is more enjoyable in every way: design, mechanics, character uniqueness, a spatial component (which is a big deal when your game is mimicking a fighting game), and play across the casual-competitive spectrum due to not being a glorified paper rock scissors/War mashup. Bottom Liner fucked around with this message at 12:27 on May 10, 2017 |
|
#
?
May 10, 2017 12:22
|
|
|
Sirlin is joyless and soulless, makes sense
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2017 12:28
|
|
|
Bottom Liner posted:Hot take here wow Where Yomi breaks down is, however, as you pointed out, when you play with a beginner, because the entire game is based on matchup knowledge and knowing that an opponent will weigh some choices more than others, and if one of the players is not on board with this, it doesn't work, which makes it difficult to introduce the game to others. Once you get into it, though, I feel that Yomi can be very rewarding, especially if you play with a regular opponent. Also I was making a joke.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2017 12:39
|
|
|
w00tmonger posted:I've been having a hard time getting a copy of feast for odin in Canada, and great board games just got a bunch in stock if anyone's interested! Only ships to Canada! Wtf ..
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2017 12:41
|
|
|
Tekopo posted:
This is an excuse for ??? A game breaking down between a veteran and a beginner is one of the most frustrating results in game design. People praise Sirlin for his tight design but I see this as a fatal flaw. If it relies on playing correctly, then what role does skill have in a match between a veteran and beginner? I like discussing Sirlin games because he's an outlier in the industry and does some interesting things, but every one of them ends up with major issues, admittedly subjective in some cases, like the art and faction designs in Codex being so unoriginal and inconsistent it makes me want to barf. Bottom Liner fucked around with this message at 12:50 on May 10, 2017 |
|
#
?
May 10, 2017 12:47
|
|
|
Bottom Liner posted:This is an excuse for ??? We were discussing the above in the Discord and what we ended up with is that you can't play the same way against a beginner than a veteran, because you have to be a lot more defensive and careful. This is only partially true within BattleCON, but it is also true in fighting games. I still think that overall, a more experienced player will win, on average, against a newbie in both games. What I mean by breaking down is that a game between a beginner and an experienced player is not very interesting, generally does not feature many mind-games and the game is a lot worse overall. I don't enjoy games with beginners as much as I enjoy them against experienced players, but this isn't something unique to Yomi. I've had the same experiences with EXCEED or Codex, where people were interested but didn't want to invest the time to learn the game. Other examples are Puerto Rico, Agricola, any drafting game, or hell, Twilight Struggle.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2017 12:57
|
|
|
Speaking of millennium blades, it's deal of the day at miniature market for $45
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2017 15:12
|
|
|
Huxley posted:I want a 199X game where the entire thing is manipulating the secondary market to profit off a fictional CCG based around release dates and big tournaments.  but I also want the 20XX expansion, now with r/mtgfinance.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2017 15:27
|
|
|
It's not like go works between a novice and an expert. I'd treat sirlin 2p games like yomi as abstracts, tbh, which very often break down in that situation. Expensive for an abstract, except a nice goban is pricey too...
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2017 15:36
|
|
|
silvergoose posted:It's not like go works between a novice and an expert. I'd treat sirlin 2p games like yomi as abstracts, tbh, which very often break down in that situation. Non-abstracts can break down equally hard. A newbie would have a pretty bad experience playing Galaxy Trucker against me and my friends who are regulars (which is why we usually handicap ourselves in multiple ways). In other games you can do stuff from behind, but he'd basically only have half a ship leading to a qualitatively different experience. Then there's war games...
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2017 15:44
|
|
|
terebikun posted:I played City of Horror the other night, and...Mall of Horror might be better? None of us had played City of Horror before, but I had played Mall. Most of the game people were double checking the rulebook and the game aid to check what all their powers do, their items do, the city locations do, and none of it ever added up to any super interesting plays. The armory burned down, and I imagine the water tower would be just as anticlimactic, despite what SUSD say. After the end of the game (we ended it a little early for time reasons fwiw) half the players would disinterestedly murmuring stuff about "oh, I forgot/didn't realize this character did this, oh well". Maybe it was a problem of no one being familiar enough with all the different parts and symbols, but when I played Mall of Horror with a bunch of new gamers it was incredibly tense. The most memorable part of Mall, jockeying for position in the security room, seemed to have been really diluted. Maybe it was the wrong group of people, maybe it wasn't the right number (although 4 should be fine), but I still have to give the point to Mall of Horror. Dude, I just taught you to play Kemet last weekend, and I had player references for everyone printed out in advance. Whenever you teach a game that uses iconography instead of printed text, always make sure to have player references for every player. Libraries in the US have free printing, there's basically no excuse.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2017 15:50
|
|
|
Dancer posted:Non-abstracts can break down equally hard. A newbie would have a pretty bad experience playing Galaxy Trucker against me and my friends who are regulars (which is why we usually handicap ourselves in multiple ways). In other games you can do stuff from behind, but he'd basically only have half a ship leading to a qualitatively different experience. Then there's war games... Ah, but Trucker actually works okay because the fun of it is building your ship and having it be blown apart. Similarly, worker placements you usually are building up your stuff, and if an opponent has better stuff than you, you still can feel like you accomplished something. Really it's that "multiplayer solitaire" has a better shot in this situation of the novice having fun, whereas more directly competitive, especially zero sum 2p abstracts can just not have any enjoyment on either side.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2017 15:59
|
|
|
Vlaada Chvatil posted:Dude, I just taught you to play Kemet last weekend, and I had player references for everyone printed out in advance. Free printing? That's pretty cool. I went and had enough copies of the DI cards/Power Tiles rule sheets copied and laminated so that everyone could have a page to look at since most people are always passing around the 'splainer sheet anyway. Very useful!
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2017 16:03
|
|
|
Some games are designed for people who want to go deep on them - it's not like Twilight Struggle, which was reigning champ of BGG for several years, isn't completely inaccessible to new players either. It just takes a lot of effort to be good. Dominion is the same way, although it tends not to feel like it to new players because they rarely play people who understand the game. Yomi is hard to play and hard to find someone to play with, but it simply does things battlecon is incapable of doing, full stop. Accessibility is merely one metric by which to judge a game, and there's oodles of strong games with poor accessibility.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2017 16:09
|
|
|
Vlaada Chvatil posted:Dude, I just taught you to play Kemet last weekend, and I had player references for everyone printed out in advance. lol not even close
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2017 16:24
|
|
|
Vlaada Chvatil posted:Libraries in the US have free printing, there's basically no excuse. How's life in the alternate socialist universe without a tangerine toddler for president?
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2017 16:47
|
|
|
I feel dirty for spending my bonus check on Into The Echoside, but here we are.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2017 16:51
|
|
|
FulsomFrank posted:Free printing? That's pretty cool. This guy gets it. When a game uses iconography, you, the proud owner and perpetual guide to said game, are asking a lot of your players. You are asking them to not only learn the game rules, but also to memorise the icons used in gameplay. Perhaps I simply have low expectations of people, but I make an effort to give players as much information reference as possible. Some games are better at this than others, and will include organised player boards, cheat sheets, or have details printed on the cards. Venerable old Pandemic is a great example of a game that I can teach to my grandmother without any extra work. Player actions are printed on a helpful reference card (and the box comes with one for each player), the board has turn sequence information, and the Epidemic rules are entirely self contained on the Epidemic cards themselves. Kemet is a an example of a great game with terrible teaching aids. It contains a player boards with iconography instead of text, similarly icon based cards and tiles, and only a single power reference sheet. It is not reasonable to expect first time players or non-gamers to remember what "+1 ankh, foot, blue square" means. If everyone has to constantly check the single, solitary reference booklet, the game will definitely drag on longer than necessary. If you want playing a games to be fun, you owe it to yourself to do everything you can to make that game fun. Even if you don't care if other players are having fun, you personally will have a better time by taking steps to avoid these problems. You are responsible for your own orgasm, people! EDIT: Maybe free printing isn't universal in US libraries, but I know for a fact that it is in terebikun's city! Vlaada Chvatil fucked around with this message at 16:59 on May 10, 2017 |
|
#
?
May 10, 2017 16:57
|
|
|
Vlaada Chvatil posted:You are responsible for your own orgasm, people! Insert joke about always sleeving your cards.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2017 16:58
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 12, 2024 13:21 |
|
|
Wait are you actually Vlaada Chvatil?  If so I dig your games!
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2017 17:14
|
|
