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It's more the planning aspect of the spatial puzzle that is difficult for some people, and it's not really feasible to place a lot of things at once to test it before you have the pieces in AFfO or would give away too much in games like Patchwork. I like that extra layer to these games, but definitely can see how it would be frustrating for others, much like games that need lots of little math equations. Even if each equation is simple addition, it can be tiring or off putting.
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Jun 3, 2019 17:51
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Bottom Liner posted:Still need it for any meeple draw tiles. Also, much like playing T&E with open scoring, playing with open screens turns Keyflower into an absolute slog in my experience. It made for an interesting change in the gameplay but not one I would repeat. A big part of the fun and tension is making a gamble on a big bid and hoping you can hold onto it, removing any mystery to color counts ruins that aspect on top of the AP it causes. Playing by the rules just made it feel arbitrary to us. Which is why I sold the game. Which is why we played it with my rules because he was disappointed that I sold it  .
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Jun 3, 2019 18:01
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Morpheus posted:I don't know what aptitudes you really need though - it's not like the pieces are hard to fit together or anything like that, and in every case you have the option to simply pick up a piece and find out where it fits on your board, so I'm not sure why you need any kind of special spacial reasoning skills to do something like that. Spatial orientation/reasoning is decidedly a separate aptitude. If it comes naturally to you I could understand why you would think it does not take any such reasoning, but for some people (e.g. me), our minds do not just work to "fit" things together like that in space. (By way of example, I've also never enjoyed or been good at putting together Lego stuff, mechanical things, etc. I'm the guy who sees instructions for something mechanical and actually has to sit there for way too long trying to orient myself to understand which way the screw is being turned, which way the piece of wood is supposed to slide in, etc.) And bluntly, I don't want to play a game that involves me (or anyone else) grabbing pieces over and over again to see how they might fit into different spots, puzzle like, onto an existing player board. It's like watching someone maximize putting together a jigsaw puzzle. That is way too slow, and inconsiderate to other players (it's frankly boring to do and boring to watch). So if you don't want to sit there while someone grabs six different pieces and physically shuffles them around various spots on a board to see where they might fit in, you have to be able to do it in your head. People who can do it better in their head are at a distinct advantage. My mind just does not take various shapes and say, "Hey, this fits in there, and then that little piece would add into that little nook, etc." very well. Whereas, for example, my daughter's mind does work that way, and it shows in a very drastic difference in ability to plan ahead efficiently and effectively. There's nothing wrong with that if you enjoy that type of thing, but I really, really don't. EDIT: Basically, what Bottom Liner said above. SlyFrog fucked around with this message at 21:58 on Jun 3, 2019 |
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Jun 3, 2019 18:10
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Shadow225 posted:What are some suggestions for bar games? I am putting together a game pack that stays in my car. Hanabi is compact and fun.
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Jun 3, 2019 18:31
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Shadow225 posted:What are some suggestions for bar games? I am putting together a game pack that stays in my car. Onitama is good and its small rectangular box can hold a few card games and stuff inside as well (remove the insert).
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Jun 3, 2019 18:37
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SlyFrog posted:For me, it just feels jarring - like having a board game about football have a component of it that requires you to go outside and throw a football through a tire swing. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_boxing
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Jun 3, 2019 18:40
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SlyFrog posted:Spatial orientation/reasoning is decidedly a separate aptitude. If it comes naturally to you I could understand why you would think it does not take any such reasoning, but for some people (e.g. me), our minds do not just work to "fit" things together like that in space. (By way of example, I've also never enjoyed or been good at putting together Lego stuff, mechanical things, etc. I'm the guy who sees instructions for something mechanical and actually has to sit there for way too long trying to orient myself to understand which way the screw is being turned, which way the piece of wood is supposed to slide in, etc.) And bluntly, I don't want to play a game that involves me (or anyone else) grabbing pieces over and over again to see how they might fit into different spots, puzzle like, onto an existing player board. It's like watching someone maximize putting together a jigsaw puzzle. That is way too slow, and inconsiderate to other players (it's frankly boring to do and boring to watch). Mm, guess I've never thought about it that way before. That's fair, I can see where that can become frustrating. I have the same issue with engine-building games, where I simply can't work out the permutations of various abilities/pieces that can be chained together in the most efficient way. I still like playing them...I'm just really really bad at making anything worthwhile.
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Jun 3, 2019 18:47
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SlyFrog posted:Admittedly, that is just a personal preference, but I have never been one to like to really mix up game mechanics/aptitudes needed to play games. I always used to joke (except not joke) about Advanced Squad Leader and having to manually eyeball line of sight, and how ridiculous that was, in a game that is purely mental, for some reason to have that specific eyesight/spacial aptitude test seemed silly. I forgot that ASL LOS worked that way. God. I think the wildest part is that the boards are modular so if you play a ton of ASL you'll play on the same boards over and over again, which means a really experienced player will just know a ton of the common LOS issues.
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Jun 3, 2019 21:01
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Shadow225 posted:What are some suggestions for bar games? I am putting together a game pack that stays in my car. For Sale. It's a quick game (no more than 15 minutes) that's just about auctions. There are two rounds: in the first, players are bidding their cash to buy houses. Each house is represented by a card numbered 1 through 30, which are randomly drawn from a deck of 30 cards. Cards are drawn out and auctioned in sets equal to the number of players (so everyone gets a house from every auction, with the highest bidder getting the best) until the deck runs out. In the second round, players are buying checks valued $0-15 (two of each card in the deck, with no $1s), in a similar auction style, except this time you're bidding using the house cards you acquired in round 1. Each player secretly selects a house card, and the best house gets the best check. This repeats until the second deck runs out, and the person with the most money wins (this includes money left over from the first round). Our group busts this out every few weeks and it's always a hit. Just use poker chips or another currency token, as the paper chips included are pretty flimsy. Phelddagrif fucked around with this message at 22:06 on Jun 3, 2019 |
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Jun 3, 2019 22:02
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canyoneer posted:Hanabi is compact and fun. Well, it is compact!
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Jun 3, 2019 23:44
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Bellmaker posted:Well, it is compact! And stressful!
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Jun 3, 2019 23:47
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I got the promo pack for Spirit Island! Something tells me I shouldn't introduce both the blight-dropper and the presence-eater at the same time.
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Jun 4, 2019 00:59
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Shadow225 posted:What are some suggestions for bar games? I am putting together a game pack that stays in my car. Roland Wright games? High Society? Deep Sea Adventures?
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Jun 4, 2019 01:42
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Shadow225 posted:What are some suggestions for bar games? I am putting together a game pack that stays in my car. Codenames if it's for six or more, Codenames Duet for four or less.
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Jun 4, 2019 01:47
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Spiggy posted:Codenames if it's for six or more, Codenames Duet for four or less. Those should be in the same box anyway so bonus!
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Jun 4, 2019 01:52
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Dungeon Buster's is legit horrible FTR.
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Jun 4, 2019 02:02
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SlyFrog posted:Admittedly, that is just a personal preference, but I have never been one to like to really mix up game mechanics/aptitudes needed to play games. Mayveena posted:The Jennifer rules are once seen always seen. To tie these two thoughts together: I almost always prefer open scoring because I want to focus my brain on strategy rather than having to simultaneously play the Memory game.
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Jun 4, 2019 03:21
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CaptainRightful posted:To tie these two thoughts together: I almost always prefer open scoring because I want to focus my brain on strategy rather than having to simultaneously play the Memory game. I 100% am the same way on this too. For exactly that reason.
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Jun 4, 2019 03:36
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SlyFrog posted:I 100% am the same way on this too. For exactly that reason. I think you should pick your place on the spectrum (once seen always seen -> You have to display your chips but cannot ask for a count -> screens) depending on group behavior and preference. If people tediously AP in the last turn, screens! If people take a long time to play because they are trying to remember stuff but don't AP in the last turn, play Jennifer rules. When I play Indonesia I prefer open displays but cannot ask someone for a count of their chips but whatever works. None of these options actually change the game they just change player behaviour a bit.
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Jun 4, 2019 06:09
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It changes Keyflower via player behavior changing. There are cases where playing the normal hidden meeples way can still lead to semi-solved board states where one player gets a boat without a single color and then all other players can use that but not necessarily remember the count on the rest of things, much less for other players. Playing openly makes every move a have a counting step to calculate the right number and fundamentally changes the action economy of the game because people can outright win tiles in the first move of a round with a big exacting bid. I can understand people liking that in some games, but in others like T&E open information flat out ruins the game. When you can perfectly count scores in T&E it causes the tile draw to have a much more pronounced influence on the winner of otherwise evenly skilled players. I think overall open -> hidden info speeds up games and causes more dynamic and interesting play and isn't really a balance issue unless you're playing with someone with a truly remarkable memory. Bottom Liner fucked around with this message at 06:21 on Jun 4, 2019 |
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Jun 4, 2019 06:17
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Bottom Liner posted:It changes Keyflower via player behavior changing. There are cases where playing the normal hidden meeples way can still lead to semi-solved board states where one player gets a boat without a single color and then all other players can use that but not necessarily remember the count on the rest of things, much less for other players. Playing openly makes every move a have a counting step to calculate the right number and fundamentally changes the action economy of the game because people can outright win tiles in the first move of a round with a big exacting bid. The Jennifer rule doesn't have to apply to ALL games . Especially T&E. Which is why btw I don't play T&E. The problem is BL is that there are people who play board games who can remember, or more likely they remember what they are interested in and therefore win the game with a 'skill' that not all of us agree is a skill. I'm nearly 62 years old. My memory is not what it used to be. Some people simply don't have great memories and some have excellent memories (there's a guy in LA who can recall every card of a previously shuffled deck). I don't feel that memory should be something that helps you win a game. And in Keyflower it certainly does. I'm fine with people playing the way they want to play. I'm not as fine with people criticizing a way to play because it doesn't affect them.
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Jun 4, 2019 14:00
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While playing Keyflower I did notice that the hidden info wasn't that hidden to someone with a really good memory unless they produced workers some other way, but I played with 5 players and keeping that in the mental space was all but impossible. The fact it feels like a natural part of the game makes me wary to try the alternative rules, but I'll probably give it a go after a bunch more plays or someone complains about this aspect.
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Jun 4, 2019 14:05
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SettingSun posted:While playing Keyflower I did notice that the hidden info wasn't that hidden to someone with a really good memory unless they produced workers some other way, but I played with 5 players and keeping that in the mental space was all but impossible. The fact it feels like a natural part of the game makes me wary to try the alternative rules, but I'll probably give it a go after a bunch more plays or someone complains about this aspect. In the game A Key To London, Richard Breese specifically calls me out and those rules as a gamer's variant so you would have his blessing. It's not an untried by the designer house rule.
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Jun 4, 2019 14:13
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The problem I see with 'Jennifer' rules is that there could be a lot more AP present. If you're wondering how much to bid on something, you either remember what someone has or you don't - you're making an educated guess usually. If you know exactly what they have, though, now you're trying to calculate what happens if you put two yellows here, and they counter with three, and you move two elsewhere, they won't counter but now they can use the two blues instead, so should you instead use a few blues to counter that, etc. I guess what I'm saying is that making choices based on limited information will almost always be faster than making them based on perfect information. I'd give them a shot, but I'd be interested to see how it would affect playtime. Morpheus fucked around with this message at 14:17 on Jun 4, 2019 |
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Jun 4, 2019 14:15
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SettingSun posted:While playing Keyflower I did notice that the hidden info wasn't that hidden to someone with a really good memory unless they produced workers some other way, but I played with 5 players and keeping that in the mental space was all but impossible. The fact it feels like a natural part of the game makes me wary to try the alternative rules, but I'll probably give it a go after a bunch more plays or someone complains about this aspect. I'll echo that; in my case we were playing with 6 and there was enough meeple production that I just had a general sense of what people had instead of numbers. If screens were open, I would've known that one of the players was secretly banking the blue meeples they used to swipe the winter tile I wanted, which would've changed my own strategy to be more conservative. Having hidden info made a few of us more aggressive than we normally would've been, which I think was a good thing that made us have more fun overall. We also have AP prone people, so screens work well for us.
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Jun 4, 2019 14:17
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Morpheus posted:The problem I see with 'Jennifer' rules is that there could be a lot more AP present. If you're wondering how much to bid on something, you either remember what someone has or you don't - you're making an educated guess usually. If you know exactly what they have, though, now you're trying to calculate what happens if you put two yellows here, and they counter with three, and you move two elsewhere, they won't counter but now they can use the two blues instead, so should you instead use a few blues to counter that, etc. I think it is the opposite. If there is hidden information, I tend to slow down the game without trying, as I naturally spend more time trying to remember the information that becomes hidden (both before it becomes hidden and after). I don't play hidden information games though, unless I have to in order to get a game.
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Jun 4, 2019 14:18
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Morpheus posted:The problem I see with 'Jennifer' rules is that there could be a lot more AP present. If you're wondering how much to bid on something, you either remember what someone has or you don't - you're making an educated guess usually. If you know exactly what they have, though, now you're trying to calculate what happens if you put two yellows here, and they counter with three, and you move two elsewhere, they won't counter but now they can use the two blues instead, so should you instead use a few blues to counter that, etc. Agreed that past four they are probably not a good idea based on simply logistics and perhaps he should have clarified that and I should have clarified that in this conversation . I think (and I'm up to being challenged if I'm wrong) that normally you don't care about every meeple every player has So when I'm thinking of placing meeples I'm trying to execute my strategy (whatever that may be). Some other players' meeples will affect that strategy, but most won't. So if I'm looking at executing my strategy, I'm only looking at a few meeples outside of my own, not all of them. I can then make a reasonably fast and relatively accurate assessment of what could happen. Sure if someone is going to use the rules as an excuse to AP then they won't work for your group. I don't play with players like that (nor does Richard as far as I saw, that dude is a speed player) so it doesn't come up for us. But I would argue that if you are going to play with AP players, then a lot of games are off limits for your group, not just Keyflower with the Jennifer rules.
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Jun 4, 2019 14:22
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Mayveena posted:Sure if someone is going to use the rules as an excuse to AP then they won't work for your group. I don't play with players like that (nor does Richard as far as I saw, that dude is a speed player) so it doesn't come up for us. But I would argue that if you are going to play with AP players, then a lot of games are off limits for your group, not just Keyflower with the Jennifer rules. Well, there's at least one player I play with that has moderate AP. She won't take an hour to analyze the board, but it does tend to be just a little longer than everyone else's turn. Usually not a huge problem, but it's certainly something I try not to make worse. Me, I have terrible memory, which I think adds to my enjoyment of Keyflower. When I think my opponent has four red meeples but they actually have five or six, it's never a feeling of disappointment, like I'm a dummy that got played, I just laugh at my terrible memory and curse jokingly as he swipes a tile out from under me. Then I move the meeples elsewhere, which really that one little things adds a layer of strategy to the game that I think negates needing to memorize exactly what people have, since I find often I can play around it by bluffing what tiles I want before moving to another one. It's led to me winning as much as I've lost. Regardless, it's great that the creator endorses these rules, makes for a great alternative for people to try. If it works, great! If it doesn't, the base game is still pretty sweet. Damnit now I really want to play a game or two of Keyflower.
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Jun 4, 2019 14:45
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Mayveena posted:The Jennifer rule doesn't have to apply to ALL games I think that's it right there. I don't have a single friend in my gaming circle that is able to memorize the "hidden trackable information" and exploit it to everyone else's disadvantage so there's never been an issue with it. The closest we get is Cyclades and the odd person remembering how much money you made and spent and then spilling the beans to everyone. EDIT: Yeah, in Civ the level 9 stack turns into a game of hot potato depending on how people play it and I think it's one thing that vets have to tell newbies to worry about. FulsomFrank fucked around with this message at 15:16 on Jun 4, 2019 |
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Jun 4, 2019 15:00
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So in the ancient game Civilization, it was definitely an advantage to know where the (dammit can't remember the name of the card but it was a card that was pretty devastating) card was. A friend didn't memorize all the cards, just that one. And that's what I'm saying. You don't need to memorize all the meeples, just the ones you care about, and even then you really only need to memorize how many are out there. For many people, that's not difficult, for me it is difficult and tedious on top of it. It also comes down to how competitive your group is. My group is pretty competitive, they play to win. They aren't however rude about it thankfully. If your group doesn't really care much about winning then you wouldn't need the rule.
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Jun 4, 2019 15:06
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Mayveena posted:So in the ancient game Civilization, it was definitely an advantage to know where the (dammit can't remember the name of the card Yeah knowing when epidemic came up, or knowing exactly when civil war would occur so you can have your city count after that... it's huge. Don't buy gold until piracy pops.
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Jun 4, 2019 15:08
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A slight variant is also made by the game Container or Sidereal Confluence: Trading and Negotiation in the Elysian Quadrant. Money is hidden, but before any time the money becomes important, like an auction, everyone briefly states their amount.
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Jun 4, 2019 15:08
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I never expected me fawning over how good Keyflower was to become a debate on pseudo-hidden information! It never seemed to come up when I read about the game beforehand somehow.
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Jun 4, 2019 15:32
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Is money open in 18xx games? We always play with open money because even though it seems unthematic that robber barons would be transparent about their wealth it makes the games more strategic when I can just open a bid with the lowest amount that shuts you out. I'm with the "Jennifer Rules" because while it may slightly increase AP the alternative is everyone taking notes on their phone. We play games competitively, sometimes things get really salty (but in a friendly way) so I'd rather have everyone on equal footing.
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Jun 4, 2019 15:37
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I think if you're concerned about perfect information leading to too much AP the better solution is to play something with imperfect information instead of having perfect but inconvenient information.
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Jun 4, 2019 15:39
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The other bonus hidden VPs does is to create a fuzzy area so you’re not just going for the leader all the time.
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Jun 4, 2019 15:44
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SoftNum posted:Roland Wright games? High Society? Deep Sea Adventures? I'm sure that I'm being an idiot, but Roland Wright = Roll and Write? If so, that would be something to consider, though I would need to think about which to carry. Ganz Schon Clever I think would be too heavy, while the markers in Railroad Ink would dry quickly. I've not tried anything else yet. Thanks for the suggestions so far everyone. For Sale, High Society and DSA are great suggestions. Onitama I should try because I'm not sure I need yet another 2P only game, but I could make the case for bringing something like Hanamikoji as well. Maybe I should jump on another copy of Jaipur before the small box edition gets hard to find...
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Jun 4, 2019 15:47
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Chill la Chill posted:A slight variant is also made by the game Container or Sidereal Confluence: Trading and Negotiation in the Elysian Quadrant. Money is hidden, but before any time the money becomes important, like an auction, everyone briefly states their amount. As an AP person with a bad memory this sounds like hell.
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Jun 4, 2019 15:57
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PerniciousKnid posted:As an AP person with a bad memory this sounds like hell. It prevents the Catan problem of dissuading people from trading with the leader, slowing the whole game down. I think very often when people complain about hidden VPs preventing good strategy, the only strategy they're really talking about is going after the leader.
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Jun 4, 2019 16:01
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Shadow225 posted:I'm sure that I'm being an idiot, but Roland Wright = Roll and Write? Yeah sorry I thought this joke was a little more universal. Apparently when vloggers started talking about roll and write games (Particularly SUSD iirc) people through they were talking about a new designer Roland Wright. EDIT: Also Qwinto is lighter than GSC and is a pad and pen game iirc.
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Jun 4, 2019 16:09
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