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CommonShore posted:Wasn't the Robinson Crusoe thing that he designed the game around having a 2:1 ratio of good to bad things and implemented it by creating a 200 card deck with 132 good things and 66 bad things and then he dusted off his hands and shouted Had a Fury of Dracula game where I was Dracula and they kept drawing from the bottom of the deck and I ended up with 8 cards in a row. "Dracula thanks you for your continued support!"
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Sep 11, 2020 14:50
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GAME DESIGNED NEXT GAME
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Chill la Chill posted:There's a similar comparison to Bios Megafauna here. Eklund has a predictably insane essay in this game, but one of the design choices he made and points out that there must be enough player agency. The game is "Lamarckian" due to ceding enough control to player power. A "pure" evolutionary game would be out of the players' hands. Much like Genesis, which is about mitigating that randomness but it's pretty difficult to do so, and the dice tend to rule the game, no matter how many blue and yellow cubes and bionts you have. This makes the likely actual origin of life one of the most difficult to coax into existence... CommonShore posted:Wasn't the Robinson Crusoe thing that he designed the game around having a 2:1 ratio of good to bad things and implemented it by creating a 200 card deck with 132 good things and 66 bad things and then he dusted off his hands and shouted The best bit is that he could have kept his drat event cards and just told players to use three good and two bad per game and it would have got closer to fixing the issue Vlaada raised.
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Sep 11, 2020 15:15
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It's hard to believe that a good exploration/survival boardgame is simply impossible, but every attempt so far seems to be pretty flawed in one way or another: Robinson Crusoe/First Martians, Discover Lands Unknown, 7th Continent, Ravine. I see something called Castaways, but don't know anything about it. Forbidden Island/Desert are fine for kids. I've read that Conquest of Paradise is kinda broken by the random luck of the exploration parts. Is there any really good game in this space?
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Sep 11, 2020 16:05
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What could an exploration based game do to maintain your attention over time when you see all of its tricks when organizing the box?
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Sep 11, 2020 16:25
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CaptainRightful posted:It's hard to believe that a good exploration/survival boardgame is simply impossible, but every attempt so far seems to be pretty flawed in one way or another: Robinson Crusoe/First Martians, Discover Lands Unknown, 7th Continent, Ravine. I see something called Castaways, but don't know anything about it. Forbidden Island/Desert are fine for kids. I've read that Conquest of Paradise is kinda broken by the random luck of the exploration parts. Is there any really good game in this space? Let me tell you about T.I.M.E. Stories! It's fine.
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Sep 11, 2020 16:33
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A good exploration survival game becomes gloomhaven pretty quickly
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Sep 11, 2020 16:33
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nordichammer posted:What could an exploration based game do to maintain your attention over time when you see all of its tricks when organizing the box? Tales of Arabian Nights can be played many times without seeing all of the content. Not infinite sure, but you'll usually find something new each time.
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Sep 11, 2020 16:41
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CaptainRightful posted:It's hard to believe that a good exploration/survival boardgame is simply impossible, but every attempt so far seems to be pretty flawed in one way or another: Robinson Crusoe/First Martians, Discover Lands Unknown, 7th Continent, Ravine. I see something called Castaways, but don't know anything about it. Forbidden Island/Desert are fine for kids. I've read that Conquest of Paradise is kinda broken by the random luck of the exploration parts. Is there any really good game in this space? Tainted Grail is probably the most successful exploration/survival game currently "available" (it was a kickstarter). Like 7th continent it uses cards for the map. However, the game takes place on a known landmass and you have a map so you always have a general idea of where you are, and what direction to head if you know where you are going. The exploration aspect comes from encountering new map tiles and learning what you can do in that location. The game comes with a book of encounters that works in a very CYOA fashion. You have the option of siding with different factions in the game and your choices open/close certain paths. The map can also change based on your choices making any potential backtracking a less straight forward endeavor. The survival aspect of the game takes place on a character and world level. Your character has health and energy which you need to manage. Food is a resource in the game that you need each day to recover energy. The world has up to 3 beacons that you can light at a time(this is resource intensive). A beacon allows map tiles that are adjacent to it to be in play The beacons count down each round and when a beacon extinguishes the map tiles adjacent to it go away until it is re-ignited. That game certainly isn't perfect, but each time I have played it has provided a genuine sense of discovery. The writing is good (excellent for a board game), and the world they've built is a fun twist on the Arthurian legend.
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Sep 11, 2020 16:43
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CommonShore posted:A good exploration survival game becomes gloomhaven pretty quickly
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Sep 11, 2020 16:45
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Confession: We have been playing Gloomhaven for close to two years now and we never used any kind of App cause I am responsible for the monsters and I like using all the physical components.
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Sep 11, 2020 16:57
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Redundant posted:Speaking of Gloomhaven, I played my first ever session the other week and it felt like we just about scraped through scenario 1 on level 1. I'm looking forward to having the app set up for next time because not having to physically manage the monster and element stuff will be a huge bonus. My group found the first 2 scenarios to be pretty unforgiving, and we barely scraped through both. After that we've done better and we have yet to fail any of them.
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Sep 11, 2020 17:00
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Suddenly Susan posted:Tainted Grail is probably the most successful exploration/survival game currently "available" (it was a kickstarter). Thanks, looks worth checking out. I disagree that these kind of games have to be Gloomhaven to be any good. Something could be done with similar exploration to Mage Knight but without combat being the core gameplay. Maybe a middle ground between Mage Knight and Antiquity.
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Sep 11, 2020 17:02
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I've read from many places that Tainted Grail becomes a grindfest later on.
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Sep 11, 2020 17:13
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I seem to recall that Tainted Grail has a digital version as well.
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Sep 11, 2020 17:30
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Jedit posted:I seem to recall that Tainted Grail has a digital version as well. My understanding is that it's an "interpretation" of the boardgame, not a direct translation of it, so I wouldn't *precisely* call it a digital version.
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Sep 11, 2020 18:28
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Interesting to know that people in here think highly of Cthulhu: Death May Die as I just kinda fully ignored it as a CMON Kickstarter with an awful name. My wife and I usually really enjoy the semi-narrative coop games like Mansions of Madness 2nd Edition so I might have to actually check this one out.
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Sep 11, 2020 18:53
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Cthulhu DMD leans heavy on the combat, way more than MoM2e. An order of magnitude more.
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Sep 11, 2020 19:00
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Radioactive Toy posted:Interesting to know that people in here think highly of Cthulhu: Death May Die as I just kinda fully ignored it as a CMON Kickstarter with an awful name. My wife and I usually really enjoy the semi-narrative coop games like Mansions of Madness 2nd Edition so I might have to actually check this one out. We played it on tabletop sim. It seemed okay, but we all kinda wished we were playing gloomhaven instead
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Sep 11, 2020 19:01
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CaptainRightful posted:It's hard to believe that a good exploration/survival boardgame is simply impossible, but every attempt so far seems to be pretty flawed in one way or another: Robinson Crusoe/First Martians, Discover Lands Unknown, 7th Continent, Ravine. I see something called Castaways, but don't know anything about it. Forbidden Island/Desert are fine for kids. I've read that Conquest of Paradise is kinda broken by the random luck of the exploration parts. Is there any really good game in this space? Expedition Northwest Passage is pretty good and it's on boardgamearena.
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Sep 11, 2020 19:29
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Radioactive Toy posted:Interesting to know that people in here think highly of Cthulhu: Death May Die as I just kinda fully ignored it as a CMON Kickstarter with an awful name. My wife and I usually really enjoy the semi-narrative coop games like Mansions of Madness 2nd Edition so I might have to actually check this one out. Yeah I'd completely expected it to be trash but it's a really surprisingly tight design. It is absolutely not a semi narrative game though - it's almost a (deliberate) parody of 'pulp' cthulhu games and is pretty much purely a tactical/combat game. What sets it apart from other games imo is the speed of character progression and how entertainingly broken some of the player abilities are, and yet the game manages to remain fairly balanced. The power progression feels similar to Spirit Island in that regard, but the whole thing plays in about an hour. It doesn't beat something like Gloomhaven for depth of tactics but when you want to play a one shot that only lasts sixty minutes and lets you experience the kind of power curve that you might get with a Gloomhaven character that's close to retirement then it's amazing. If you do try it on tts skip the first scenario as imo it's one of the weakest. It's also worth checking out the SVWAG episode about it cos they loved it as well and weren't expecting to.
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Sep 11, 2020 19:30
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Stickman posted:Or are you??? I don't know a single person who doesn't leave those cards in the box. Randomly becoming a pyromaniac is fine, but being a traitor ruins the game.
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Sep 11, 2020 19:46
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Mansions of Madness has been on my wishlist for ages, but I’ve never been willing to plunk down the cash for it. Still not 100% sure on the app-integrated board game idea as a whole, either. This might be the year for it because I want to play something co-op and theme-heavy for Halloween. Death May Die is suddenly on the radar, though. Both sound like they could scratch a similar itch, but not sure which would go over better with the group.
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Sep 11, 2020 21:15
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Minus1Minus1 posted:Mansions of Madness has been on my wishlist for ages, but I’ve never been willing to plunk down the cash for it. Still not 100% sure on the app-integrated board game idea as a whole, either. Despite the theming they are very different games. MoM is at its best all about the story and exploration but imo is mechanically pretty weak as you're often making skill checks with fairly small pools of dice which with a bit of bad luck can result in quite a few turns stuck doing not much of anything. It's better than any of the other arkham files games but still quite unsatisfying at times. The story and mood the game creates is great though. DMD by contrast is all about the gameplay. Many cards have no flavor text at all and those that do it's often just a few words. There's no mood or story to care about, it's all about optimizing your turns, deliberately working to make your characters more insane (which makes them stronger) and working out which combo of special abilities will best suit the needs of the scenario. All of that to say that for me at least they scratch very different itches.
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Sep 11, 2020 21:32
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Given my recent post about not caring that Betrayal is a train wreck of a game system because it creates zany-fun schlocky horror narrative moments, it sounds like MoM is gonna be more appropriate to my tastes this time around. Everyone is dealing with a lot of extra stress this year, so the kind of “let’s sit down and do math puzzles together”-style gaming has kind of fallen by the wayside in favor of just bullshitting around the table.
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Sep 11, 2020 23:05
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For me, only getting to play online means I got into 18xx, so ymmv I guess. 
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Sep 11, 2020 23:18
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Target is clearancing Prospero Hall's Top Gun board game. Did someone in here say it was shockingly good?
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Sep 11, 2020 23:33
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Redundant posted:Speaking of Gloomhaven, I played my first ever session the other week and it felt like we just about scraped through scenario 1 on level 1. I'm looking forward to having the app set up for next time because not having to physically manage the monster and element stuff will be a huge bonus. Scenario #1 is tuned to be easier than the average scenario on paper, it's just that with no player experience and weak characters it's harder than it should be.
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Sep 12, 2020 00:53
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silvergoose posted:The problem isn't the randomness, pretty much every coop has that, the problem is whether the game has any consistency of difficulty. Pandemic can run into that problem but it's also worth noting what they attempt to do to minimize it by shuffling an epidemic into each 1/4 of the deck. You can still get screwed but ideally things are paced better in most situations. Doesn't fix everything, but example like that are good thinks to think about for how to approach the issue in other cases.
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Sep 12, 2020 02:36
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Bruceski posted:Pandemic can run into that problem but it's also worth noting what they attempt to do to minimize it by shuffling an epidemic into each 1/4 of the deck. You can still get screwed but ideally things are paced better in most situations. Also you can win with 5 of the 12 cards in each color, so even if they're all at the bottom you have 7 turns to make it work. Probably not enough but it's also pretty unlikely to be that bad.
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Sep 12, 2020 03:19
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To fix Pandemic play P: Rising Tide with objective cards. As for Robinson Crusoe, the trick is to never ever play with fewer that four characters. Otherwise you don't have the full set of random BS mitigation tools. Also, maybe ignore a mechanic or two, like losing health to depression while you get depressed by losing health.
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Sep 12, 2020 07:48
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SelenicMartian posted:To fix Pandemic play P: Rising Tide with objective cards. I prefer to ignore all the mechanics, and then I play a good game instead.
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Sep 12, 2020 09:46
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Doctor Spaceman posted:Scenario #1 is tuned to be easier than the average scenario on paper, it's just that with no player experience and weak characters it's harder than it should be. Scenario #2 of Gloomhaven is really well designed because it immediately teaches you the importance of pacing and that the game is not about exploring every room and "clearing the level".
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Sep 12, 2020 16:47
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I love the gloomhaven mechanics, but I think they probably work better on a computer than on paper. The steam version is very "early access" but is already a lot of fun
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Sep 12, 2020 17:19
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I kinda want this for a Boardgame table  If it is meant for classrooms it means it is nigh indestructible.https://www.worthingtondirect.com/tables/a60flr-60-flower-black-legs-black-tmold-114-thick-top-activity-table.htm
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Sep 12, 2020 17:30
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Minus1Minus1 posted:Mansions of Madness has been on my wishlist for ages, but I’ve never been willing to plunk down the cash for it. Still not 100% sure on the app-integrated board game idea as a whole, either. I beat this drum a lot but the app integration for Mansions of Madness 2e is super well done. In fact I'd go so far as to say it sets the bar for what app-integrated games should aspire to (and try to improve on, of course.) The "thing" is that it does state tracking / automation without rules enforcement. Just as a simple example, you are free to adjust monster health at any time, including killing/removing it entirely. Realized you hosed something up? Just make the correction and move on, just as you would without the app. In fact, the app doesn't even care whose turn it is, or even where a player is (it'll just ask if anyone is in the room / within range of 'x' whenever applicable). You will never get a situation where you want to do or change something and the app goes "Uh ERROR it's not your turn!" or something. This may seem like a weird thing to point out, but despite the app you still mainly play the game on the board, with the pieces. The app is just there for stepping though the turn phases, revealing the map when you explore (i.e. showing you what tile to put and where), telling you the results of any interactions/searches (not every scenario is the same every time), and telling you what each monster does during the combat resolution. And it does that really, really well. FFG promptly threw all that they (should have) learned about what makes an app-enabled board game SING out the window when they made their Middle-Earth game  e: The other thing I like about the game in general is that it's one of the few games where shaking out the cobwebs is really easy. Like, I've gone back to that game after a long break (you know the feeling, you're opening the box and only like 80% sure how to set up and play) and gotten back up to speed in no time at all, thanks in large part to the app silently taking care of squirmy little setup rules and details that you'd have to look up otherwise. The Eyes Have It fucked around with this message at 17:37 on Sep 12, 2020 |
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Sep 12, 2020 17:35
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djfooboo posted:I kinda want this for a Boardgame table If it's meant for classrooms it's probably also only knee heigh.
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Sep 12, 2020 17:36
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19-29 inches leg length, so at max it's "normal" table height.
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Sep 12, 2020 17:44
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pointsofdata posted:I love the gloomhaven mechanics, but I think they probably work better on a computer than on paper. The steam version is very "early access" but is already a lot of fun The card play works great with physical cards. But I finished the campaign and I agree that it would have been better as a video game. The admin/bookkeeping is just bad.
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Sep 12, 2020 17:46
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SelenicMartian posted:To fix Pandemic play P: Rising Tide with objective cards. I really enjoy Robinson crueso, but I think of it like playing "The lovely Tales of Arabian Nights" where it's a cruel story generator, and then it's a lot of fun.
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Sep 13, 2020 11:19
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djfooboo posted:I kinda want this for a Boardgame table That indented table reminds me, after I cut the hexagon out of my 4'x8' board, I have a leftover piece with this angle cut out of it. https://twitter.com/Ravendas16/status/1299897505669427201/photo/1 (That extra piece cut out on the left) I will probably just cut it down to 3' and have another 4'x3' topper, but I was wondering if there's any reason I should leave those side angle pieces for the weird indent? Like, some kind of DM's position where they have some weird extra table space around them?
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Sep 14, 2020 03:31
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