Board Games 5E: I thought I was having fun but it was my brain tricking me

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Board Games 5E: I thought I was having fun but it was my brain tricking me

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Megasabin: Sep 9, 2003; I get half!!

Summoner Wars 2E continues to impress. At this point I've taught one friend and my brother, and both played/stayed way longer than they originally intended. It's amazing how the entire game is a genuine 5-10 minute teach, but there's so much depth because of the abstract type gameplay that emerges from the tactical grid. Units/buildings have their typical tactical miniature style uses, but the way the cards can be used to channel movement, form protective walls, clog up summoning spots, has a very abstract game quality to it. It's very cool how the two games types are seamlessly blended with extremely little rules overhead.

# ? Jan 30, 2023 03:35

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# ? Jun 6, 2024 00:04

Tekopo: Oct 24, 2008; When you see it, you'll shit yourself.

Ever wanted to play a wargame without knowing (almost) any of the rules? I'm setting up a game of Pacific War where you can do just that!

Find it here!

# ? Jan 30, 2023 14:41

Chainclaw: Feb 14, 2009

How is ISS Vanguard for solo play? I just found out about it and I really like the setting and art. However, I don't think I want to convince my group to play, we're in the middle of Oathsworn, then we need to go back to Middara, then Gloomhaven, and yesterday the host pulled out the Frosthaven box that just showed up in the mail, so I don't think we want to divert to another long running coop game.

# ? Jan 30, 2023 16:16

Jarvisi: Apr 17, 2001; Green is still best.

I'm still hoping vanguard ships to backers sometime soon.

# ? Jan 30, 2023 17:05

armorer: Aug 6, 2012; I like metal.

Chainclaw posted:

How is ISS Vanguard for solo play? I just found out about it and I really like the setting and art. However, I don't think I want to convince my group to play, we're in the middle of Oathsworn, then we need to go back to Middara, then Gloomhaven, and yesterday the host pulled out the Frosthaven box that just showed up in the mail, so I don't think we want to divert to another long running coop game.

How do you like Oathsworn so far? I threw $1 at the v2 campaign to get pledge manager access, and am trying to decide if I want to buy it or not. I think the pledge manager closes in a week or so. Everyone online is raving about it basically, so I'm leaning towards yes, but it's going to sit on my shelf for a while before I ever get to it.

# ? Jan 30, 2023 17:14

djfooboo: Oct 16, 2004

It�s so disappointing we have a glut of 100+ campaign games and still required to work 5 day work weeks. Thanks Obama.

ISS:V is just Gloomhaven in space? so solo is probably good?

# ? Jan 30, 2023 17:17

BinaryDoubts: Jun 6, 2013; Looking at it now, it really is disgusting. The flesh is transparent. From the start, I had no idea if it would even make a clapping sound. So I diligently reproduced everything about human hands, the bones, joints, and muscles, and then made them slap each other pretty hard.

djfooboo posted:

It�s so disappointing we have a glut of 100+ campaign games and still required to work 5 day work weeks. Thanks Obama.

ISS:V is just Gloomhaven in space? so solo is probably good?

You might be thinking of Stars of Ikarios? ISS Vanguard is more story-focused, I think.

edit: Shelfside did a review of ISS Vanguard where one of the reviewers played the campaign solo two-handed. His complaints were more about the game itself, but I think he had no issues playing it solo.

# ? Jan 30, 2023 17:23

Poopy Palpy: Jun 10, 2000; Im da fwiggin Poopy Palpy XD

djfooboo posted:

It’s so disappointing we have a glut of 100+ campaign games and still required to work 5 day work weeks. Thanks Obama.

ISS:V is just Gloomhaven in space? so solo is probably good?

I could maybe afford to drop down to a 4 day work week if I stopped buying all these 30 lb board games I don't have time to play.

# ? Jan 30, 2023 17:32

Chainclaw: Feb 14, 2009

armorer posted:

How do you like Oathsworn so far? I threw $1 at the v2 campaign to get pledge manager access, and am trying to decide if I want to buy it or not. I think the pledge manager closes in a week or so. Everyone online is raving about it basically, so I'm leaning towards yes, but it's going to sit on my shelf for a while before I ever get to it.

My group absolutely loves it, more than Middara, Gloomhaven, and the half dozen other coop games we've played. We think Gloomhaven might be a better game, but it doesn't work as well for our group.

What we like about Oathsworn:
* The pacing and timing of the game works well for us. Our gaming time goal is roughly 3 PM to 9 PM on Sundays (sometimes 5 PM to 11 PM on Fridays). We just finished Chapter 6 in Oathsworn, and aside for this latest chapter, every time we tend to finish pretty well within that time frame. Note that we aren't heads down focused that whole time, people often arrive later (up to an hour later), there's a break to eat, we often just talk about whatever for some time, etc, hence the long window. That's also why we struggle with Gloomhaven, it's a much deeper time investment for our play stale and we we often starting at 5 PM on Fridays and finishing at 2 AM, and that was too late for us. Yesterday we started at like 3:30 PM and wrapped up at 7:30 PM because Chapter 6's combat just went absurdly well for us.
* Everyone in our group loves the town stuff. It's really flavorful, it has some gameplay functional stuff with having company-wide upgrades to grant re-rolls on town rolls, and the variety has been really strong. Unlike Gloomhaven and Middara's non-combat stuff that is mechanically simple, the Oathsworn stuff involves a lot of player choice and often some puzzle solving. For example, without spoilers, in yesterday's town portion we were hunting someone down. The town map has locations listed for different parts of town, like the Apothecary, Barracks, Slums, etc. We started in one location, and chose to ask the guards where the person went. After passing an intimidation check on the guard, we were told "Well I'm guarding the East exit and I didn't see them go this way", which cut our next set of locations to search in half. We could have skipped that check and instead just guessed at locations.
* The combat encounters have been really well designed with a ton of great variety. We look forward to each one because they feel distinct and require us to approach each combat encounter differently. We're playing heavily to the mechanics of the boss instead of just applying our own skills as aggressively as possible like we do in Middara or Gloomhaven.
* Everyone loves the battleflow system for card management. It feels like a good way to manage more frequent and less frequent abilities, and the game gives you plenty of tools to do interesting things here, too. The systems feel designed together to fit like clockwork. For example, when you're attacked you can discard a card to get that card's armor value. When you do that, the card triggers battleflow as normal, so even there you have an interesting but not too complex decision of "Do I discard my highest armor value card for the most armor against this attack, or should I instead discard a lower armor value card that will trigger a lot more battleflow?"
* I like exploding dice in games, it can add a good feeling of landing a huge hit.
* The choice between dice or dice decks is good. If you play with people who prefer to smooth out the randomness they can choose to use the dice deck instead of dice. We use the dice decks for enemies and the dice for ourselves.
* The risk/reward choice for rolling is fun. Each dice has a few blank spots on it. When you do a skill check or attack, you choose how many dice you want to roll. The risk of choosing more dice is, if you land two blanks, you auto-fail the roll. In practice this often ends up with picking somewhere between 3 and 5 dice for any given roll, based on how badly you want to roll high versus how much you want to mitigate the risk and not miss.
* The token system + the above miss system is very fair. If you spend tokens as part of your roll, to re-roll or upgrade the roll, and you still miss, you get that token back plus you can choose another token to add to your pool for future rolls. So missing isn't always as devastating as it should be.l
* I like when these games let you see the monster's next move, to strategize as a team. This game also does the standard play most of these styles of games have, each monster deck is divided into Phase 1, 2, and 3 cards. You advance phases under certain conditions. There's an interesting extra wrinkle to that standard system here: If you break a monster's limb, it automatically does the next card in retaliation immediately (so you might choose to attack a different location to not trigger an attack at an inopportune time).
* It feels like we're mostly getting an impactful upgrade each at the end of each play session. Nothing hugely impactful or game changing, but things like "You now start each battle with a reroll token". This gives a good sense of progress, but isn't as fun as getting upgrades in Middara, for example. It feels better than Gloomhaven where sometimes it would feel like we'd go through a month and maybe get one minor upgrade for 3 of the 4 of us, one player not even getting anything interesting that month.
* The app is great, it's not overbearing, the voice acting is great, the writing is solid not too much not too little but it builds the world really well. The app removes a lot of fiddly information tracking during the town portion of the game, and you don't use the app at all during combat.
* The world is interesting, and everything feels well built to fit the world. The game also progresses the state of the world as you play through the chapters, in some interesting ways.
* I hated the "discard one used item at the end of a combat encounter" mechanic at first, but the game is giving us enough cards that this feels good now. It makes us think a lot about keeping our inventory fresh, changing things out at a regular clip.

# ? Jan 30, 2023 18:01

armorer: Aug 6, 2012; I like metal.

Chainclaw posted:

My group absolutely loves it, more than Middara, Gloomhaven, and the half dozen other coop games we've played. We think Gloomhaven might be a better game, but it doesn't work as well for our group.

What we like about Oathsworn:
* The pacing and timing of the game works well for us. Our gaming time goal is roughly 3 PM to 9 PM on Sundays (sometimes 5 PM to 11 PM on Fridays). We just finished Chapter 6 in Oathsworn, and aside for this latest chapter, every time we tend to finish pretty well within that time frame. Note that we aren't heads down focused that whole time, people often arrive later (up to an hour later), there's a break to eat, we often just talk about whatever for some time, etc, hence the long window. That's also why we struggle with Gloomhaven, it's a much deeper time investment for our play stale and we we often starting at 5 PM on Fridays and finishing at 2 AM, and that was too late for us. Yesterday we started at like 3:30 PM and wrapped up at 7:30 PM because Chapter 6's combat just went absurdly well for us.
* Everyone in our group loves the town stuff. It's really flavorful, it has some gameplay functional stuff with having company-wide upgrades to grant re-rolls on town rolls, and the variety has been really strong. Unlike Gloomhaven and Middara's non-combat stuff that is mechanically simple, the Oathsworn stuff involves a lot of player choice and often some puzzle solving. For example, without spoilers, in yesterday's town portion we were hunting someone down. The town map has locations listed for different parts of town, like the Apothecary, Barracks, Slums, etc. We started in one location, and chose to ask the guards where the person went. After passing an intimidation check on the guard, we were told "Well I'm guarding the East exit and I didn't see them go this way", which cut our next set of locations to search in half. We could have skipped that check and instead just guessed at locations.
* The combat encounters have been really well designed with a ton of great variety. We look forward to each one because they feel distinct and require us to approach each combat encounter differently. We're playing heavily to the mechanics of the boss instead of just applying our own skills as aggressively as possible like we do in Middara or Gloomhaven.
* Everyone loves the battleflow system for card management. It feels like a good way to manage more frequent and less frequent abilities, and the game gives you plenty of tools to do interesting things here, too. The systems feel designed together to fit like clockwork. For example, when you're attacked you can discard a card to get that card's armor value. When you do that, the card triggers battleflow as normal, so even there you have an interesting but not too complex decision of "Do I discard my highest armor value card for the most armor against this attack, or should I instead discard a lower armor value card that will trigger a lot more battleflow?"
* I like exploding dice in games, it can add a good feeling of landing a huge hit.
* The choice between dice or dice decks is good. If you play with people who prefer to smooth out the randomness they can choose to use the dice deck instead of dice. We use the dice decks for enemies and the dice for ourselves.
* The risk/reward choice for rolling is fun. Each dice has a few blank spots on it. When you do a skill check or attack, you choose how many dice you want to roll. The risk of choosing more dice is, if you land two blanks, you auto-fail the roll. In practice this often ends up with picking somewhere between 3 and 5 dice for any given roll, based on how badly you want to roll high versus how much you want to mitigate the risk and not miss.
* The token system + the above miss system is very fair. If you spend tokens as part of your roll, to re-roll or upgrade the roll, and you still miss, you get that token back plus you can choose another token to add to your pool for future rolls. So missing isn't always as devastating as it should be.l
* I like when these games let you see the monster's next move, to strategize as a team. This game also does the standard play most of these styles of games have, each monster deck is divided into Phase 1, 2, and 3 cards. You advance phases under certain conditions. There's an interesting extra wrinkle to that standard system here: If you break a monster's limb, it automatically does the next card in retaliation immediately (so you might choose to attack a different location to not trigger an attack at an inopportune time).
* It feels like we're mostly getting an impactful upgrade each at the end of each play session. Nothing hugely impactful or game changing, but things like "You now start each battle with a reroll token". This gives a good sense of progress, but isn't as fun as getting upgrades in Middara, for example. It feels better than Gloomhaven where sometimes it would feel like we'd go through a month and maybe get one minor upgrade for 3 of the 4 of us, one player not even getting anything interesting that month.
* The app is great, it's not overbearing, the voice acting is great, the writing is solid not too much not too little but it builds the world really well. The app removes a lot of fiddly information tracking during the town portion of the game, and you don't use the app at all during combat.
* The world is interesting, and everything feels well built to fit the world. The game also progresses the state of the world as you play through the chapters, in some interesting ways.
* I hated the "discard one used item at the end of a combat encounter" mechanic at first, but the game is giving us enough cards that this feels good now. It makes us think a lot about keeping our inventory fresh, changing things out at a regular clip.

Thanks for this! (And also thanks for the gentle trolling, other folks above, totally accurate feedback as well.) My current campaigning crew has consistently cranked through Gloomhaven scenarios in 3 hours, so your first bullet point is just wild to me. If it actually takes 6 hours to play a chapter of Oathsworn, that's going to be a tough sell, but if my crew is just a hell of a lot more focused than yours, then we're probably okay to fit in the typical ~3 hour windows we play in.

# ? Jan 30, 2023 18:16

Chainclaw: Feb 14, 2009

armorer posted:

Thanks for this! (And also thanks for the gentle trolling, other folks above, totally accurate feedback as well.) My current campaigning crew has consistently cranked through Gloomhaven scenarios in 3 hours, so your first bullet point is just wild to me. If it actually takes 6 hours to play a chapter of Oathsworn, that's going to be a tough sell, but if my crew is just a hell of a lot more focused than yours, then we're probably okay to fit in the typical ~3 hour windows we play in.

If you're doing a scenario in 3 hours in Gloomhaven, then you'll probably get through Oathsworn way faster than us. We stopped playing Gloomhaven largely because the host knows he's slow at that game and it takes forever. I remember nights where I'd leave at 2 AM before we finished a Gloomhaven scenario, and it took the rest of the players another hour or two to finish after that.

# ? Jan 30, 2023 18:22

Parker Lewis: Jan 4, 2006; Can't Lose

Chainclaw posted:

How is ISS Vanguard for solo play? I just found out about it and I really like the setting and art. However, I don't think I want to convince my group to play, we're in the middle of Oathsworn, then we need to go back to Middara, then Gloomhaven, and yesterday the host pulled out the Frosthaven box that just showed up in the mail, so I don't think we want to divert to another long running coop game.

I will preface this by saying I have never played an Awakened Realms game but I did a lot of research when trying to decide whether or not to back ISS Vanguard for solo play.

It seems that the common criticism of most games from AR is that they are heavy on presentation and storytelling but light on actual game mechanics. Honestly, that sounds like kind of an appealing mix to me, a game that looks nice on the table and tells a good story without being overcomplicated gameplay-wise could be pretty enjoyable. I did get the sense that there is a bit more �game� to ISS Vanguard than in Tainted Grail, but a criticism I saw of both is that the game mechanics were a bit shallow and got repetitive over the course of a long campaign.

I did reluctantly delete my pledge from my Gamefound cart prior to ordering ISS Vanguard but it was more of a bad timing factor with my having too many unplayed games already; I think it is likely that I would have had a good time with ISS Vanguard and maybe I will try to pick up a copy at retail or secondhand some day.

Parker Lewis fucked around with this message at 19:19 on Jan 30, 2023

# ? Jan 30, 2023 19:08

Chill la Chill: Jul 2, 2007; Don't lose your gay

I am unreasonably hyped for pueblo and even got the turntable. I have a feeling I'll see it on sale everywhere within 6 months since it's an older abstract game but I'm still hyped. GOTY 2023

# ? Jan 30, 2023 20:51

canyoneer: Sep 13, 2005; I only have canyoneyes for you

djfooboo posted:

It’s so disappointing we have a glut of 100+ campaign games and still required to work 5 day work weeks. Thanks Obama.

Playing a game for 5 hours on the weekend is microdosing the joy that would be possible if we weren't working for The Man.

Therefore, the world's happiest people are the retired grandpas in Taiwan chain-smoking and playing mahjongg all day

# ? Jan 30, 2023 21:03

Magnetic North: Dec 15, 2008; Beware the Forest's Mushrooms

Chill la Chill posted:

I am unreasonably hyped for pueblo and even got the turntable. I have a feeling I'll see it on sale everywhere within 6 months since it's an older abstract game but I'm still hyped. GOTY 2023

I am completely poo poo at all abstracts. I hope I am at least reasonable at this one.

# ? Jan 30, 2023 21:05

djfooboo: Oct 16, 2004

BinaryDoubts posted:

You might be thinking of Stars of Ikarios? ISS Vanguard is more story-focused, I think.

edit: Shelfside did a review of ISS Vanguard where one of the reviewers played the campaign solo two-handed. His complaints were more about the game itself, but I think he had no issues playing it solo.

Maybe/probably, so many games released everything muddies together.

# ? Jan 30, 2023 21:06

Anonymous Robot: Jun 1, 2007; Lost his leg in Robo War I

What�s the distribution model like for Oathsworn? I see that you can buy it on kickstarter after the fundraiser is done, is it a �buy it now or pay a scalper later� type deal? It seems like a nearly perfect game for my group, but $375 is a hefty price tag for a game that probably won�t make it to the table until next year.

# ? Jan 30, 2023 22:26

armorer: Aug 6, 2012; I like metal.

Anonymous Robot posted:

What�s the distribution model like for Oathsworn? I see that you can buy it on kickstarter after the fundraiser is done, is it a �buy it now or pay a scalper later� type deal? It seems like a nearly perfect game for my group, but $375 is a hefty price tag for a game that probably won�t make it to the table until next year.

Granted it's still expensive, but I think the $225 pledge is the way to go. The difference between that and the $375 one it a lot of stuff I don't really want.

# ? Jan 30, 2023 22:39

Pryce: May 21, 2011

Chainclaw posted:

How is ISS Vanguard for solo play? I just found out about it and I really like the setting and art. However, I don't think I want to convince my group to play, we're in the middle of Oathsworn, then we need to go back to Middara, then Gloomhaven, and yesterday the host pulled out the Frosthaven box that just showed up in the mail, so I don't think we want to divert to another long running coop game.

I think it�s an excellent solo game. The entire core gameplay is just doing dice checks, so it�s not the most complicated gameplay, but that makes it simple to play multiple characters at once. I find the story interesting, though it does tap into every familiar sci-fi trope.

I specifically backed at the non-mini level and am so happy I did. Well worth the cost.

# ? Jan 30, 2023 22:48

Chainclaw: Feb 14, 2009

armorer posted:

Granted it's still expensive, but I think the $225 pledge is the way to go. The difference between that and the $375 one it a lot of stuff I don't really want.

I say skip the $225 one and get the $125 version. I think all the extra $100 gets you is the plastic miniatures for bosses and enemies. Our group prefers the cardboard because the host isn't going to get around to painting all the minis, and the cardboard in color looks a bit better than gray plastic on the table.

# ? Jan 30, 2023 22:50

PRADA SLUT: Mar 14, 2006; Inexperienced,
heartless,
but even so

Parker Lewis posted:

It seems that the common criticism of most games from AR is that they are heavy on presentation and storytelling but light on actual game mechanics. Honestly, that sounds like kind of an appealing mix to me, a game that looks nice on the table and tells a good story without being overcomplicated gameplay-wise could be pretty enjoyable. I did get the sense that there is a bit more �game� to ISS Vanguard than in Tainted Grail, but a criticism I saw of both is that the game mechanics were a bit shallow and got repetitive over the course of a long campaign.

I backed ISS Vanguard and nearly finished with Etherfields and this is about right, except the �repetitive� isn�t the whole picture.

The mechanics are �repetitive�, but it�s more �the way you do the thing is the same, but the thing differs each time in a weird/interesting way�. Like one (Etherfields) mission has you rearranging the map tiles while standing on them such that they reveal and form various photos. You still draw a hand and play cards to move and activate spaces, but the focus is on solving the puzzle. Though, there are a few missions that really gently caress with the core gameplay loop as well.

Rather, the way you interact with the game stays mostly the same throughout, but the effects and strategy behind those interactions is supremely varied.

I spent 75 hours on the Etherfields core box alone, and it didn�t feel slow at any point. It might feel different solo since I played in a duo and we could solve puzzles together and bounce ideas of each other.

PRADA SLUT fucked around with this message at 06:13 on Jan 31, 2023

# ? Jan 30, 2023 23:04

Azran: Sep 3, 2012; And what should one do to be remembered?

Edit: Nevermind!

Azran fucked around with this message at 14:09 on Jan 31, 2023

# ? Jan 31, 2023 10:50

!Klams: Dec 25, 2005; Squid Squad

Parker Lewis posted:

I will preface this by saying I have never played an Awakened Realms game but I did a lot of research when trying to decide whether or not to back ISS Vanguard for solo play.

It seems that the common criticism of most games from AR is that they are heavy on presentation and storytelling but light on actual game mechanics. Honestly, that sounds like kind of an appealing mix to me, a game that looks nice on the table and tells a good story without being overcomplicated gameplay-wise could be pretty enjoyable. I did get the sense that there is a bit more �game� to ISS Vanguard than in Tainted Grail, but a criticism I saw of both is that the game mechanics were a bit shallow and got repetitive over the course of a long campaign.

I did reluctantly delete my pledge from my Gamefound cart prior to ordering ISS Vanguard but it was more of a bad timing factor with my having too many unplayed games already; I think it is likely that I would have had a good time with ISS Vanguard and maybe I will try to pick up a copy at retail or secondhand some day.

My experience with AR games is not that they're 'light' on mechanics, quite the opposite. But it's more that they just have LOTS of mechanics, rather than deep ones. Their approach seems to be, they think "it would be cool to have this in the game" so they add that to the game. Which, you know, I can't really fault them for!

But it means you get stuff like, in Lord of Hellas, there's a quest track, a deck of oversized monster playmats for tracking their wounds, a blessing deck that at certain points you draft from, a randomised temple card that randomises when you do the blessings (with one special temple you can build that does something different), dudes on a map combat / exploration, buildings you can occupy for defence bonuses (with one special version of those buildings), levelling up your hero by sending priests to pray at monuments (there are different monuments to choose at the start of the game and they give different bonuses), artifact cards you get from building monuments or killing monsters, a set of special actions you can only take once until someone does the 'build monument' action, special usurp tokens that let you take a different action, random monster rampages, unique hero abilities...

I mean I'm almost certainly forgetting a bunch, and the expansions all just add more mechanics. (SO MANY).

It's not really a complaint as such, but I do think it could all be streamlined quite a lot. There's no real reason quests and the monster hunts are different cards, except "its cool".

!Klams fucked around with this message at 12:25 on Jan 31, 2023

# ? Jan 31, 2023 12:00

Parker Lewis: Jan 4, 2006; Can't Lose

Andromeda�s Edge is live on Gamefound, new game from the designer of Dwellings of Eldervale.

I haven�t been able to get a copy of Eldervale yet but I have seen it get positive reviews for solo play.

I am currently trying to make sense of Andromeda�s Edge�s solo rulebook posted on the Gamefound page and decide if there is room in my life for another space-themed game. Might wait and see if I can get a copy of Eldervale first, sounds like preorders for its third printing will be happening within the next month.

Parker Lewis fucked around with this message at 17:28 on Jan 31, 2023

# ? Jan 31, 2023 17:25

Pryce: May 21, 2011

The Search for Lost Species also went live today on KS. Effectively a sequel to Search for Planet X. I did a quick read through the rulebook and it seems mostly like a new skin on the same game. There are some rule differences and the layout is shifted around, but ultimately nothing that would convince someone who didn't like Planet X to try this one instead.

I'll probably just wait for retail to decide if I want to pick it up; I love Planet X but I don't know if I love it enough to play another game that seems mostly the same with slightly different mechanics.

# ? Jan 31, 2023 21:19

djfooboo: Oct 16, 2004

Getting real PBS vibes from that game. It�s kinda off putting. Also �Limited Copies� at the top. Uh, isn�t that the point is to print what you sell?

# ? Jan 31, 2023 21:45

JoeRules: Jul 11, 2001

djfooboo posted:

Also �Limited Copies� at the top. Uh, isn�t that the point is to print what you sell?

It's a fake kickstarter. The backer release is in May, retail August - they've already finalized and begun production and are running this to get maxx buxx prior to the already planned retail release.

# ? Feb 1, 2023 03:37

jivjov: Sep 13, 2007; But how does it taste? Yummy!; Dinosaur Gum

Infinitum posted:

@ everything about Agricola 15

Doesn't include all expansions, doesn't include extra players

This is an actual component

It needs to be double layered! That'll twist!

Who is this for?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJmp-V2P62o&t=449s

This reminds me of the metal first aid kit copy of pandemic from a few years back -- kinda neat presentation, but is not an All Expansions Version nor was it compatible with the existing expansions

# ? Feb 1, 2023 08:05

Perry Mason Jar: Feb 24, 2006; "Della? Take a lid"

Got (sort of) tricked into playing Game of Ham. How the fuuuuck is a game like this still being made? For context, it's literally Cards Against Humanity except they added a bunch of bullshit to make it more competitive and also worse (adds a bunch of RNG but not really any strategy).

I mean the hilarious racism, poop, cum, and fetish jokes are really loving stupid and lovely onto themselves. But in what world does ANY canned humor still have punch? Here's my PUNCHLINE card (guaranteed hit) just gotta wait for the perfect set-up. Who loving does humor like this? Who thinks this is how humor works? If you took a brain scan of people who enjoy this poo poo you'd see the back of their skull.

Also it's so insanely obviously made by white people for white people. We played one game but there was a number of jokes about black people, Asian people, muslims. Zeroooo jokes about White people. How interesting! That's sooo interesting!

God and just the absurd ignorance on display. "Tricking a Muslim into eating pork" lmaoo soOoOo funny. Somehow "tricking a Christian into eating meat on a Lent Friday" didn't make the cut... must be because everyone knows it's as unfunny as it is inconsequential. In Islam if you accidentally eat some pork, it's not considered a sin! Wow, imagine that. Intention matters. Crazy world. Actually if you eat pork out of just plain curiosity or some other superficiality, it still barely rises to the level of sin. Sin is more about intentionally defying God, not being a normal person!

There's also "Tricking an Indian into eating beef" (might've been Hindu instead of Indian, but I doubt it!) which is somehow even stupider. It's not a SIN to eat beef as a Hindu, nor is it a tenet of Hinduism - in fact, many Hindus knowingly and willingly eat beef (in the East). Prohibitions against eating beef really arose in the 19th and 20th centuries and had more to do with castes and subjugation of Muslims.

Oh no one card was "Arguing the dichotomy of being racist versus saying racist things" ... maddening! There's no dichotomy, hope this helps.

# ? Feb 1, 2023 16:19

Morpheus: Apr 18, 2008; My favourite little monsters

"This journey has always been about the product before the profit. Every decision was made with the focus on quality as our first priority."

The game:

# ? Feb 1, 2023 16:56

silvergoose: Mar 18, 2006; IT IS SAID THE TEARS OF THE BWEENIX CAN HEAL ALL WOUNDS

Looks like it was self published, so presumably someone who likes telling racist lovely jokes wanted to get other people to do that too.

# ? Feb 1, 2023 16:59

Deathlove: Feb 20, 2003; Pillbug

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fL4PP8HR6aw

Scythe II announcement video.

# ? Feb 1, 2023 17:02

Frozen Peach: Aug 25, 2004; garbage man from a garbage can

Deathlove posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fL4PP8HR6aw

Scythe II announcement video.

I'm actually pretty excited about this one.

# ? Feb 1, 2023 17:11

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

SM games motto is �we excel at mediocrity�

# ? Feb 1, 2023 17:19

Bodanarko: May 29, 2009

They excel at marketing and making games with a �premium� presentation, while touting a rigorous play testing scheme that has a huge blind spot for major balance issues. Also uh is this game going to use traced Disney artwork too or what

That being said, we own a majority of their catalog, their games are clearly very appealing for the average gamer and the ability of wingspan to attract non gamers despite a heavier rules overhead than TTR or Catan is impressive.

# ? Feb 1, 2023 18:39

Pseudoscorpion: Jul 26, 2011

bold of them to set another game in a setting notable for its use of artwork by a guy who steals all his art

# ? Feb 1, 2023 19:14

GreenBuckanneer: Sep 15, 2007

Anyone played: https://capstone-games.com/board-games/lux-aeterna/ ?

It's out of stock, the company suggested I get https://capstone-games.com/board-games/aleph-null/

I like both genres (scifi & occult) but prefer scifi. Has anyone played both? Are they similar to each other, or could you get both and have a separate enough experience from it?

Another question, has anyone played Apogee? How did they like it? https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/309319/apogee

I'm in the market for trying more solitaire-style games, so I purchased https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/305752/gate, it looks fun, but it will take about a month to get it.

# ? Feb 1, 2023 19:49

BinaryDoubts: Jun 6, 2013; Looking at it now, it really is disgusting. The flesh is transparent. From the start, I had no idea if it would even make a clapping sound. So I diligently reproduced everything about human hands, the bones, joints, and muscles, and then made them slap each other pretty hard.

Expeditions, the sequel to Scythe, has been announced and put up for preorder. Seems to have a similar presentation to Scythe (same artist, too... assumed he'd be blackballed due to that whole plagiarism scandal) but mechanically looks to have more of a focus on hand management than Scythe's resource manipulation.

# ? Feb 1, 2023 20:49

PRADA SLUT: Mar 14, 2006; Inexperienced,
heartless,
but even so

BinaryDoubts posted:

Expeditions, the sequel to Scythe, has been announced and put up for preorder. Seems to have a similar presentation to Scythe (same artist, too... assumed he'd be blackballed due to that whole plagiarism scandal) but mechanically looks to have more of a focus on hand management than Scythe's resource manipulation.

From the video, I hope it focuses more on bear management

# ? Feb 1, 2023 21:17

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# ? Jun 6, 2024 00:04

Megasabin: Sep 9, 2003; I get half!!

Finally got to try a Mindclash game. Played Trickerion last night.

There's a lot of very cool stuff mechanically and thematically. The simultaneous blind action selection mechanic is a tense wonderful mechanic that encourages paying attention to other plays. It reminds of what Crystal Palace's dice placement was trying to achieve, but executes it better. The actual magic show point scoring phase is very intricate and again features at on of interactivity between players. This game is basically designed as the opposite of a solitaire worker placement-- it integrates interactivity between players into the core mechanics of the worker placement system and point scoring mechanics.

Despite really loving the above I have to admit this game crosses over beyond complex into convoluted. Some of the rules are very hard to gronk from the ambiguous rule book and looking up the designer's clarifications on BGG posts really leave me scratching my head how they expected anyone to figure out what they were thinking. Even with those explanations, there are some very fiddly obscure mechanics. I feel like the game could use a 2nd edition that streamlines things.

I will also say we played with the Dark Alley module from the getgo and this module seems 100% necessary. It adds variability into the game in the form of round modifiers & unique 1x use special actions for taking certain worker spots. Without this module the game would almost be a perfect information game and I think that would be to it's detriment.

Anyone else have feelings on this game? I feel like it gets eclipsed by Anachrony and most of the discussion I see is about that game.

# ? Feb 1, 2023 21:25

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Board Games 5E: I thought I was having fun but it was my brain tricking me

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