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SkeletonHero posted:Tokaido's alright if you get the expansion that turns it into an actual game. At least, it's chill and simple enough to engage casual players and doesn't overstay its welcome. I have heard this before and would give Tokaido another chance with the expansion (ahead of the blank white room) based on these comments. Eraflure posted:Both of those games are perfectly fine games for a more casual experience with friends imo. I'll play Dead of Winter with my mom and sister It's not about "casual," at least as I understand that word. For me, casual is defined as forums poster SkeletonHero said, "chill and simple enough to engage casual players and doesn't overstay its welcome." I would put Lost Cities (especially the board game version) in this category, and many other games I'm happy to play. I've taught Modern Art, Tok Tok Woodman, Love Letter, and Travel Blog to non-gamers, and everyone got into them. I think some people simply aren't as sensitive to how much their input "matters" in a game, as long as the output they get from the game retains novelty. I also think some people really enjoy political ("take that!") games, and will enjoy all of them, because they are all nearly identical experiences. It's like how some people have the taste buds that make cilantro taste like soap or whatever, and others don't; games with high politics and games where my input doesn't matter taste like soap to me and I would rather not game at all than play those.
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May 14, 2020 15:20
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homullus posted:I have heard this before and would give Tokaido another chance with the expansion (ahead of the blank white room) based on these comments. There are two, and Crossroads adds the most because it gives you a choice of action at each location. At the Temple you can buy amulets that give one-shot abilities, like eating for free or getting to use an occupied space. At the Shop you can buy one of three "super-souvenirs". At the Encounter space you can take Calligraphy cards that give end game bonuses. At the Baths you can pay to take an extra special bath which is always worth more points. At the Farm you can gamble if you have a stake. And at Panoramas you can paint cherry trees for money instead of the view. Having these alternatives gives you reasons to move to any space other than the first available spot. The Matsuri expansion is much smaller, adding only a few characters and a deck of special events that you draw from before leaving each Inn which affect the next day of travel. It's nice for variety, but not so important.
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May 14, 2020 15:32
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Deathlove posted:Speaking of TTS, is there a good list/resource for Good Games on TTS so I don't have to paw through seven versions of Life and Yahtzee? Are you just looking for good games, or good mods? If the former, you can search in Steam Workshops and most games (well, at least pre corporate takedown) have some sort of mod. Great mods with good scripting and such is a different beast.
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May 14, 2020 15:45
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homullus posted:I wasn't trying to draw a super negative comparison. I'm one of those people who isn't maddened by having to listen to my own thoughts for more than a couple minutes -- I don't need a constant stream of text or music to be entertained. Spending Small World's game time while awake in an empty room would never be my top choice for fun, but it would be ok! And it would be better than actually playing Small World, Tokaido, TIME Stories, Smash Up, Dead of Winter, et cetera during that time. Smash Up holds the honor of being the first game I've turned sour on. Some decks don't give you any real decisions, and the difference in power is so vast that the Smash Up setup makes the initial setup in Catan look reasonable. A real worthy lightweight game is For Sale. I've taught that game to dozens of people who have never played a hobbyist boardgame, and they all love it. Kingdomino also works well at that weight level, but it's limited to four players only.
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May 14, 2020 15:51
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Shadow225 posted:Are you just looking for good games, or good mods? If the former, you can search in Steam Workshops and most games (well, at least pre corporate takedown) have some sort of mod. Great mods with good scripting and such is a different beast. I kind of doubt that anyone would want a good game with a bad mod. Nice way of turning a good game into something you'd never want to play again 
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May 14, 2020 16:03
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There are tons of good games with acceptable mods (that are just the components you need, and you have to run everything manually, same as over the board). If the game is good (and amenable to playing with a mouse) then these mods are good fun to play with. There's also a big gulf between acceptable mods and great mods.
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May 14, 2020 16:05
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Shadow225 posted:Are you just looking for good games, or good mods? If the former, you can search in Steam Workshops and most games (well, at least pre corporate takedown) have some sort of mod. Great mods with good scripting and such is a different beast. I guess Good Games! Reading some of the reviews of the games I've found has definitely opened my eyes to how janky the TTS experience is, though.
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May 14, 2020 16:10
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In the current environment, my gf and I are pulling out some of the old games we have stuffed on the top shelf of our closet. The other day I unearthed my copy of Arkham Horror, the 2005 FFG version. One big board, a billion card stacks, thousands of little rules and edge cases and lots and lots of rolling. With just two of us playing, each playing a single investigator, and without having to constantly refer to the rulebook because we've both played this game quite a bit before, and the game still took 4 goddamn hours. We won by sealing the GOO away after the doom track filled up. The most investigators I've played with is 4, and I cannot imagine the hellworld that is playing that game with a full group of 8. Every single turn would be like 45 minutes, minimum. Moreso if any of the players suffer from AP.
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May 14, 2020 16:20
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Deathlove posted:I guess Good Games! Reading some of the reviews of the games I've found has definitely opened my eyes to how janky the TTS experience is, though. We tried A Feast for Odin on TTS last night and it was perfectly acceptable really. There's a lot of fiddling around to lay your tiles out but it all works fine really. The Root that's on TTS is very good and Spirit Island on TTS again seems good.
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May 14, 2020 16:22
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It's incredible that in all my years of board gaming I don't know a single person who owns Small World and I've never played it.Aramoro posted:We tried A Feast for Odin on TTS last night and it was perfectly acceptable really. There's a lot of fiddling around to lay your tiles out but it all works fine really. The Root that's on TTS is very good and Spirit Island on TTS again seems good. If someone made a proper Feast for Odin application I would buy it in two seconds. As it stands between Vassal and TTS I am pretty much at my wits end for playing board games in ersatz digital form. I think maybe it's the online communication that's making it worse for me? Not sure but either way I don't enjoy it for the most part and would rather just play a 2 player game with my girlfriend or a video game on my own.
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May 14, 2020 16:26
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FulsomFrank posted:If someone made a proper Feast for Odin application I would buy it in two seconds. We talked about this last night on TTS a bunch of time is taken up doing admin basically. Harvesting, Breeding Animals, refreshing mountains, flipping islands etc. All that stuff could be automated and it would make it a much smoother experience.
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May 14, 2020 16:33
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FulsomFrank posted:It's incredible that in all my years of board gaming I don't know a single person who owns Small World and I've never played it. quote:If someone made a proper Feast for Odin application I would buy it in two seconds. As it stands between Vassal and TTS I am pretty much at my wits end for playing board games in ersatz digital form. I think maybe it's the online communication that's making it worse for me? Not sure but either way I don't enjoy it for the most part and would rather just play a 2 player game with my girlfriend or a video game on my own. Yes I'm totally fine with working apps and same I don't like TTS/Tabletopia/Vassal either. Boardgamearena is fine, I'd rather play live, but with BGA at least the games go much faster and the interfaces are really well done. And I for one am very happy there's no undo button, wish I could get one for my live games  Loving Teotihuacan testing on BGA, it's been awesome.
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May 14, 2020 16:36
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Aramoro posted:We talked about this last night on TTS a bunch of time is taken up doing admin basically. Harvesting, Breeding Animals, refreshing mountains, flipping islands etc. All that stuff could be automated and it would make it a much smoother experience. I don't even find the admin in Feast that bad compared to some other games. And the set up isn't the worst either although parts of it are annoying. What's starting to grind on me is the table footprint (HUGE) and the take-down. Putting all those little pieces of cardboard back home takes a bit of time and god knows just fitting it all back in the box isn't exactly a walk in the park right now.
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May 14, 2020 16:36
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Small World is certainly flawed, but it's so rules-light and wacky that I can (well, could, loving pandemic) get it to the table with basically anyone. I've always wanted to try the expansions/re-release with custom maps and stuff. It's a cool game for me personally because within like three turns of starting my first game it kind of drew attention to a bunch of crap that I was putting up with in Risk that I actually hated and didn't seem to contribute a ton to the game overall.
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May 14, 2020 16:38
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Triskelli posted:Has anyone played Vinci, the game that got turned into Smallworld? I’ve played Vinci. Big differences are the powers aren’t separated into two categories so any two powers can be combined, you automatically get a bonus when attacking from a mountain, a point track instead of coins so everyone’s score is open information. It’s fine. I’m not a fan of either but I have some friends who strongly preferred Vinci when Small World came out, but I think for the most part they switched to Small World because it was easier to get on the table.
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May 14, 2020 17:06
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For me, the most time consuming part of Feast is, by far, bonuses. We're experienced enough that we just amass islands and artisan huts and houses that it takes so long to hand all of that out. I would also pay a good amount for a proper app, or, preferably, bga or baj implementation.
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May 14, 2020 19:07
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The last time I played Small World someone had some severe AP (in Small World!) and the game took like 3 hours. If SW was like a 30 minute game, it might be alright, but it's too long for what it is, and I also hate the mechanic of "I'm going to skip my turn" since it makes 2-3 turns in the game boring(er) as balls.
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May 14, 2020 22:15
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Anyone tried the SW app/ Steam release? I was thinking about it, since that would make it faster...
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May 14, 2020 22:21
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Magnetic North posted:Anyone tried the SW app/ Steam release? I was thinking about it, since that would make it faster... No, but you can get it for $1 right now in the Humble Bundle so it's a good time to check it out.
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May 14, 2020 22:37
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Magnetic North posted:Anyone tried the SW app/ Steam release? I was thinking about it, since that would make it faster... It’s great because you can crank a game out in like five minutes which is perfect for the amount of decision-making needed for the game.
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May 14, 2020 22:45
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GrandpaPants posted:The last time I played Small World someone had some severe AP (in Small World!) and the game took like 3 hours. If SW was like a 30 minute game, it might be alright, but it's too long for what it is, and I also hate the mechanic of "I'm going to skip my turn" since it makes 2-3 turns in the game boring(er) as balls. yeah the "spend a turn in decline" mechanic sucks for a game thats like 6 turns long
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May 14, 2020 23:33
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I enjoy small world with 3 skilled players who don't get huffy when they're the obvious target. Playing that way really distills it to its base auction. The additional auctions in the one expansion are nice as well. Would still probably pick many other 3p games over it. It's an acceptable DOAM for a crowd that would otherwise play something like Risk but isn't super calcuating. I assume better alternatives have been released at generally the same weight.
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May 15, 2020 06:44
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homullus posted:I wasn't trying to draw a super negative comparison. I'm one of those people who isn't maddened by having to listen to my own thoughts for more than a couple minutes -- I don't need a constant stream of text or music to be entertained. Spending Small World's game time while awake in an empty room would never be my top choice for fun, but it would be ok! And it would be better than actually playing Small World, Tokaido, TIME Stories, Smash Up, Dead of Winter, et cetera during that time. TIME Stories wasn't all THAT terrible but it certainly wasn't worth the price of admission when it first came out; it scratched that escape room itch for me and my group, but it's also the first game I think I've ever returned after playing. 60 bucks for a single play through and a business model of 'spend 30 bucks to do more with this poo poo' is a big nope for me. That pentacle puzzle and changing their usual language for dealing with cards can gently caress right off, though.
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May 16, 2020 05:00
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I've played quite a bit of TTS recently. Some notes on a few games/mods: Antiquity: very well done all around considering how fiddly the game is IRL. Occasionally a piece might fall underneath another piece, but an excellent implementation. Chicago Express: We played the "fully scripted" mod, which has little calculators for all players and company funds, as well as big counters for stock valuation and automatic dividend buttons! Unfortunately the "Pay All" button failed to calculate the New York Central dividends, and when a stock value changed, the cube would float about a foot above the space it moved to. Maria: Is this the best 3 player game in the world? Possibly. The mod is pretty much perfect, too. Root (all expansions mod): My most played TTS game, has 100% of all expansions, as well as bots, fan factions, scenarios, the works. The one flaw we discovered is that, in a game with the Vagabond, no items were placed under the ruin tokens. We had to copy, shuffle, and place them ourselves. Vast: The Mysterious Manor: Apparently I like this game more than just about everyone I've talked to. The mod is solid and includes the expansion. Only downsides I noted were that they modeled the meeples instead of the minis, and the meeples are a bit harder to scan, particularly late game. Also, the dials were implemented weirdly so that advancing one causes all the related assets to slowly rerender.
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May 16, 2020 05:15
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CaptainRightful posted:Root (all expansions mod): My most played TTS game, has 100% of all expansions, as well as bots, fan factions, scenarios, the works. The one flaw we discovered is that, in a game with the Vagabond, no items were placed under the ruin tokens. We had to copy, shuffle, and place them ourselves. If it's the TTS mod I've used, have the player select factions first, and then set up the board. It will check how many vagabonds there are and place ruins accordingly. (I did not figure that out, I asked on the Woodland Warriors discord channel)
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May 16, 2020 12:19
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CaptainRightful posted:
Best thing to do for Chex is to clone one of the calculators and use calculators to track each stock price.
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May 16, 2020 13:32
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Small World 2  ?NJHW-TK899-6QBTI ? = 9
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May 16, 2020 17:26
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Small World is dope as gently caress, and is incredible for getting newbies into tabletop games. It's also great for those beer and pretzels kinds of nights. It's simple enough, even with the randomized race\power combinations, everyone can grasp the whole picture quickly, and even first timers can see opportunities develop on the board or in the race\power stack, and feel good raking in a ton of gold after a smart play. You can grab those Fortress Dwarves and hole up in the mountains, or rain fiery death upon the map with Hordes of Pixies. Some of the combos are just hilariously fun to play. Flying Skeletons. This is one of those early games from when I first got into the hobby that taught me how to just have a good time playing, even if I didn't think I was going to be able to win. I have the original and all expansions for Small World, and it's one of the oldest games in my collection that still sees a decent amount of table time. With the stand-alone expansions, there are some combos that might be broken if you mix all the components together, as in useless or OP, and that is my only complaint about Small World. Everything else is great. The only reason I MIGHT not get Small World of Warcraft is because I already have all this other Small World stuff. If you don't already own any Small World games, I highly recommend picking this new one up when it comes out.
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May 16, 2020 18:46
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Infinitum posted:Small World 2 Nabbed, thanks.
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May 16, 2020 19:02
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Reynold posted:Small World is dope as gently caress, and is incredible for getting newbies into tabletop games. It's also great for those beer and pretzels kinds of nights. It's simple enough, even with the randomized race\power combinations, everyone can grasp the whole picture quickly, and even first timers can see opportunities develop on the board or in the race\power stack, and feel good raking in a ton of gold after a smart play. You can grab those Fortress Dwarves and hole up in the mountains, or rain fiery death upon the map with Hordes of Pixies. Some of the combos are just hilariously fun to play. Flying Skeletons. This is one of those early games from when I first got into the hobby that taught me how to just have a good time playing, even if I didn't think I was going to be able to win. I have the original and all expansions for Small World, and it's one of the oldest games in my collection that still sees a decent amount of table time. It doesn't much matter whether a combo is OP when there are at least three players, because Small World is a simple bash-the-leader game. Like every other bash-the-leader game in existence, the mechanics don't matter much when the game just revolves around ganging up on people.
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May 16, 2020 19:04
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Maybe a general TG question but worth asking here. I want to start doing blind playtests of the board game I'm developing and was gonna put a banner on the forums to do so. Is it kosher to make new thread for it? Or is it best to keep the board games to this thread and just link the banner to the post in this thread?
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May 16, 2020 19:51
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MJP posted:Maybe a general TG question but worth asking here. I want to start doing blind playtests of the board game I'm developing and was gonna put a banner on the forums to do so. Is it kosher to make new thread for it? Or is it best to keep the board games to this thread and just link the banner to the post in this thread? I recommend using the board game design thread for anything playtest-related.
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May 16, 2020 20:23
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I stopped playing Small World because it felt like the only strategy was "gripe loudest about being behind".CaptainRightful posted:Maria: Is this the best 3 player game in the world? Possibly. The mod is pretty much perfect, too.
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May 16, 2020 20:34
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homullus posted:It doesn't much matter whether a combo is OP when there are at least three players, because Small World is a simple bash-the-leader game. Like every other bash-the-leader game in existence, the mechanics don't matter much when the game just revolves around ganging up on people. This was very much our experience of the game. By the second play we all kept pretty good track of current scores, and had an idea of how well a certain combo might do. At that point, it's a pretty pure chip taking game: it's easy to hurt whatever player you want, you are making a decision on which player to hurt constantly, and there's very little hidden information or other factors to blunt that. So yeah, very early we were deep in "dumb political game" behaviors; people were snoozing through the meaningless first rounds (because any advantage you take will just be clawed back), and sandbagging in round N-1 to manage "leader aggro". Kind of like Cosmic Encounter without negotiation, or Risk without the potential for a satisfying overall narrative. (..and both of those games are themselves very low on my list). I think what Smallworld has going for it is mostly theme ("ha, your sharpened bear-cats can't attack my transparent hobos when they're under their bridge!") and the "satisfaction of discovery" (this X+Y combo works better than I thought! I wonder whether X+Z would be even better?) - but the theme doesn't grab me, and I play other games with more "thinking-about-combos" potential.
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May 16, 2020 20:51
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Anyone know about core space? It looks pretty cool, but I'll only really be able to play it if we can play as a four? If we can't play the campaign with a crew of our own each, it's probably not happening, but I REALLY can't tell if that's possible or not?
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May 17, 2020 03:45
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I remember reading the rulebook and liking what I saw but I was also looking at it from a 1-2 player perspective. I wonder at what point the board gets too crowded.
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May 17, 2020 19:19
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Bios: Origins is what Tapestry desperately wishes it was. They are so close that I almost think there might be some more than "accidental" overlaps. I just wish Origins was slightly less Eklundian in its front-loaded delivery but honestly by the end of the first epoch it's like staring at the Matrix long enough: you don't even see the icons and rules, you just see a Hobbit blitzkrieging you on an elephant after Yellowstone erupts. Really something else and if anyone has the slightest interest in Civ games you should give it a shot and work for it dammit, it's worth it! Space-Biff/Thurot wrote about it if it helps: https://spacebiff.com/2020/02/11/bios-origins/
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May 17, 2020 22:56
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My friends and I have been doing boardgaming over webcams recently in order to keep in contact while social distancing, but we're starting to get a little bored of the games that we're playing, and looking to expand out our libraries. Anybody have an recommendations for games that might work over webcam? Ideally it would have a) little hidden information (not 100% required, we've managed to get things like Cluedo and Catan working well through it), b) not require each player to purchase their own copy of the game, and c) not have a billion fiddly little pieces. Edit: Ideally it would play 5 as well. berenzen fucked around with this message at 01:30 on May 18, 2020 |
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May 18, 2020 01:23
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You uh, may want to check out some of the sites that have a bunch of implementations. And set up a video chat call separate from it? boiteajeux boardgamearena I'd hesitate to suggest Tabletop Simulator but if y'all all want to get it, you can play pretty much any game on there. Tabletopia is similar.
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May 18, 2020 01:33
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One of the players doesn't have a laptop or computer, and uses her tablet to join in with google hangouts. Are either of those websites tablet friendly?
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May 18, 2020 01:39
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