|
I would second Miniature Market, and add timewellspentgames.com Also remove boardsandbits. Perhaps add link to Kickstarter thread.
|
#
¿
Dec 13, 2014 16:07
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 07:43 |
|
|
What about online stores for the EU crowd? I know about boardgameguru.co.uk (run by a friend of mine), amazon.de, and milan spiele, can at least a couple of those or others be included?
|
|
#
¿
Dec 13, 2014 17:27
|
|
|
FISHMANPET posted:The whole thing sounds... too perfect? Like, it's this dude who kickstarted a game, and it did really well, and it's balooned into him kickstarting more games, and "publishing" other people's games via kicstarter, and writing a ton about kickstarter as an expert, and even writing a book about kickstarter. Like, what's the flipside? Does he have people chained in his basement? He's never had a top 10 game and has .01 credibility? I dunno, just writing a bunch doesn't make you an expert. I found all of his games to be mediocre at best, naturally others mmv.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 15, 2014 20:00
|
|
|
It bored me. I just think Archon has become my worker placement game of choice, and neither of his offerings came close to displacing it.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 17, 2014 18:24
|
|
|
Jedit posted:The next game is Between Two Cities, and it's the first Stonemaier game that he hasn't designed himself. KS begins next month. Keyflower does the same thing for six and is much less boring. Naturally everyone is entitled to their opinion and I would not call Viticulture a bad game, just not one that was very interesting for our group.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 17, 2014 18:43
|
|
|
EBag posted:Has anyone played Bruxelles 1893? I'm considering picking it up for free shipping on an order, sounds like it's supposed to be pretty good if you like euros and Feld games. Our group enjoyed it, but for some reason it's not getting to the table lately. It has some nice interaction to it as well. A little bit chickenish, but nothing overwhelming.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 18, 2014 03:24
|
|
|
EBag posted:Is that just because there are other games you guys would rather be playing or is it something to do with the game itself? Too long, too heavy? We got deluged with Essen games, and hopefully will return to a somewhat modified rotation soon. Should include Bruxelles, a lot of people liked it.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 18, 2014 03:39
|
|
|
burger time posted:My FLGS has Lords of Vegas used for a nice price. Anyone have any opinions on it? I've seen SU&SD's review and they make it look pretty good but they also love Cosmic Encounter so I'd like to get second opinions. It's a light casino building game. It can be swingy. It's one of my rare 'fun' games, but it's really funny when the dice gently caress people over.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 18, 2014 21:50
|
|
|
Trynant posted:I'm pretty sure Arkwright is OOP already. And only 1000 copies were printed. Have fun. Yep, although maybe Stronghold will pick it up as well someday. I love my copy!!!
|
|
#
¿
Dec 19, 2014 17:57
|
|
|
Hey, I'll be playing Cyclades and Cyclades Titan soon. Any hints/help out there?
|
|
#
¿
Dec 19, 2014 17:58
|
|
|
goodness posted:Is Agricola good 2 player? That might be a fun game to ease my gf into the board game thing. I'd do All Creatures Big and Small for Agricola light for 2 players.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 20, 2014 00:56
|
|
|
goodness posted:Looks like the right choice. Anyone have a copy they want to sell You can have mine for $40 shipped. Includes the first expansion and you have to be in the US to take this offer, I don't ship outside of the US.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 20, 2014 01:03
|
|
|
I totally disagree that letting a new player win by chance is a good thing. It's nearly as bad as just throwing the game. How on earth is that good? Maybe I've just been lucky I havent played with new players who have to win to enjoy the game, but if I ever did, that would be the first and last time I played with that person.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 20, 2014 14:44
|
|
|
I play games with random factors all the time. My point was that if you need to win and therefore you need to play a game where you can randomly win, I don't want to play with you. I've got two or three other people at the table as well, and maybe they want to win too. If anyone is going to say 'well you have to have random factors in a game so a newbie can have a chance to win', then as Tekopo says, you have to go with co-ops. I don't think co-ops are great for newbies, or at least you have to be careful with them, because there is nothing worse than sticking a newbie in a co-op with a high end quarterbacker. The newbies retreat to their phone/tablet and are never seen again. People's tastes may or may not be a character flaw, but I have no obligation to play with any given person. If a person smells bad, I'm not playing with them. If they scream and yell, I'm not playing with them. If they go into an AP stupor playing Splendor, I'm not playing with them. I know of no law that says I have to play with anyone who comes along. Why is that being implied? We all have our preferences as to who we like to play with, and who is to say any one person's preferences are wrong? I will note that winning a game doesn't mean poo poo to me, and I think I do a good job while playing to show why winning doesnt' even need to be the goal. The goal for me is to play well, and if I've played the game before, to play better than I did the last time. I will also note that I'm in the Los Angeles area, there are a zillion people to play with, meetups/FLGS/conventions all the time. I could play every single weekend day somewhere in the LA/Orange county area, so I can afford to be more picky. And one of the main reasons I live here is for the variety and choices being a board gamer gives me here. I have yet to lack for players, and if you visit my meetup.com group, you will see plenty of glowing reviews. I set up the environment in such a way that people know what to expect. And people like that. I feel kind of bad, because I feel like I come across as a real bitch in this group, but I don't think people who have played games with me would describe me as such. But I do have my limits  .
|
|
#
¿
Dec 20, 2014 18:21
|
|
|
McNerd posted:If everything you say is true, why do you bother to play with newbies at all? Why do you even care about the issue of what makes for a good newbie-friendly game? Sounds like you're out for the best gaming experience for yourself, and you have a deep pool of experienced opponents that are eager to play all sorts of games. I get newbies all the time. That's why I'm paying +$150 a year on meetup is for newbies. The newbies that I've seen don't need to win, they are there mostly to learn new games, to meet interesting people, and to have a good time. My best gaming experience is when others are having a good time within the limitations that I listed (and those limitations all have to do with other people having a good time; there's nothing worse than a smelly player to make everyone leave). I talk with the newbies to know what they want to play, I nearly always have a game that will fit (noting that my meetup introduction explicitly says that we don't play party games or games using a 52 card regular deck; again setting up the environment for a newbie's expectations). I teach them the game, I don't let them win nor do I try to beat them into the ground. I don't think I have any all skill games that I teach newbies, most times it's Ticket to Ride, Transamerica, 10 Days in Europe, that kind of thing. The definition of a newbie friendly game is completely different than the discussion of do newbies need to have a chance to win a game. Perhaps they both end up in the same place, but the start is totally different. A newbie friendly game is one that can be explained within no more than 10 minutes, one that has a clear user interface, one that has a very limited number of choices on a players turn (which is why Agricola never works except the family version), and one that is over within 40 minutes or so. Naturally the game has to be we'll call it 'engaging' instead of 'fun' as well. Hive has no random elements and could fit as a newbie friendly game and 10 days in Europe has plenty of random elements. But the random elements or lack thereof is not what makes the game newbie friendly.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 20, 2014 18:50
|
|
|
xopods posted:But again, my point is that needing to feel like you have a chance of winning is not the same as needing to actually win. Sure, I know people who don't like Lords of Vegas because of exactly that, the die rolls can roll badly for them and then they get mad. I personally think it's pretty funny but not everyone would. At the end of the day, I can't be responsible for how people feel, we would agree on that right? I can only offer games that would appear to be appropriate for someone newly coming into the hobby. It's funny, I had this very conversation with a life long friend who came to one of my game days for the first time (she lives in the Bay Area and doesn't play board games). She thought that everyone knew more about the games than she did and therefore she could never 'catch up'. I didn't get the feeling that she needed to win the games, but she expressed that she wasn't playing competently and was just kind of going with the flow. I told her that's the way I play all the time. We aren't playing for lottery winnigs, and we aren't getting paid to play, so you push the piece or play the card and keep it movin' so to speak. I don't know if she'll get over her feeling of incompetence but I hope so. Your statement on the chess-like game reminded me of why Wizards of the Coast took out the land killing decks and the mill decks. While a loss is a loss, there's better and more engaging ways to lose than not to be able to play at all. For those who don't know, basically in Magic of the Gathering, you need land to play your spells. Early in the game's life, there were decks that simply killed an opponent's land. These weren't fun for the losers. And winning because you forced the player to dump all of her cards into her discard leaving her with nothing to play weren't fun either for the loser. So yes, I certainly agree that those kinds of games would never be appropriate for a newbie. Nor would 18xx games, a set of games notorious for losing in the first half hour of the game while the game goes on for another six hours. My roomate explains Stone Age, Puerto Rico, and Power Grid to new players that we think might enjoy those games. But he starts out telling them that they won't beat him in this first game. He'll help them understand the game so they can have a chance to beat him or other experienced players the next time they play, but there's few new game players ever that can beat players who are experienced with those games. Do the players come back for more? Heck yeah. One woman loves Power Gird so much (and she's never won) we always have to play if she comes. Another guy is determined to beat my roomate at Stone Age. 7 seven tries and he's still going at it. So I haven't seen that 'having a chance to win the game' be a factor in new players acceptance/enjoyment of the hobby. Now, I'm looking at a small sample size. Perhaps all of you guys out there see the need for newbies to win games their first time out and my experience is an exception.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 20, 2014 20:30
|
|
|
PRADA SLUT posted:Is there a website with a "master" list of what sorts of containers fit inside various game boxes? Of course it depends on the size of the pieces but I use a lot of stuff from this website/page: http://www.consumercrafts.com/store/browse/catalog/storage-jewelry-organizers-and-bead-storage
|
|
#
¿
Dec 22, 2014 03:19
|
|
|
Dr. VooDoo posted:So I have a chance to get my hands on a copy of the Dungeon Lords: Happy Anniversary edition. I've heard good things about the game but have never had a chance to play it. Is it a good game and would it be worth it? Unless the others know better, I found that it really didn't play well with any other player count than four. That's eventually what made me sell it, not that it wasn't a really good game, but I needed more flexibility with the player count. Same with Chaos in the Old World.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 22, 2014 04:17
|
|
|
echoMateria posted:Anyone played Orléans? Rahdo was very enthusiastic about it in his best games of 2014 video. I really like it. There is randomness that can change what you were planning to do. There is limited interaction, but the bag building is really interesting. One of my top 5 Essen games. I have not seen Rahdo's description of it. I don't play many games two player that can be played with more, so his assessments are not usually something that apply to me.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 26, 2014 17:34
|
|
|
echoMateria posted:Out of the ones Richard talked and praised a lot on that video, Orléans, Subdivision, Kanban and La Granja caught my interest. I remember reading some comments about them a month or so ago too. So I'd like to hear some fresh goon opinions on them before deciding on adding any/all of them to my shopping list. Kanban is a lot. It really is the "Just In Time" system in a board game. A lot of moving pieces and it will take two or three games to even get a feel on what to do to win games. I really like it, but do look at the images first and make sure it's a game your group will be willing to play.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 26, 2014 17:35
|
|
|
^^^this Dominion is breakable if you don't pay any attention to what sets come up in a random set up.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 27, 2014 03:05
|
|
|
Yucky yucky Hanabi. I'm glad many of you like it, but it's not for me. Actually I'm not a fan of any of that designer's games, so it's no surprise. I've actually stopped buying them. In other news, we played Orleans again yesterday and I like this game more each time I play it. Some strategy, some tactics, some randomness all within 90 minutes. Bliss.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 29, 2014 19:56
|
|
|
Merauder posted:It seems to me that this is the issue from people who have had bad experiences/don't enjoy Hanabi; they're playing with people who are inclined to bring out the faults in the rules, which I would agree, really would sap the enjoyment out of the game and make one not want to play it... with those people. I've played the game dozens of times with a variety of people I game with regularly and have never encountered any of this wink-wink-nudge-nudge behavior that some seem to think is common place when playing the game. Basically, while what people are saying about the rules requiring some discipline to adhere to (and a willingness to accept that accidental tells are going to happen) certainly has merit, it sounds like the bigger issue is the attitude of the people they're playing with, rather than issues with the game its self. But isn't that frequently true? I can say "well the problem with 18xx is that the people won't take the time to understand the calculations needed to play well". But that's not the people's problem nor is it the game's problem. But it'll be your problem if you try to force something that's not there. I like games that are pretty cut and dried and are played in front of me and not ask me to figure out some sort of discipline that I don't understand why I need. Just like I have a friend who hates Hansa Teutonica, which I love. But that's not a fault of his, nor is me not liking Hanabi a fault of mine or me having some sort of attitude. Not every game is for every player as we've said many times before.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 30, 2014 02:56
|
|
|
I think the other issue is that sometimes people don't want to accept that you don't like a game that they like. I once had a guy spend an hour telling me how checkers was the best game ever (don't even start with 'it's solvable') and criticizing me because I don't like checkers. For some reason he needed (me? other people?) to like a game that he liked. Don't be that guy. I mean I guess if you only have three other people to play with ever and you want to play a game that they don't like, then I could see the angst, but sometimes you have to just accept people being who they are and move on.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 30, 2014 03:55
|
|
|
Countblanc posted:Dang, there's actually some decent games there. I might pick up Agricola: All Creatures Big and Small. Is Ghost Stories pretty simple to teach? I could use a decent "straight" co-op and I'm tired of Pandemic. The guy also made a game called Samurai Spirit but the release date keeps getting pushed back. He also made Hanabi . Samurai Spirit released on CoolStuff last week.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 30, 2014 21:20
|
|
|
Just had the most frustrating attempt with trying to play Deus online. Guess we'll just have to wait for the real game, because neither of us could understand what was going on. Is it buggy at all?? I'm still stressed out over it.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 1, 2015 00:55
|
|
|
Jedit posted:You were playing on BAJ? It works fine there. Find me and I'll walk you through it (same user name). OK I will do that in the next few days, thanks. But we did run into a bug. I was supposed to be able to take resources, but it wouldn't let me take wood for some reason.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 1, 2015 02:16
|
|
|
Jedit posted:There's a cap on the number of resources in the game. You can see the General Supply just below the icon panel in the top left. It said that there were 10 wood left. Shrug, I'll try it again when I have some time and can find you.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 1, 2015 03:21
|
|
|
There's no way that those numbers would be for $ so assume quantity.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 1, 2015 20:28
|
|
|
Megasabin posted:Well you guys are really making me want Keyflower. I assume no reprint is planned, and I'd have to shell out around 80 to get my hands on it? It's reprinting. He won't reprint those old games. There are :reasons: All I can say is that I seriously doubt that it's going to happen. Also this is not his full time job. Mayveena fucked around with this message at 17:19 on Jan 2, 2015 |
|
#
¿
Jan 2, 2015 17:16
|
|
|
Also there are several reference sheets for Kemet at BGG. Print your favorite out for your players before playing. This will help a lot.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 3, 2015 13:38
|
|
|
This feels SO WRONG but it might be right: [q]....As gamers know, these 'hidden objectives' have only recently become a fairly regular feature of games. A publisher explained to me that a problem they found with game buyers in their country was that they often didn't want to finish playing a game if they realised they were not going to win. But these hidden objectives revealed at game end meant that the winner wasn't known until the game was over and a player in apparently last place could end up winning. So everybody stayed round the table to the end! This is why they started to introduce them and the idea has clearly caught on.[/q] The reason I don't like them is that no one can tell who is winning and that seems totally random to me. At the same time, they don't interfere with the process of playing I guess, so maybe I'm overreacting to them. I just don't like the feel they give to games. What do you guys think (and yes this is a follow on to the 'should newbies always have a chance to win discussion we had)
|
|
#
¿
Jan 3, 2015 16:50
|
|
|
This quote came from this discussion. Not sure if you can tell in Panamax what goals people have. In real time discussions I'm having, I think the main problem I have is that I get zero feedback on how well I am doing if the goals are hidden. I'm horrible at figuring out what people really need or are doing or whatever, and I'm sure that plays into my disdain for hidden goals. If I don't know who is actually winning, then it feels like (and Egizia was awful for this) that I'm kingmaking without even realizing that I'm kingmaking. I sure hope they figure out another way to get people to keep playing than to make it nearly impossible to judge your own effective play in a board game.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 3, 2015 17:03
|
|
|
Backing up a bit: LeHavre has two major problems which is why I sold mine and problems Caverna doesn't have. I'm spoiling it in case you want to find out for yourself. Loans are ridiculously overpowered, unless you are playing four player it does not make sense to actually produce food, just get loans instead. And even then only the fourth player should produce food, everyone else should get loans. There's really only two strategies in the game, ships or shipping steel/coke. That's about it. You need to play a bit to find this out, but I was really disappointed. Caverna doesn't seem to have these issues (yet).
|
|
#
¿
Jan 5, 2015 18:34
|
|
|
Blamestorm posted:I'm not sure this is entirely accurate. For one, I think depending what strategies all the players are pursuing, there are some big variations in terms of how you get to steel/coke or ships and what else you complement them with when other players are competing for them, and I also think you can rack up big scores focusing on buildings depending what everyone else is doing. I agree loans are a pretty major part of the game but I think they are just one of several ways to clear the food obligation in a high efficiency way - some methods will use one or two actions up front to clear food requirements early, loans postpone the actions until later (assuming you are using the building that clears loans later in the game). You of course are entitled to that, but we played dozens of games and now no one wants to play it again. Loans are just super efficient. What was disappointing (and this is with the original game) is that the late game cards that were supposed to add points and another way of winning couldn't hold a candle to the outlined above strategy.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 5, 2015 23:48
|
|
|
Bubble-T posted:I don't know if spoilers are really necessary here, both points are largely correct and thematically appropriate. It's a game about building an industrial empire in a harbour town, and the dominant strategy is for the most part taking on loans while you set up the infrastructure required to produce the most valuable goods and ship them. Back a bit again, you guys are writing too fast for this slowpoke .OK in our games, good players manipulated food so that at the end of the round, they could take a loan, that's how good loans are vs food, and if you see the penalty you can see why. The fourth player in a four player game shouldn't do this because the food accumulation is great enough to make food worthwhile. The issue that I(we) have with the two pronged strategy of Le Havre is that there are let's say sucker deals in the game. For example, you can't win concentrating on the end- game scoring cards if others are going for coke/steel or ships. Contrast this with his game after Le Havre, Ora et Labora, where there is again only two real strategies, but everything in the game is used to achieve either of those strategies. You don't have the situation where you are basically fooled into thinking that there's an end game strategy that ultimately will never work out. In Ora, you can either do settlements or Wonders. However, doing either of those strategies will have you exploring the entire game, not just coke/steel, not just ships. So the design is broader and more accessible AND (importantly) newbie friendly, where Le Havre is not. Ora is one of my top 5 games of all time, I love that game, will play it any time, so no, I have nothing against games with limited numbers of strategies. I don't like games though where what appears to be a way to win is not, and I don't like games where much of the design is not needed to win the game.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 6, 2015 17:48
|
|
|
I have had an epiphany!!! (I know you guys can't wait to hear this) Since I'm committed to playing games being the journey and the winning taking a significant back seat to that I am now OK with hidden goals. That is all. 
|
|
#
¿
Jan 7, 2015 17:15
|
|
|
I have played Aquasphere five times and we have gotten some rule wrong each and every time. Amazing.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 7, 2015 21:43
|
|
|
I've talked about this before, but my friend who keeps trying to teach us games he learned at GenCon is just plain wrong. No more, he's on sabbatical from teaching games now -Scoring of the octopods during the action phase. First we played it that each octopod scored the center tile, then we played it that there were no points. -No center points for what should have scored, namely the subs and the cards -Allowing subs of the same color to be in one sector -not playing the white bot space correctly, you don't get to do the action with the white bot, you program a correlating bot That's what I can remember. I just will have to scour the rules again and hope our next play (which will be this weekend) will go properly.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 7, 2015 22:16
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 07:43 |
|
|
Um a full game of Diplomacy lasts all loving day. Plus it has player elimination. Plus it'll leave life long scars if not playing with the exactly right new players. Not a good choice.. I like Ticket to Ride for multiple players and Lost Cities for two. Both use easy to explain concepts. I've said this before, but any game you are going to play with new people needs to be able to be explained within 5-8 minutes. More and you'll probably lose them.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 8, 2015 17:31
|
|