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Does anyone here play Mice and Mystics and have a few tips for mitigating the luck factor (or house rules to do the same)? I joked with my wife that I like everything about the game except the gameplay. And that's not really even true, because I do like playing it for the majority of the game, but we've been badly screwed over by unlucky dice rolls each of the three times we've tried to complete the first mission. The most recent time we were about as dominant as I think one can be, but got super unlucky rolls against a centipede on the Courtyard tile and ended up losing everyone to either the centipede or an unlucky roll of 1. I've been thinking of maybe a house rule to use a cheese to reroll one die, which would at least someone help against things like an enemy killing you in one hit. It's such a shame because I really love everything else about the game. It's light and interesting, has a great theme, etc. etc. I'm sure that some of it is us just getting unlucky, but it seems to me this would happen fairly often.
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Jan 4, 2015 04:06
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Malloreon posted:None of those answers were condescending... It's condescending in the sense that you/they consider it a bad game but the person asking the question obviously does not, so rather than answer the question they just shat on it. edit: That was harsher than I meant, but everyone has their own taste and it's all subjective. Personally I think it's a fun game regardless of how deep the strategy is. I like the theme and it has a lot of variety with the heroes/villains/locations/etc. The heroes may not have a lot of variety within their own deck, but there's a ton of heroes to choose from. The one point I do agree with (although not quite how you said it) is that fairly often you can be screwed into a pointless turn. So in a 4 player game that can leave you with some boring downtime. Nearly every time I've played has been 2 player with 2 characters each though, so it wasn't an issue. To give my take on the expansions, I thought they all had at least one interesting hero so as was previously mentioned, just look at which heroes are in each and pick what you think sounds the best. Vengeance does add a new mechanic (battle against a team of villains) but I didn't like that aspect much. Gzuz-Kriced fucked around with this message at 02:18 on Aug 14, 2015 |
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Aug 14, 2015 02:00
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Malloreon posted:You've just said "each individual hero is boring, but they make up for it in volume of heroes." I didn't say each individual hero is boring, I said that each individual hero doesn't have a lot of variety within their deck (meaning that each hero plays one way, because that's how it's supposed to be). There are multiple things for each hero to do but you will play that hero the same each time you play that hero. I've never played Legendary: Marvel, but Legendary Encounters is pretty fun, so if it's anything like that it's probably good.
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Aug 14, 2015 02:22
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Scyther posted:Sentinels is literally just hoping your deck throws the right cards at you to do the one trick your deck does. That and bookkeeping. So much bookkeeping. Even playing 5 characters by yourself on the iPad app (which handles the bookkeeping) the game never offers you an interesting decision to make. I see that complaint a lot, but it never really bothered me. I wonder if it's because I'm an accountant... I recently played and eventually bought Funemployed, and I think it's my favorite of that type of game that I've tried. It's obviously heavily dependent on the people in your group and their sense of humor, but it offers a very wide range of creativity and has been a blast all three times I've played. After playing this, I read about Snake Oil and But Wait, There's More. Anyone have opinions on those? It sounds like they're all pretty similar but I didn't get a good sense of the gimmicks of the other two from what I read.
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Aug 14, 2015 03:43
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Malloreon posted:Sentinel stuff I didn't originally post to argue whether or not Sentinels is a good game with someone who doesn't like it, so we can just agree to disagree. Different strokes for different folks. Not every game has to be an intense strategy game to be enjoyed. Red Dragon Inn is nearly entirely based on luck and has no great strategy but I still think it's a fun "beer and pretzels" game to take out sometimes. Maybe you don't feel there's a point to play a game unless you have complete agency over what's going on, but not everyone else feels that way. Bubble-T posted:Some people don't like interesting decisions and we should respect that. You're being sarcastic, but it's true. Sometimes it's nice to play something "light" that doesn't require a lot of thought or doesn't have particularly agonizing decisions. Gzuz-Kriced fucked around with this message at 05:16 on Aug 14, 2015 |
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Aug 14, 2015 05:06
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The Mantis posted:I've played a good deal of Snake Oil and it's a blast. These games obviously hinge on the group, but this one really needs a showman to get the ball rolling. SU&SD had a nice line about funemployed that can go here. Something about every round being just a long drawn out joke that waits for a punchline. Lots of fun but you need solid buy in. Been wanting to try funemployed just because of the rave reviews. Need more party games in my rotation. Good to hear about Snake Oil. Is it generally family friendly? Funemployed is great but has too many cards that I couldn't use with a 9-11 year old. I'm about to move up near my niece and nephew and I think a game like this could be pretty fun for them as long as I don't have to pull out 25% of the cards beforehand. I'm not quite sure what you mean about the waiting for a punchline, but if it's what I think you mean, then i can definitely see that. Of the 2 groups I've played in, one was definitely more subdued and didn't "get into it" as much, so it lagged a bit. Still was a lot of fun but wasn't as amazing as the other group.
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Aug 14, 2015 08:25
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I know that Pathfinders isn't exactly well liked around here, but from reading about it (and the description from someone that it is a "diablo 3 the boardgame") it seems like something my wife and I would like quite a bit, up to and including that it's a bit easier than other co-op games. We are pretty forgiving about certain flaws though I'm interested what some of the bigger issues may be. My main question is - should I get one of the character expansions, and if so, which? With most co-op games like this we generally play 2 characters each, which I'm assuming would be viable here as well. So if one of the expansions has a particularly fun/interesting character then I'll probably pick it up at the same time.
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Aug 30, 2015 05:58
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Ojetor posted:Are you talking about the Pathfinder Card Game? I would recommend against it. My main complaint is that it is extremely random. The entire game is essentially Talisman: move to a place, draw a card, roll a dice against a number on the drawn card, repeat until you win or lose. There is basically no strategy involved. The supposed draw of the game is the leveling aspect, but you have almost no control over what goes into your deck. Do you want your fighter to get a better sword? Well you better hope you randomly draw a better sword during a game and don't flub a dice roll or it's gone forever. Meanwhile the actual stat level ups are basically a bunch of +1s to the various dice rolls you make which is the height of Should have clarified, yes I meant the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game. Good to know. My understanding was that there was a mechanic that made you want to stay in a level longer to "loot" in hopes to get that random item. I think I'm okay with that aspect. To give an example of maybe why this won't be a big deal to us: we like Legend of Drizzt (and the others) but don't like that there's really no progression between missions. There's other issues I have with that game, but that about sums it up. I'm not sure there's a lot of strategy in Drizzt beyond that either, at least on a battle by battle basis, but we still have fun with it. It sounded like Pathfinders was sort of similar, albeit more random because of the deck drawing. We own Lotr LCG and a few of the expansions, but we haven't played it in years due to it beating us down a few too many times. It just was more frustrating than fun, even though I really want to like it. The final straw was me looking up strategies and having a lot of suggestions for deck building end in us having to buy another core set, which I had no desire to do. I'm sure we'll bring it back out again at some point. edit: For some reason, despite the reviews I read, I never looked at the pictures itself. For whatever reason I thought it was a game you move characters around a board and such, but I guess not. Gzuz-Kriced fucked around with this message at 06:50 on Aug 30, 2015 |
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Aug 30, 2015 06:43
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Ojetor posted:There isn't a board or anything (the game is entirely cards) but your characters do move between locations. Basically each location is a deck of cards and you move between them in order to draw from different location decks. I have no idea why I thought it was. I think when I first heard about it they had mentioned some game with a board along with it. Considering that, does anyone have a recommendation for a co-op game? We just moved so we were using that as an excuse to get a new game. I was going to ask for something that was similar to what I thought Pathfinders was (move along a board, complete quests, level up, etc.) but I realized we actually own quite a few of those so I'm not sure there's a lot more out there. I guess it doesn't have to be co-op but it can't be a game where players directly effect others through attacks, and it would have to be something good with 2 people.
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Aug 30, 2015 07:14
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Poopy Palpy posted:You left out the repetitive addition every time a card gets played to see if the location pops. It's a shallow game that isn't great, but this takes all of 2 seconds 99% of the time, and generally you'll know if it's going to pop when you play the card, so I don't know it's that big of a deal. Some kind of counter would make it nicer though. I've only played it twice, but I thought it was fine for a light, whimsical game. I think it's good for people that don't play games a ton or for a night of drinking. There's probably better games for that, but you can say that about anything.
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Aug 31, 2015 05:21
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Kai Tave posted:There's a ringing endorsement if I've ever heard one. "Sure, there's probably something better out there, but isn't there always?" I completely agree with your take on it and I wasn't trying to give it a ringing endorsement. It's a mediocre game but I don't regret owning it for the times it works.
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Aug 31, 2015 05:57
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Played my first game of Castles of Burgundy tonight with my wife. It's amazingly the first worker placement game we own, and I'm really glad I bought it. We both had a great time. My wife sometimes hesitates to play worker placement games because of the "too many possible decisions" issue a lot have (something like Caverna), but Castles actually isn't too bad about it. In the end she won by about 10 points, due to a huge number of points she received because of some knowledge tiles she picked up. I really can't think of anything bad about it. It has die rolls, but mitigates it enough through various systems that there was only really one turn that I felt a die roll left me in trouble, and even then I wouldn't have been had a played differently the turn before. Definitely looking forward to playing again. I also picked up Snake Oil at the same time, but haven't had a group to play it with yet. And after asking about Pathfinders Adventure Card Game in this thread a little bit ago...I forgot to cancel my Amazon order, so I guess I have that too. I don't like the "need" to buy tons of extra addons, really feels like a partial game because of it. I think it will be enjoyable enough for what we want out of it, but I'm not expecting much.
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Sep 4, 2015 07:43
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I'm trying to get a list of games I'd like to get in the upcoming months, and after hearing people in this thread talk about Dungeon Lords I decided to add that to the list. On Amazon they have a copy from Czech games and a copy from Z-Man games...is there a difference here? The Czech games version is currently $22 cheaper. Also, is Dungeon Petz different enough to warrant getting both, and if not, which would be better?
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Sep 9, 2015 19:34
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Thanks for the info. I'll look for the Happy Anniversary version and stick with Czech games for Dungeon Petz. Played Snake Oil for the first time on Monday. I thought it was pretty fun and everyone got into it rather easily. I think the cards restrict creativity a bit more than the cards in Funemployed, but there was still a lot of room to do your own thing. At the same time though, where I think Funemployed can let people do the same shtick over and over, Snake Oil forces you to change it up a bit more. I originally bought it so I'd have a family friendly party game to play with my niece and nephew and I think it will work really well for that, though the group I played with was all adults.
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Sep 9, 2015 20:57
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drat Dirty Ape posted:My only issue with ultra pro is that little hologram thing annoys me. This always annoys me too. Is there a suggestion for good deck protectors that don't have that?
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Sep 16, 2015 03:27
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Danimo posted:How is the Pathfinder Card Game? I demoed it at Gen Con but the guy basically held everyone's hand for the demo and I got no sense of how it maybe actually played. Seemed kinda heavy on stats and throwing dice My wife likes it a lot, I think it's fine. I agree that it's not quite good enough for how often they expect you to replay (and to help with this, we've instituted a house rule for looting after you defeat a boss so you aren't screwed over by beating the mission early). Strategy is limited but there is some minor decisions here and there. Generally you're going to have a weapon card that will never leave your hand and some rotating other cards you'll use as needed which is generally obvious. Biggest decision point I've seen so far is whether to keep digging through the deck as your hand dwindles and when to heal. Overall it's been rather easy so far, but I'm okay with that. It's reliant on stats and weapons/items (cards in your hand), but yeah, everything is a dice roll. In early game, rolls will be something like 2d8+1 if you have a weapon, maybe with an extra d6 or d4 if you have an ability or card to burn. So lots of randomized damage. Even at higher levels the + numbers don't seem to be that high so I doubt it will change. My biggest gripe is that they tease you with the main adventure path, but only give you the first part. You don't unlock the next character "tier" until the 3rd part, so I thought that was rather annoying. I like the game but I'm not sure I like it enough to buy 5 more adventure packs, not counting the character pack. All that said, if you're looking for a light-ish RPG you could do worse. Note that this is with the original base set (Runelords), the others are supposed to be more difficult.
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Sep 26, 2015 00:48
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Danimo posted:Can anyone recommend a game that is kind of RPGish and is good with two players? How are Descent or Mage Knight with two? Descent 2.0 may be good with 2, but keep in mind that it is NOT cooperative by itself. May not be important but throwing it out there in case it is, since the two games you mentioned are (well, sort of for DoW). There are several fan made card packs you can get (which are quite well done, though I haven't played with them yet) that automate the AI if you wanted to do Co-op. Here's a link to a thread for the cheaper of the 2 automated ones I've looked into. There's also an official add on that adds coop somehow, but I think it was a limited release and I haven't been able to find it. Mage Knight is a great game, but takes a long time to play/learn and can lead to some brain drain, which has kept my wife from wanting to bring it out more often. As everyone else said, it's a fantastic game though. I own and have played two of the D&D adventure games (Legend of Drizzt and Wrath of Ashardalon). Leveling up is more limited than Zombicide and the game does more to "take a dump" on players than Zombicide. This is due to the "gently caress you" deck you have to draw from each turn which can do all kinds of things, including straight up damage you with no chance to evade. I had fun with them so if you like Zombicide you may like these, but because of the way monsters move and the cards are drawn, it's very much a game of attrition and felt like a slog sometimes for me. Can you survive long enough to get out? Not unlike zombicide in that sense i suppose, but with Zombicide I felt I had more control over when I got hurt, whereas the D&D games seemed make sure you got hurt just about every turn. This game doesn't seem to be well liked here, but Shadows of Brimstone is basically Zombicide mixed with the D&D games in the West with Cthulu. If you like Zombicide, Shadows is similar enough you'd probably be okay, and has continuing level up system instead of a one off each time. It's pretty similar to a zombie theme though. edit: whoops, sorry for the double post. I meant to put this in with the other.
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Sep 26, 2015 01:08
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QnoisX posted:Also the map tiles are massive. I obviously disagree with you overall, but this is so true. The game takes a ridiculous amount of real estate. I think most of your other complaints exist for every other co-op RPG game I've played (the D&D Adventure games, Pathfinder card game, etc.) in some form or another. Zombicide only avoids some of it because the missions are preset but the rest of the randomness is there. Losing at the end due to the boss also sucks, but again, is an issue with basically all the other games. edit: regarding the rooms themselves - it's been a while since I played, but I do recall having several divergent paths which was actually one of the big reasons that the huge tiles became an issue. I believe you roll to see which openings are paths and which aren't, so any one room could have several openings. So how much you need to backtrack (or not) completely depends on whether you left an opening you'd want to explore for some reason, but like most games of it's type you rarely go back to the beginning tiles. Gzuz-Kriced fucked around with this message at 02:27 on Sep 26, 2015 |
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Sep 26, 2015 02:23
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QnoisX posted:Bunch of stuff about SoB Hard to disagree with any of this and a good warning to other people. I have a high tolerance for this though so eh, I still enjoy it. And yes, I blocked out the "putting together the miniatures" thing. Holy god that was terrible. Luckily my wife is good with that stuff.
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Sep 26, 2015 02:52
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A friend of ours has only recently gotten into board games, so we figured we would get him a game, but I was hoping for a few suggestions. It doesn't have to be co-op, but we don't want to get anything where players directly attack each other. The only exclusion to this would be something that would be a 1 vs many (like maybe Tragedy Looper, which I was considering but haven't played myself). The main thing is that because they're relatively new to board games, I don't want to get them anything that's too rules heavy. I wasn't sure if Tragedy Looper falls under that, but either way I was hoping for some other options in case the board game store doesn't have it. I was also considering Avalon or Coup if I go more the party route. Euro, american..doesn't matter to much as long as it doesn't take an afternoon to figure out.
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Oct 9, 2015 21:13
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Impermanent posted:Everything I just listed above is non-confrontational and suitable for beginners. Also consider Carcassonne. I'll look into Puerto Rico. I own Castles of Burgundy and I'm a huge fan of it, but I'm not sure I want to go that route. Though I suppose if I said euro games are okay then I shouldn't count out one that I like as much as that one. Broken Loose posted:Coup needs the expansion to work at large numbers, and Resistance needs an expansion (Hidden Agenda) to be Avalon but it's a better investment than Avalon. I'm not worried about huge player counts so I wouldn't need to worry about the expansion for Coup necessarily (though Coup is cheap enough I'd probably get it anyway). What about Resistance + Hidden Agenda makes it better than Avalon? I thought I heard that Avalon was an improved version of Resistance. Personally, I was never a huge fan of Resistance for a variety of reasons that I figured a slightly different format may change.
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Oct 10, 2015 01:47
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Cocks Cable posted:I have played this at least 10 times now and 9 out of 10 of those times ranks up there in my worst gaming experiences. I'm always dead by turn 2 because players always seem to treat it as monkey cheese attack random people lol game. Also everything is random so like roll and draw cards better I guess. I've only played the game 3 times, but none of the times had any player removed in this way. I agree with the idea that a fault of the game is that it COULD happen like this. But ultimately this should be less an indictment of the game and more the people you play it with. Any game with player elimination could have people gang up on others. Players have enough health in Shadow hunter that if you are legitimately dead by turn two it's not people randomly attacking but people purposefully deciding to kill you. I think the game is fine but nothing fantastic. There are better bluffing games, but it's not bad for a change of pace and certain mechanics work well. I'm not sure I agree with "everything" is random, but there is a strong random element to it particularly with the items you draw. sector_corrector posted:What are some boardgame models for doing monster AI that work especially well? I've been fooling around with a single player tactics game system for a while, and that's a major stumbling block for me. The D&D adventure game had a moderately decent AI in my opinion. They're simple instructions on a per monster basis. So a monster that has a good ranged attack will try to stay within 1 tile in order to do that, whereas a melee monster will rush the nearest hero. Considering that most people do the same sort of strategies I don't think this is a terrible way to do it. It makes them overly predictable though. I haven't played the games people mentioned where they had randomized decks for monster AI, but I wonder how that would work for monsters that would naturally want varied strategies. Some mixture of set AI and randomized draw would probably be good.
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Oct 11, 2015 21:06
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homullus posted:It's still $60 on Amazon. Hurrrrrry upppppppppppp I saw it for around $25 on Amazon about a week ago. I guess those copies went through fast.
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Nov 6, 2015 00:50
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A slightly alternate view of Dead of Winter's traitor mechanic. I've only played the game twice, and the 2nd time nobody was a traitor. The 1st time though, I was a traitor and it worked just about perfectly. It came down to the last turn, I barely got through it, and the win/deception ended up being an ongoing topic/joke. Not many single games I've played have left that kind of impression. But despite that, I agree with basically all the things everyone else said. The "roll dice and die" mechanic is just frustrating. The hidden goals don't always work very well, and balance on a player by player basis is all over the place. I think the problem with the Crossroads cards is not that the other option is "do nothing", because both of those options have weight. Since the "do something" option almost always has a negative side, it's a choice of getting something but dealing with a problem, or getting nothing and having to figure out how you'll deal with your needs on your own. The issue is that unless you need the positive thing for a specific goal (hidden or otherwise), there's never a reason to do it. In my experience, the basic gameplay provided enough resources that we didn't need to use Crossroads unless it gave us something vital to the quest, which was rare and completely based on luck.
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Nov 6, 2015 23:16
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Fat Samurai posted:I'll bite. What did you do, traitor wise, in that game, and what did the other players missed on your play that could have given them a clue to single you out as the traitor? It was about a year ago so I don't remember exact turns. I know my goal was to set up one location full of barricades so as to "separate" from the main group and start my own group, or something along those lines. I also needed a certain number of goods. Mostly it was trying my best to convince people to barricade certain locations or keep a location well barricaded. Towards the end I had to give a reason to go to a separate location that did not make strategic sense, which mostly tipped them off, but I played it off as if I had a card that would make the move make sense (I think..again this was a while ago). As far as what happened on specific turns and what exactly they may have seen, I just don't remember. It very well could have been "lucky" that it worked out as well as it did and we had as good of a time with it. And I was able to hold out until the last 2 turns for most of my more traitorous actions, which helped hide my intentions. Other traitor roles may not be as easy to hide. The rest of the game is meh in a lot of ways but in my very limited experience the traitor mechanic worked well.
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Nov 7, 2015 03:08
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Poopy Palpy posted:In my limited experience the traitor mechanic was one guy waiting until the last turn or two, dropping a dozen characters on the board, and spending 15 minutes using his actions to fulfill his objectives. It was not great. That is not at all my experience, but again, I only saw one role, and none of that would have been possible. I actually don't think anything I could have done would have taken longer than any other turn.
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Nov 7, 2015 04:06
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Fat Samurai posted:I was asking more about the "tank morale to 0" part, which is where the traitor play in DoW usually falls completely flat. As the cards say where they're coming from, it's very hard to spike a check subtly, so the traitors best bet is to reveal and tank morale as much as possible, ideally on back to back turns. What you're talking about could be perfect normal play (and in fact those objectives look like any a non-traitor player could have). Hm, maybe I'm confusing it with what my traitor objective was but I'm pretty certain I didn't have to tank morale. Who knows!
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Nov 8, 2015 01:24
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Fat Samurai posted:AFAIK, all traitor objectives require you to drop the morale to 0 and then do some other stuff. I don't know the game well enough to be 100 % sure, but otherwise you're working in parallel, rather than against the group. Both groups could win and that would be silly in a traitor game. I have no doubt you're correct. I know I didn't do a whole lot on my own as morale was an issue for us just through the normal game. So I must have done something toward the end to kill it off. I remember trying to get the timing of it to work (end the game while having barricades up) so it's likely I was trying to coincide that with when I could drop the morale, but I remembered it incorrectly as coinciding it with the end of the normal game. Now that I think about it, I may have let a character die to put morale at 0 and give myself the win. I definitely didn't have to try really hard to tank morale throughout the entire game though. It's very possible my experience is atypical, but everyone is so negative here I figured I'd share my positive experience.
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Nov 8, 2015 20:25
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Ryoshi posted:...are any of the D&D board games passable? I think they're passable, but they aren't necessarily great. It's kind of what you'd expect a D&D board game to be - very dice heavy with some loot and special skills. I don't like that they made it difficult by forcing you to keep moving (in the form of encounter cards that you get if you don't explore...and many times even if you do). Because the encounter cards are bad most of the time, in a lot of games you'll be hurt more by those than by monsters. Likewise, monsters always attack first (unless you're playing Legend of Drizzt and are actually paying as Drizzt). Those two things combined always make it feel like a game of attrition to me, which isn't particularly my cup of tea. I'd be okay with it being difficult, but I'd rather it be difficult through combat than "each turn you'll get hurt in some way because...yup." So while I do enjoy the game, it usually feels like a slog by the time I'm done. If you're okay with the dice aspect, they can be fun games. Playing solo is fine. I've played with one and two characters and never felt overwhelmed since there isn't that overly much going on. The hardest thing doing it by yourself will probably be keeping track of monsters. I'm not sure if I'd say it's better than other games like it (Zombicide, Shadows of Brimstone). They all have their faults.
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Nov 19, 2015 07:33
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Finally got Dungeon Lords to the table this past weekend. We made one (kind of big) mistake, where we forgot for the first 3 turns or so that you have to pay the monster cost when you first pick them up as well as on Pay Day. That would have made me get the Paladin at least in year one, although my wife never had any "evil" monsters so it's hard to say how she would have been impacted. Aside from that error, things went quite smoothly and it wasn't as complicated as I thought it might be. Even with the extra resources due to our mistake, actions are so tight in that game. A 4 player game would be insane. Also, I completely dropped a room tile in a full glass of Pepsi and it cleaned/dried off as if nothing happened, so that's cool. Hope I can get to it again soon but I don't think she liked it much, so we'll see. I played the online version of Keyflower this weekend too. It's great but unfortunately my LGS ran out of copies the week I went to go buy it. I can see AP being a big issue with this game though, particularly in my groups. And I'm very excited to finally play Tragedy Looper on Sunday, most likely with me as the mastermind. No one in the group has ever played but it doesn't seem terribly difficult. Is there anything easily missed I should look out for? I still like "crappy" games everyone here hates, but man this thread has been great for finding games I would have never known about otherwise.
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Mar 3, 2016 02:26
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BiggerBoat posted:If you want that, why not just play Pente, Go or even Chess? I'm probably somewhat similar to you in that I enjoy lots of games that the majority of the thread does not, but saying "if you hate luck so much just play (insert dry skill based game)" is like saying "if you don't care about skill you should just play Roulette." You can have a game heavily based on skill and player agency while still having a strong theme, varying mechanics, and so on. And it's not an on/off switch, you can have a spectrum of skill and luck involved. Dominion and Race for the Galaxy certainly have elements of luck and are routinely mentioned as great games here.
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Mar 4, 2016 00:31
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I agree with some of the posters that while Mage Knight is a great game, if you aren't prepared for the very big commitment (time and brain power) then don't bother. We've only got it to the table one time in the couple years we've owned it because of those issues. Plus it's a game I can never make myself bring to my board game groups due to the time and difficulty. My wife and I own a ton of co-op games and frankly enjoyed most of them, even the ones the thread loves to hate. If I were to pick our favorites, slightly altering it to fit the thread's mindset, I'd say: Robinson Crusoe, Pandemic, Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective, and Legendary: Encounters.
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Mar 15, 2016 06:00
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Boss Monster is easily one of the worst games I've ever played. And this is coming from me, a person who likes tons of (mostly) non decision games. Anyhow, I'm trying to expand my collection and realized I don't own a card drafting game. I was thinking of Blood Rage or Steampunk Rally, unless there's other suggestions. Leaning toward Blood Rage though I'd appreciate opinions. I don't own 7 wonders but probably won't buy it right now just because I play it online a fair amount. I'll probably buy Sushi Go regardless cause it's like $10. Also, I've played Lords of Xidit on boardgamearena and liked it a fair amount, but is there anything similar but better out there? Particularly the "everyone does their turn at the same time" mechanic. I own Space Alert although that's a bit different. The only other similar game I know is Robo Rally which I'm not interested in for a variety of reasons. Enjoyable for 2 players is a plus for any recommendation but not a requirement.
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Apr 8, 2016 06:09
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deadwing posted:Neither Blood Rage nor Steampunk Rally are really pure drafting... That's okay, as long as they have the mechanic. Any reason I shouldn't get Blood Rage? For the synchronous play suggestions: I own Dungeon Lords (and love it), though it doesn't quite fit. I guess I wouldn't qualify it just because there's so many parts that aren't synchronous. Roll for the Galaxy is a good recommendation. I forgot about that one even though I've played it at least twice.
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Apr 8, 2016 23:34
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Bottom Liner posted:Blood Rage is great if you are a fan of direct conflict. Steampunk Rally is better for more general groups. Design wise, they're pretty close in terms of quality. When you say "direct conflict", you're only talking about the pillaging part, correct? My wife does not like games where you directly attack other players. The pillaging seemed to more closely resemble bidding in Keyflower than directly attacking an opponent. You are never forced to join on a pillage, it's just whether you choose to bid for that spot, correct? If there is direct attacking of other players, then I guess Steampunk Rally it is.
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Apr 9, 2016 07:21
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Played Kodama: The Tree Spirits last night which some friends of ours ordered off Kickstarter. I had low expectations to the say the least, considering the last two games they got from Kickstarter were absolutely terrible. BGG had decent reviews though and...the game is pretty fun. The game: Each player gets a unique trunk card, which they then play branch cards off of to grow their tree. Each branch card has features on it that earn points. Points are earned by having like features along the branch back to the trunk, and you get points for any continuous line of at least 2. At the beginning of each season, an event card is revealed (called Decrees) which alter the game in some way. Players pick a card from a replenishing market row of 4 cards then immediately place the card on their tree. There's no limitation to orientation of the card except to only touch one card, don't cover a feature, and match the branch with bark on the other card. You can never place a card that would score you more than 10 points in a turn, done to prevent people from just having one long branch. Also, there are Kodama cards, which are effectively goal cards. You get 4 at the start and play them at the end of each season, scoring points based on various criteria. The Bad: The game has inherent randomness due to the 4 card market row, but the real problem is the lack of balance between Kodama cards. Some are clearly more powerful than others. Hard to say after just one playthrough exactly how much this impacts the game though. The 10 point rule only kind of matters. Because you can fork off branches, you can keep those points going. This is negated slightly by that strategy not working well with Kodama cards, but the person who finished second still nearly won by doing this. The Decree cards sometimes are not fair. For instance, the final one negatively effected placing cards with a certain feature, one which my tree was built around. They are hidden until the season so there's no way I could have planned. The Good: There's enough strategy to keep it interesting, to make sure you get the most points now (or later). The Decree system is mostly fun and changes up each game. The Kodama cards are nice in that they give you direction while also giving you a secret way to earn points. The rules are simple although the rule book could have used a few clarifications. The artwork is cute and with each tree being unique, it looks nice at the end to see how everything ended up. The scorecard is well made and makes it easy to keep track of points. There's also Kodama cards specifically for kids that make it a little easier for them. I didn't read over them but it's a nice idea. Overall: It's a cute, unique game with light strategy. The randomness hurts it for truly competitive play but likely isn't enough to screw over players consistently. Good for a light filler game or if playing with younger gamers. Gzuz-Kriced fucked around with this message at 19:18 on Apr 10, 2016 |
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Apr 10, 2016 19:03
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Bottom Liner posted:https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/191982/knit-wit I played Knit Wit late last year and it's a definite buy for me. The game plays similar to scattergories, but much more open ended since the "categories" you are filling are groups of adjectives not specific objects. I agree with the previous comment that if your group isn't creative or allow for creative answers it won't be as fun, but I think that should be obvious considering the type of game. It can be as family friendly as you want it to be, so it's good for all age groups. It uses the same point taking system as pictomania to end your turn which keeps things moving along and adds some extra strategy. I'm not sure what's been changed since I played it, if anything, but if I had any complaint about the game at all it's only that sometimes it can be an eye test as you try to figure out if a piece of yarn is around the spool. Highly recommend. Gzuz-Kriced fucked around with this message at 02:29 on Apr 15, 2016 |
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Apr 15, 2016 02:26
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Couple of pics. My finished tree in the kickstarter game Kodama: The Tree Spirits. Pretty game! Will probably pick it when it officially comes out.  Signed copy of Knit Wit. Neato. 
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Apr 25, 2016 04:49
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VelociBacon posted:Seems like you already own it. Why would you buy it twice? It was a friends copy.
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Apr 25, 2016 04:51
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SlyFrog posted:It's been argued in other threads here, and I still don't see why I should pay more for my game that I play at my dining table with my kids so that someone else can sit at a game store and play it with their friends. No one is forcing you to buy from a LGS, so you don't have to pay more. Things being cheaper online isn't unique to board games and has little (or nothing) to do with them having tables. And there are lots of obvious reasons a store would have tables without charging.
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Apr 29, 2016 21:34
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