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Kai Tave posted:Where in the world do you buy the Tash Kalar reprinted edition, the one with the better components? No store listing I've seen for it says in nice, obvious, helpful letters "THIS IS THE CZECH GAMES REPRINT, AKA THE ONE YOU ACTUALLY WANT." Boardgame Warehouse, Cardhaus, and Cool Stuff all distinguish it as the Czech Games edition.
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May 21, 2015 19:45
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Boardgame Warehouse has it. They also have Tragedy Looper: Midnight Circle. Made for a good double buy.
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Sep 4, 2015 16:50
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discount cathouse posted:I like United States v. One Tyrannosaurus Bataar Skeleton Forfeiture cases have the best names: United States of America v. 17 Pallets of DOT 1.3G Fireworks Weighing Approximately 15,384 Pounds USA v. Colt M203 40 MM Grenade Launcher et al Or for a topical cross-post with GBS: United States of America vs. 89.9270303 Bitcoins, more or less, seized from a Trezor Virtual Currency Wallet. Saltpowered fucked around with this message at 01:37 on Dec 6, 2018 |
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Dec 6, 2018 01:08
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I got the Broken Token Gloomhaven Organizer for Christmas and just finished assembling it. Looks and feels great and seems like it will help so much with setup and speeding up play. The assembly on the other hand was not quick. I’ve put together a lot of organizers before and expected I would need an hour or two for this one. I even considered painting or staining it depending on how long it took. I way underestimated the complexity as time commitment. Between assembling it and putting everything into the trays and tuckboxes, I spent more than 5 hours. There are so many intricate trays to assemble and almost every part really needed wood glue. I had so many regrets about starting it today about an hour in but by that time it was all over the table. Highly recommend but holy poo poo the assembly time. Edit: My wife also got me Four Souls and Burger Tokens for keyforge. Tokens were the Exact opposite experience from the Gloomhaven organizer. Super simple assembly. Feels great too. I’ll probably get Four Souls to the table this week. I was really happy with the production quality on the cards and the package. Unlike a lot of card games the box isn’t needless large. I love the theme but am skeptical whether it will actually be fun. Might be a good intro game to card/board games for some friends. Saltpowered fucked around with this message at 00:57 on Dec 26, 2018 |
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Dec 26, 2018 00:50
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Several of my friends are major Binding of Isaac fans so they all bought The Binding of Isaac: Four Souls on Kickstarter a few months ago. We all received our games in the last few weeks. Since we live in various locations across the country we played many rounds of it on Tabletop over the last week. Here are my thoughts. Short Version: Four Souls is what Munchkin and all similar copycats imagines themselves to be in all of their marketing except actually fun and well-designed. It is a relatively fast-paced, dungeon delving card game about killing horrifying monsters and backstabbing everyone else to win. The card game was developed by the creator of the Binding of Isaac video game so it feels very similar in theme. The monsters and items in Four Souls are as close as possible to their video game counterparts while still fitting into the setting. The theme is better than any game I've played that has been adapted from another medium (though BSG and CITOW are pretty close). If you have a close group of friends that want to play a high player interaction game focused on screwing each other over on your way to victory, Four Souls fits the bill. There is definitely some weakness to the game as it has RNG from cards you draw and also from dice rolls. You can have some moments where you get screwed on rolls and cards which feels bad. If you get to a point where you are just topdecking or everyone is topdecking, that makes for a very unfun time. There are plenty of catchup mechanics and alternate playstyles to even things back out though. I think this may become my go-to game for introducing new players to more complex boardgames. The basic rules are simple but there's a lot of complexity and strategy on how to react to the choices you have from you character and cards. You can teach it in 5 minutes or less but it takes a while to pick up all the nuances and know when to make certain decisions. And the theme is just really, really good. Pros:
Cons:
Trip Report We've probably played 10+ games over the last few days. Most of the group weren't much of boardgamers before but are now open to trying other games because of how much they enjoyed Four Souls. The first games we played it really safe and didn't attack each other much while we learned the game. Those games were a little slow and not that much fun even though the theme kept us playing. We segmented certain cards/characters as really great and others as really bad. We were really afraid to fight monsters and die and played much too carefully. Then we played a few games that were heavily cut-throat/dogpile on the leader or whoever screwed with us last. These games were much more fun and opened up a lots of different strategies for trying to get ahead while keeping everyone else from getting ahead. We rethought a lot of the cards/characters that we thought were good/bad at this point. Many of the not great for personally getting ahead cards were great for screwing over everyone else. People got even more careful about actual combat at this point for fear of getting killed by the other players We shifted to a more cooperative approach for 2 or 3 games but found this to actually make the game take significantly longer and be much less fun overall. We did get a feel for bargain and trading at this time which was good. We got a lot of experience with combat and when it is a good idea. Then everyone would just go scorched earth for the home stretch. After 10 or so games, we finally settled into a good balance of attack and defense. People started regularly bargaining and trading while still backstabbing. Sometimes everyone will come together to pull down the lead player (with mixed success). Games are getting much closer at the end with 2-3 people being a turn or so away from victory before it ends. Different strategies have started emerging as well instead of just kill whatever gives me souls (victory points). Depending on the characters they draw, people have started focusing on building engines (for coins), combat, thievery, or active items. Also, while it is a 2-4 player game you can play it with 6 people. The game slows down significantly with anything over 4 but it is playable. You could probably even play it with 8 but that would be really miserable from a downtime perspective. If you play it 2, use the alternative 2 player rules, they are better but still not great. The game plays best with 4. Saltpowered fucked around with this message at 08:06 on Dec 30, 2018 |
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Dec 30, 2018 08:03
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ketchup vs catsup posted:Your review makes it sound indistinguishable from a Binding of Isaac retheme of Munchkin. It's definitely very similar and that's why I mentioned it. I think it is significantly better than Munchkin though it does have some of the same faults with randomness. There is actually a level of strategy and planning that goes into Four Souls whereas Munchkin is most randomness with the illusion of choices. There's a pool of monsters you can choose to fight or go for a random. You also don't have to take a fight. Everyone has the same monsters and plays them from their hand. Deciding whether to attack or let your enemy get a chance at the monster adds a good bit of complexity. There are no monsters in players hands that they can play. You can also see the rewards for fighting each monster and make a choice about whether the fight is worth it or not. There are two separate item draw piles. A weaker, mostly single use loot pile that you draw from every turn and a much stronger permanent treasure pile that you generally have to get money to buy from. The treasures are much more impactful and unique than Munchkin treasures. I have some friends that like Munchkin and I've suffered through enough of it that I never want to touch it again. Four Souls feels different and it's not something I'd actively avoid like Munchkin. More choices, more strategy, less pointless grind, more controllable rng. It still has many of the same faults but it's a significantly better light RPG card game.
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Dec 30, 2018 18:04
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Abisteen posted:Thanks for the write-up. We brought Binding of Isaac to the table a few weeks back. Due somehow to all four of us spacing over a piece of the rules, thought we only got ONE roll of the die for an attack on the enemies. This led an hour of playing where no one wanted to attack until we somehow built up power some other way. When I finally was poring over the rules and DIDN'T miss that we could just keep attacking until one of us died, we all just decided to pack it up for the night and try again some other time. Yeah, not attacking would have made for a very, very slow game since most of the power you get comes from killing monsters for loot. There are a few characters that can do really well not attacking anything (Forgotten, Blue Baby) but most everyone else needs to engage in combat pretty early on. The rulebook is probably my biggest complaint about the game. I get what they were going for: a really simple rulebook to cover the basic interactions. Anything more complex is supposed to be covered by the tutorial video (watch the video, it does a lot to help with combat and other things) or the website FAQs. But not having basic FAQ info especially about ability interactions in the rulebook really causes some confusion. Some examples questions: Can I use Lord of the Pit to end combat and take no damage even after I've failed a roll? (Yes) If a monster has an passive that deals damage on X roll/situation, does that resolve before my attack? (Yes) If so, do I still kill the monster? (No) Can I use Guppy's Paw to prevent the damage from Guppy's Paw? (No) Can I use Devil Deal to search for Dead Cat and then avoid all the damage from Devil's Deal with Dead Cat? (Yes and Unclear) If I take damage and then trigger something to prevent that damage, do other effects that trigger on take damage still trigger? (No) We've had a lot of moments of trying to logic through how cards work and frequently disagree. The creator is good about answer any rules questions on twitter and adding them to the web FAQ but it still caused some confusion and frustration for the first few games. Saltpowered fucked around with this message at 21:41 on Dec 30, 2018 |
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Dec 30, 2018 21:39
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Vindication came in Saturday and I got it out in the table yesterday. I don’t know if my experience will stay the same after many plays but initial impressions were very positive. Storage: 10/10 First, the storage system that comes with the game is fantastic. Everything has a home and setup/breakdown takes 5-10 minutes at most. Most games overlook how important this is but a good storage system means I’m far more likely to play the game, especially on a whim. Art/Theme: 7/10 The theme (scummy castaway that must reclaim their honor) is fairly bland but the game executes it very well. You start off weak with limited options and become reasonably strong by the end of the game. Everything makes sense in the narrative of the game and nothing feels out of place. The art is gorgeous with lots of detail put into pictures, pieces, shapes of components, etc. They made a lot of assets for the game and very few of them feel half-assed. Gameplay: 8/10 The rule book and player aids are equally good. Straightforward rules written for humans. The basic rules are simple and all the complexity comes form the board state and your strategy. It is very light on player interaction outside of denial or counterplay. It’s like suburbia; there are limited direct interaction points but you can counterplay. Simple but varied secret goals, multiple ways to score, and variable end game triggers means you have to carefully consider what you do and the ramifications. Even still, the actions per turn are simple enough that turns are usually a minute or two. Lots of “expansions” in the box that vary rules, the map, scoring, etc. I doubt I’ll have the same strategy for many games. My wife and I had vastly different strategies during one game and we had almost the same score. I built a large pool of resources, maxed my movement speed, and tried to hit as many easy scoring goals as possible. My wife went all in with one resource type and focused on controlling the map. She was ahead most of the game and I only pulled ahead at the very because I trigger the end before her strategy could fully come to life. One or two more round and she would have clenched it. Time: 10/10 This is the other area Vindication really shines. The setup and fast but so is the game itself. None of us had played before but the game only took around an hour and no one took more than a minute or two per turn. Later turns went very quick as we got a hold on the game and could plan our turn while waiting on others. I think we could probably get it down to 30 minutes for 2 people and an hour for 4. We only had to look up one or two rule clarifications and it took less than a minute each time. I’ll probably get Vindication to the table at every game night for a while just because it is fast to setup, easy to teach, fast to play, and more engaging/strategic than anything else that plays this quick. We’ll see how well the gameplay holds up over time.
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Aug 13, 2019 01:34
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I played a game at lunch the other day and I'm trying to find a copy of it to bring to Thanksgiving. Maybe it will sound familiar to someone here: It is a card game where the goal is to score the least points in one or several rounds. Everyone gets a hand of ~8 cards (not sure the exact numbers) The cards are numbers from 1-100+ (not sure how high it went because we didn't use all the cards. Each card has some symbols on it to represent how many points it is worth. Four cards are dealt face up and each is the start of a row. Every player will play a card from their hand face down in front of them. When everyone has played a card, you flip them over. Cards are placed in the rows in ascending order. Cards must be played in the lowest possible row as long as they are higher than the cards already in the row. The player that adds the fifth card to a row must take the row and get all the associated points. Does this sound familiar to anyone?
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Nov 24, 2019 19:43
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That is indeed it. Thanks.
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Nov 24, 2019 19:56
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I haven't seen storage chat in the this thread in a while and I would love to get some good recommendations for some storage solutions. Here's my situation: We're moving across the country in a week. In our current house, our 100+ games have been stored in a built-in bookcase. Our new house will have a media room that is pretty much a blank slate for however we want to store our games. We have a mix of some very large and very small games and also stuff like dominion. I'm not super attached to the default boxes of most of my games so I'm open to condensing games down (especially simple card games like codenames). There are definitely some games that I want to keep in the original packing (BSG, CitOW) and some games that have inserts or other storage solutions (an artist case for dominion). I'm looking for both a recommendation on some large scale solutions for storing the games (shelving, etc.) and also small scale recommendations for replacement boxes for cardgames, etc. I don't really want to just buy Kallax shelves from Ikea because I don't really like the look of them (I might be open to Besta though). I care most about being able to quickly find and access games and them not shifting around a lot during storage. I want something that looks pretty decent as well and is scalable if we expand our collection. No specific budget constraints other than reasonable. We came out decently ahead on the sale of our current house because of the crazy market and are planning to spend some of it on furnishings, storage, remodeling of the one (which this falls under). Anyone have some good recommendations for any or all of the above?
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May 18, 2021 21:49
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TheDiceMustRoll posted:Anyone played Escape the Dark Sector? I love Castle, but Idk if Sector is worth getting if its just the same game with better art. It’s similar but there’s enough different situations for it to be fun. I have both and enjoy each of them.
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Sep 5, 2021 03:28
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Bottom Liner posted:I'm pretty sure it's from the same artists that did Santorini (may even be a promo god for that?) or the sequel Ragnarocks. Definitely visually similar but I've played a lot of Santorini and its none of the gods in it or Promo packs. It's in none of the Ragnarocks promo imagery either. It's going to end up being something really loving obscure.
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Oct 29, 2021 20:24
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Fat Samurai posted:I played Azul yesterday and enjoyed it quite a lot. I see there are several versions of the game. What's the deal with that? They all have slightly different rules and layouts. The general theme of building a stained glass window is there but the windows are different shapes and the scoring systems are different. I have three of the versions and enjoy them all equally. The original is like $16 at Target right now. It sold out at Amazon.
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Nov 22, 2021 13:07
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Infinitum posted:Look at Calico if you want Hard Mode Azul Definitely hard mode Azul. After playing a lot of Azul, my family prefers Calico. It’s not as approachable for new players but way more of an optimization and risk puzzle. It generally plays faster too. Calico comes out for all our family games but I would probably pull out Azul instead if playing with less experienced gamers.
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Nov 23, 2021 18:55
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Xotl posted:My brother in law has asked for some help. He's got a couple of kids--say 8 and early teens--and he wants a boardgame to play with the family to get them off screens. He has absolutely no boardgame experience, so after steering him away from Risk I got some criteria and are hoping you could help me get him some solid suggestions, because I know absolutely nothing on the current game scene past surface-level stuff like Catan and Dominion. If they are just getting into games, I would avoid anything like Mage Knight or Fury of Dracula. I would recommend games that are much easier to learn even if they might grow out of them after a few months due to simplicity I would start with a mix of the following: -Azul -Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion -Ticket to Ride -Isle of Cats -Sushi Go -Stuffed Fables -Wingspan -Pandemic -Parks -Viticulture -Sagrada -Santorini -Splendor -Vindication -Small World -Forbidden Desert/Island/Sky -Queendomino Most of the above games are not my favorites or ones I would regularly choose to play but almost every game on the list is appropriate for new gamers especially ones that are 8. I have all of the above and those worked the best teaching my daughter to play.
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Nov 23, 2021 19:10
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JoeRules posted:Agreed - I'll also throw Cubitos (roll a bunch of dice and push your luck to win a race) and Horrified (co-op where you collect the items you need to vanquish Universal Studios monsters or legends like Bigfoot and the Chupacabra) - bonus points for Horrified since it's pretty easy to come by for <$20. Yeah, I have this one as well and it’s totally fine for teaching an 8 year old to play the games. The only downside of it is that it becomes a solved puzzle very quickly and bores the hell out of any adults playing it. We played it a few times before getting very tired of it. It is cheap though. With the sales right now, you can get Azul, Ticket to Ride, Sushi Go, Horrified and Jaws of the Lion all for very cheap. Any combination of those should be good.
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Nov 23, 2021 19:23
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I haven’t played mansions in a while but it also could have a painfully long playtime. That was what kept it off my recommendations.
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Nov 23, 2021 20:39
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KongGeorgeVII posted:I played recently with a friend and his 10 year old and the kid took to it really well, I was pretty impressed. The kid has been playing boardgames all his life though since his dad is a pretty avid boardgamer. 8 might be a bit young though, but I'm not sure really. My daughter is just now able to learn and play spirit island at 10. We tried at 8 but she just couldn’t get it. She’s been playing games since she was very young as well. 8-10 is a pretty tricky range to teach things complex. Kids develop differently but they are generally learning a lot of the logic reason and math skills they need at that age to play the more complex games. By 10-11 they generally have enough number sense and can think and control their impulses to pick up deep strategies. Before they get there they tend to make the easy decisions they understand each time. I’d keep just about anything an 8 year old, even one used to games, plays to things with relatively straightforward rules and without a lot of longterm payoff strategy required. The logic required to play splendor or TTR or Azul is about where I’d draw the line on most kids in that range being able to play well. They can learn and play more complex games but they generally follow simple strategies every time.
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Nov 25, 2021 06:44
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Orange DeviI posted:Oh wow a big box kickstarter game filled with plastic garbage can’t wait to jump in! I'd be more likely to back it if it had a poo poo ton of cool dino minis. But uh... 12 dinosaurs? And it's a legacy game so $120 for a throw away game. That's a steep price.
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Dec 9, 2021 02:22
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Ohthehugemanatee posted:Let's be honest, Smash Bros: World Religions would be absolutely amazing to play. Street Fighter: World Religions is a thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZcQkbbCw1Q
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Dec 28, 2021 21:26
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