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sonatinas posted:In my experience, playing the game physically and then going digital to get a quick fix is preferable. When I've done digital first, it has always just made me not play the game, like T&E. It just doesn't feel the same. However, I'm glad there are ports because there are games that I've played physically that I don't have access to any more like Caylus that have good ports for a quick game. This happened to me with Carcassone. I've still never played the physical game, only the iOS version, and it bored me to death. Might have been simply because I didn't have the social interaction to go along with it, but I've had no desire to get the actual game on the table after having played digital first.
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Dec 15, 2014 20:06
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Sooo
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Dec 16, 2014 03:14
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djfooboo posted:Ascension in real life is a lovely game. They are literally exactly the same, the physical game just takes longer because you have to shuffle the cards.
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Dec 16, 2014 23:16
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chaoslord posted:That extra time makes the game not worth it when Dominion exists as a much better game with slightly longer set up/tear down time. Which is a fine opinion to have, but I think it's not really fair to say that the "game is poo poo" when in reality the game is good as evidenced by the iOS version. Better way to present that is "Physically the game is good but overstays it's welcome vs. other games in the genre such as [X]", or something similar. Not trying to be super apologist here or anything (I haven't played my physical Ascension games in a lonnng time thanks to the iOS version existing), but there's positive criticism and negative criticism, and the former is generally preferred, right?
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Dec 17, 2014 01:08
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A segment of my gaming group also played through almost an entire 15-game 'campaign' of Risk: Legacy a while back, and I can say with confidence that some of the nights we played were some of the most memorable experiences I have in table-top gaming. Our group isn't nearly as discerning of Risk as a game compared to the majority of people, so I agree with Kai Tave above that if you really just hate Risk, the extra experience content in Legacy probably won't win you over, at least not entirely. But the permanent changes to the rules/board/components, the way the world evolves in some pretty radical ways, and the sheer excitement of the unknown when we would crack into the latest sealed package was unlike anything else I've done in board gaming. There is one in particular, which people who have been through all the secret content likely know what I am talking about, which completely caught us by surprise and we could not wait to play the game again under the new conditions which were presented. Even after having gone through all the hidden content, I would actually consider buying the game a second time if I had another group of new players I could introduce it to. Hell, even playing a new copy with people who know how things change could prove an interesting change to meta strategies and decisions people make.
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Dec 17, 2014 21:21
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ChiTownEddie posted:Plans....have changed. This. Company's plans evolve over time based on the performance of their products. They probably didn't have plans to add anything to Avalon, but if it's done incredibly well for them and there is demand for it...then they're completely in their rights to start a plan for it.
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Dec 18, 2014 00:18
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goodness posted:Can anyone recommend some games good for 2 people, the other qualifier it being for my girlfriend and she isn't into nerdy stuff. Hanabi comes to mind for me immediately as an option. It's co-op, and it's theme is putting on a fireworks show, so not nerdy stuff at all. It's a bit more challenging with 2 players but is fun all the same. It's also super cheap which is a nice perk. Speaking of, I picked up the Deluxe set at BGG Con last month (the tiles version). It's pretty amazing quality. If you're a big fan of the game and don't mind shelling out the higher cost, it's a really great version of the game. I hear Hive recommended as a good 2 player game as well, but haven't had a chance to play it myself.
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Dec 18, 2014 08:14
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Picked up and played Castles of Mad King Ludwig tonight (2p only unfortunately). Really have to agree with what everyone had been saying, this was such a fun game and I can't wait to play it with more people. I'd never played Suburbia before but my opponent had, and he had pretty ho-hum things to say about it, but came away from Castles beaming about our ridiculous castles and had a good laugh as we went through the remaining room tiles we didn't use and saw what some of them were. If I have anything negative to say it's that I think the rule book is laid out pretty poorly, with multiple cases in my first pass through it in which things are referenced before those things are actually explained/introduced. There were also a few parts which, while ultimately we got figured out correctly (to our knowledge), were worded very poorly and were a bit confusing. Definitely think this one is better suited learning from an experienced player if possible, but at the end of the day it's s minor squabble.
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Dec 20, 2014 12:31
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HOOLY BOOLY posted:So what's the verdict on Star Wars:Imperial Assault? My brother was really excited to play this (mostly for the AT-ST's and AT-AT's) but we've both never played Descent before so i'd rather not drop that amount of money on something i'm not sure i'm not going to like as well. First impressions seem pretty unanimously positive, with Descent vets citing positive changes to some of the mechanics, as well as ImpAss offering a two-player skirmish mode where players have a point buy system for squads, similar to a full-scale miniatures game (minus all the hobby work of assembling models). There's another thread here for talking about FFG's Star Wars games (except X-Wing which has it's own big thread) that is pretty much just ImpAss discussion right now if you want more info: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3658006
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Dec 23, 2014 19:40
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Weekly game night with friends tonight went awesome. Played Istanbul which I absolutely love, Five Tribes, and Splendor, followed by some winding down with 8-person One Night Ultimate Werewolf (+Daybreak). Nothing much to say about any of them that hasn't been said before, but drat, just what an enjoyable night. Play all of these games, people. Fat Samurai posted:I may have gone a little too far bringing games home for the holidays. Incidentally, you can fit Dixit (minus board), 7 Wonders, Avalon, Coup, Dominion, Hanabi and Letters from Whitechapel in the box of Letters. This is an excellent thing, do not be ashamed.
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Dec 24, 2014 11:04
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I got but one new game for Xmas, Biblios from Iello. Nice little set collection card game where players take turns drawing an amount of cards from a deck one at a time and choosing for each to keep it for yourself, put it up for auction later in the game, or make it a community card that will be claimed by other players that turn. Catch is you can only keep and send to auction one card each, so you have to be selective how you choose each. Once all the cards are drawn/distributed into players hands/an auction pile, players use the cards in their hand to buy said auction cards in a turn based bidding order until all the cards are then claimed. Players then reveal their hands which consist of various colored cards with different values, and the player with the highest value in each wins some points, most points naturally wins. Once you know it the game plays in about 30 minutes (with 3p anyway, which was all we did; can play 4 and I don't think it would change the duration much). Definitely recommend! I also did get some Amazon cash, and need to decide what game(s?) to get... I wish Scoville was available.  it's extremely high on my can't-wait-to-play list.
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Dec 26, 2014 10:30
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I've introduced various family to a bunch of games this year between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Easy classics like Love Letter, Hanabi, TTR, and have moved up a bit with Sheriff of Nottingham, Survive: Escape from Atlantis, and even got in a game of Istanbul and Castles of Mad King Ludwig with some of the younger family. It just took starting small, so that they were open to the more complex looking stuff. Definitely has made family time so much kore tolerable. 
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Dec 26, 2014 23:24
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Aston posted:I've certainly played [Hanabi] with people who go "So you told me this was blue so you want me to...discard it? Right? Play it? Discard it? Discard it." 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.
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Dec 30, 2014 02:50
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Lorini posted: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. Right, I fully agree. The argument that "X game requires the right people to be enjoyable" can be whittled down to apply to any game, absolutely. I wouldn't play Game of Thrones with a Ticket to Ride/Catan crowd right away, it's surely going to be a bad experience for me (though I recognize that comparison is a little off since we're talking about these grey-area rules disciplines vs overall game complexity). That's all I mean to point out though; I'm not saying that people who didn't enjoy the game are at fault of anything/having the wrong attitude (unless they openly admit that adhering to said rules just isn't enjoyable to them, but it has seemed that the finger is usually pointed at the other people they played with rather than owning it themselves), but rather that they might actually enjoy what the game has to offer if they played with people which the game is more inclined towards, rather than just writing the game off. It is of course a tough sell to get someone to commit to a second chance for game they already had a bad experience with, so I understand where the anti-sentiments are coming from all the same.
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Dec 30, 2014 03:07
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Broken Loose posted:Here's a hint: I don't consider a game great if the game isn't good in a wide variety of group mentalities. Parts of it can still be good, but it's the year 2014 and I don't have to settle for "partially good" anymore. Well said, and I definitely respect this PoV a lot more than the watered down posts that seemed to add up to "the game is garbage because people cheat at it".
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Dec 30, 2014 03:17
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S.J. posted:I think it's a really solid start to coop deckbuilders, I'm interested to see what else ends up coming out. Shadowrun Crossfire is a recently released co-op DBG as well, but I haven't heard much about it aside from there's apparently a campaign mode of sorts. I believe it saw a bunch of long delays in releasing and a lot of the hype around it kind of fell flat once it finally hit shelves (at least locally this has been the case, I don't think my FLGS has sold a single copy), so might be why no one is talking about it/comparing the two.
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Dec 30, 2014 19:52
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Anyone have any opinion of the Feast for Crows 4-player expansion for the GoT Board Game? It's said to balance out the lower player count and speed the game up a bit, so I'm just curious what the actual opinions of it are.
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Jan 2, 2015 11:04
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I believe 2 of the Wonder Pack's wonders are Leaders-dependent. Don't have it on hand to confirm though. e: vvv Apparently only 1 of them! Merauder fucked around with this message at 17:54 on Jan 7, 2015 |
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Jan 7, 2015 17:50
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Gutter Owl posted:So this exists and is a thing is happening. I talked with one of the Mayfair guys at a show last September and he mentioned this was coming, and that he expected this Deluxe edition to rival Ogre in size of packaging for the sheer amount and size of the components. I was among the handful of people who played their giant version at GenCon last year for charity, and it was a crazy amount of fun, albeit true to the source material it was also incredibly and absurdly thick with weird convoluted rules. This is mostly a fan service thing, where if you're not a fan of the show you probably will see little to no entertainment in the game its self; especially for $500.
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Jan 14, 2015 19:44
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Chomp8645 posted:My friend just got his copy of Scoville (a Kickstarter game), and due to travel schedules it made sense for him to have it shipped to my place since he'll be here in a couple days. He told me to go ahead and open it up so I did, and... gah. I've don't think I've ever opened up a game and been less interested. The theme is boring, the humor is lazy, and I just feel like learning it will be pain I'd rather not bother with. Man, this is the first negative I've seen said about the game. It's high on my list of games I'm eager to hit retail since I missed the KS. The theme may be hit or miss depending on the person I guess, but I hear that the actual gameplay is really good. Hopefully that turns out to actually be the case!
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Jan 15, 2015 23:35
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GrandpaPants posted:Now I'm imagining that the families in Agricola are like the Peacock family from the X-Files episode "Home." I've never been terribly interested in playing Agricola until now.
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Jan 16, 2015 23:02
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sonatinas posted:What? Please explain and also do not play Werewolf with them or they'll be lynching him first. Mafia = Werewolf with a gangster theme.
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Jan 19, 2015 18:01
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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:What are some thoughts on One Night Ultimate Werewolf? I'm going to play it on Friday with around 8 players, is it just going to be garbage? Assuming your group has at least some players willing to lie and bluff well, it can be a lot of fun. We play it all the time here (+the Daybreak expansion which helps change things up regularly), and every person I've introduced it to has really, really enjoyed themselves.
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Jan 20, 2015 00:01
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Zveroboy posted:If you have someone who knows the different [ONUW] roles well and/or is good at deduction they'll just work through the logic and figure out who the werewolves are. This is really dependent on which roles you're playing with, and how good/bad people are at lying in my opinion. Every once in a while, usually with newer players, we can solve the puzzle as you say, but way more often than not there's some degree of uncertainty come voting time. We played a couple hours of this last week on game night, and the werewolf teams were able to win more than half of the games we played and was a ton of fun. Resistance/Avalon comparisons are fair though, and depending on the group may in fact be a better fit in the long run. I personally am not a big fan of them and prefer One Night. YMMV as usual, basically.
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Jan 20, 2015 00:26
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SolitarySolidarity posted:I've never understood how Magic works as a PC game. The deck-building is usually restricted to a much smaller card pool, and if memory serves you're also usually tethered to a specific pre-constructed deck that you can then modify X number of cards in. So, it's fairly limiting, and isn't really meant to capture the full breadth of a TCG experience. Basically you play through the campaign of AI opponents unlocking new decks, and then other wins will unlock additional single cards to your collection. In the 2014 release (maybe 2013 actually?) they introduced a Sealed Play mode, which emulates real sealed play where you get 6 packs of cards, and build a 40 card deck from those you open +unlimited basic lands. They also allowed you to unlock additional packs in the sealed campaign to increase your card pool, and then you could play these sealed decks online with other players. This was the closest i've seen them get to straight up building a deck from your collection and competing, and it was enjoyable enough, albeit again with such a small card pool the meta for good strong decks was fairly narrow. Each annual release stands alone, they don't cross with past year's games. All in all they're enjoyable enough if you're a big fan of Magic and/or TCGs in general, but will never replace physical MtG; that's what Magic Online is for.
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Jan 20, 2015 21:07
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Speaking of IDW and their incredibly rocky start launching games, has anyone had a chance to play their new X-Files Board Game that released last week? I'm the kind of sucker who will probably buy it sight unseen thanks to the theme, but early discussion around it hasn't sounded super positive.
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Jan 22, 2015 01:16
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T-Bone posted:what's this They announced it about a year ago, at or right before the GAMA Trade Show (they had the actor who played Langley from the Lone Gunmen in tow at GAMA, it was cool), and then it hit non-stop delays and all the hype around it has kind of fell through everywhere it seems. It was supposed to be released before GenCon, but even at GenCon they only had a prototype copy at their booth, nothing final or playable yet. So it's finally here now, and I haven't had a chance to pick it up but intend to... just curious if any of this community has tried it since folks here are the most discerning of anyone I've seen anywhere.
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Jan 22, 2015 01:25
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homullus posted:That's not bad or unfun, of course. There have been a number of very successful shows based on a bunch of people cooking in the same kitchen, including Iron Chef and this one! I now unironically want to release a game called Too Many Cooks that is a 7 Wonders-esque game where everyone get's menu items they are trying to complete, and have to draft the right ingredients to complete them. If any of you steal this idea, I won't like it, but I'll unashamedly play your game.
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Jan 27, 2015 02:01
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Countblanc posted:Pressure Cooker is basically that, though you're competing over making the same things in real time (and thus cannot viably make all the things). Well then! Might just need to check that out. Thanks for the tip!
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Jan 27, 2015 02:26
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Alright, I pulled the trigger on X-Files: The BG and Scoville tonight. Going to try to get a first run on at least one of them if not both tomorrow and see how they compare to my expectations / hopes. Trip report to follow!
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Jan 27, 2015 05:59
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Sloober posted:A lot of games get expansions that turn the insert into junk since the expansion components aren't usually planned around. I'd rather have to store my expansion separately than just get a literally empty box that some games still come with to hold cards, tokens, dice, and various other bits.
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Jan 27, 2015 21:05
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Aston posted:But I thought you liked dominion? I don't think there's any evidence to back that up.
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Jan 27, 2015 22:36
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StashAugustine posted:Dominion did indeed 'hold back' a lot of cards, DXV has said it dozens of times. Dominion can be easily excused since adding the other three dozen or so cards would have unnecessarily complicated the base set and sent printing costs through the roof. I meant evidence that BL likes Dominion. Because jokes.
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Jan 27, 2015 22:57
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Bubble-T posted:Istanbul is a Pickup and Deliver game, right? I swear people just call any board game with wooden pawns "Worker Placement" now. It's not really a PU&D either actually. I think people refer to it as worker placement because that is literally what the movement mechanics entail (move your stack of workers one or two spaces, and then remove one from the stack and place it on the location to do that space's unique action). That doesn't quite fit into the genre's definition of what WP means in broader terms, but I understand where the relative misuse comes from in this case. As for the game, I really enjoy it a lot. I've played 4 or 5 games of it now with the recommended "beginner" tile layout, and just when I thought I'd basically solved the best route to victory or at least a strong lead, a first timer whooped our asses doing something I never would have considered trying (for those who have played, he never expanded his wheelbarrow or visited the mosques, instead collected 3/5 his rubies from the Sultan, regularly visiting the Black Market for goods, and occasionally the Large Market to get money which he used to buy 2/5 of his rubies via the Gemstone Merchant by way of his Family member). Long story short I think there's a good amount of strategy and obviously many paths to victory which I really like, and that's only having played with one possible board setup. Definitely recommend Istanbul.
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Jan 28, 2015 10:49
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cyberia posted:I was at my FLGS yesterday and my wife was looking at a copy of The Doom That Came To Atlantic City and wanted me to buy it mainly because it's a big box with a bunch of minis (and Cthulhu!!) but it's just a reskinned Monopoly, really, isn't it? It's like reverse Monopoly in that you're tearing down buildings and trying to open gates to your elder gold's realm to destroy the city instead of building it up. The nice thing vs actual Monopoly is that there's a variety of variable player powers, alternate win conditions and other elements that make it more than just roll-and-move, and make sure that a game ends at a very reasonable pace. That said it's not particularly engaging mechanically still even with the other bells and whistles added on. It's strongest selling points really are the nice quality miniatures, the rest of the art, and assuming you're a fan of the theme, Cthulu humor and concepts.
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Jan 29, 2015 22:44
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So I've had a chance to get in a couple games of Scoville since I picked it up earlier this week and have really enjoyed it, and figure I'd do a run down of the game. Each player plays a pepper farmer in the town of Scoville, with the objective of having the most points by means of selling batches of peppers at the farmer's market, completing chili recipes with the peppers you harvest, and planting rare and exotic peppers in the field. The components are seriously top notch, especially since this was a Kickstarter game. Dozens of different colored wooden peppers for planting and using, and even some clear acrylic ones (the valuable Phantom Pepper) make up the majority of what you'll be playing with, but also includes wooden farmer pawns, and various cardboard bits that are thick and sturdy. Image here for component examples. The game starts with a couple randomly selected peppers in the center of the field. Turn order is randomly established (after which it is bid for every round with money earned from selling batches), followed by players picking up 1 or 2 new peppers, in turn order, for their supply at the local auction (randomly dealt cards with different colors and quantities of peppers). Next each player plants one pepper adjacent to another pepper in the field, also in turn order. Once everyone has planted their pepper, the real interesting mechanic of the game occurs in Harvesting. In reverse turn order players move their farmer through the field and each time they step between two adjacent peppers, they crossbreed them into a different color of pepper for their supply (or in the case of breeding two of the same color together, netting 2x of that color). Image here of the crossbreeding chart. Players aren't allowed to move through other farmers and can move from 1 to 3 spaces only, so there's a lot of strategy in deciding if you want to move to a certain plot to block another players from harvesting a certain color of pepper, or going your own way instead. After all players have harvested, there's a Fulfillment phase where players (returning to standard turn order) can 1. sell batches of peppers, 2. complete recipes, and 3. fill requests at the Market, all using the peppers you have harvested. Because the three main phases of the game are done in forward-backward-forward order, there's some interesting dynamics present when players bid for turn order at the beginning of each round; do you want to plant first to get certain bonus points, or do you want to be able to harvest first to beat other players to a particular plot that's available? Or do you want to be able to cash out peppers first during fulfillment and beat others to the race of completing a valuable chili recipe? The two games I've played thus far were 4-player and 2-player. The 4 player game was really interesting and we were all fairly engaged still at the end, as everyone has screens with which to hide your scoring/money/peppers behind, so it's tough to keep up with who may or may not be winning. In the end it was very close with two players tying for most points, and the others not far behind. The field of planted peppers was all over the place with different colors and options, almost to a fault if you are playing with AP prone people. The early turns move real fast when there's not many plots to harvest from, but it quickly gets much more complex as the game progresses. The same was true in the 2-player game I played, where we initially thought it was going to be a fairly shallow experience but a little ways in it got a lot more strategic and we were really thinking through our turns and what the best way to cut off the other player's supply was. That said it's not so complex that it will turn away casual gamers either. I'd put it somewhere in the middle, as a light-to-mid-weight strategy game that I think a wide breadth of personalities will be able to enjoy. The game supports up to 6 players which is really nice for slightly larger groups as well, and I'm looking forward to trying it with a full crowd. tl;dr: Light-to-mid weight strategy game with a fun theme, and awesome components. Early turns can be a little brainless, but it gets more and more complex as the game progresses. Definitely recommend!
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Jan 30, 2015 01:35
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Baller Ina posted:This is kind of out of nowhere but does anyone have experience with Black Fleet? I happened to stumble across it while on Amazon and after reading the rules it seems good but also looks to be a little bare bones in terms of mechanics. The simplicity would be a good fit for my group, but too simple and I'm afraid we'll get bored of it. I picked it up at GenCon without demoing it because it just looked like a lot of fun, and I'll say it definitely is a bit lighter than it seems at first. Some of the cards aren't particularly balanced in my experience (played a few times since I got it), and with the right objective cards a player can sometimes get a huge advantage to the point of it almost feeling like the rest of you are all playing for 2nd place. I'd recommend it for a younger audience, but for groups looking for actual pirate-themed strategy I think there's better options out there (everyone talks up Merchants & Marauders a lot, though I haven't played it myself).
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Jan 31, 2015 02:35
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Yeah, I'd consider them more overviews for customers than reviews per se, but they do outline strengths and weaknesses both for prospective buyers so it's close enough I guess. If you want fairly neutral information about the games and how they play, you could certainly do worse.
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Feb 3, 2015 08:32
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I would never have bought Splendor for full price, or even regular internet price, but I got it half off in December and am content to play it with a casual/beginner/family audience once in a while for that price. It does have some strategy involved, and some minor interaction in the sense that you can attempt to cut off your opponents from getting the colors they need with the reserve mechanic, but the above complaints are fairly valid all the same.
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Feb 7, 2015 06:33
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Met with Steve Jackson for the first time at NY Toy Fair this weekend. As expected, the guy is... Weird.
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Feb 16, 2015 23:51
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