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That's obviously going to work better with a game with no hidden information, Hansa Tuetonica is my pick. Almost the same Bgg weight rating (3.1 vs 2.9) very interactive but not very stabby, totally open information, all the information can be put into a single Web cam view pretty easily. Also the big box is easily in print. Another game that might work is bus (3.05 bgg weight). No hidden information, interactive, not to stabby. Edit: turns out the 2.9 weight rating for catan is actually the cities and knights expansion, so my recommendations might be a bit heavy Cthulhu Dreams fucked around with this message at 00:00 on Jan 15, 2022 |
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Jan 14, 2022 23:55
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Tiny towns is a excellent suggestion, and would work great in the dualing webcams format
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Jan 15, 2022 00:01
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Kazzah posted:Inis could work. The only issue would be the cutthroat thing; it's a competitive dudes-on-a-map game. Still, one of the victory conditions is to control land with lots of enemies on it, so players are encouraged not to just exterminate one another. Even if a player gets wiped out completely, in their next turn they get to place to new pieces anywhere, so getting wiped doesn't feel that bad. I don't think the drafting would work in the constraints
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Jan 15, 2022 12:21
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Agricola all creatures big and small might be a contender - depends why you didn't like Agricola
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Jan 23, 2022 06:20
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Aggro posted:I also just found out the reason why those are the four pawns in Magic Maze. Moving left isn't a game.
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Feb 9, 2022 02:07
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Infinitum posted:Yeah nah you're missing out. I have actually played it, and for a serious discussion other than the player count on the box objectively being a lie it's not terrible, but I prefer space alert for similar real time coop coordination vibes. Magic maze's core gameplay loop isn't as satisfying for me as space alert. If you said I could play space alert or magic maze, I would never pick magic maze except in circumstances where I'd rather pick nothing. I think part of it is that both games have communications restrictions, but space alert's evolve from the structure of the gameplay which is a really nice feature.
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Feb 9, 2022 03:56
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HampHamp posted:So one of my friends buys way too many board games to actually play, and then loans me random ones now and again when he runs out of space. Today's game was Too Many Bones, a game which I know nothing about. Huge box, component quality is lovely, looks like it could be fun! Its a pretty decent game - the Gaming Rules how to play video is the place to start. Also its coop so just make up a sensible ruling on the spot and go for it imho.
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Feb 10, 2022 23:09
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PRADA SLUT posted:You can do a lot of builds in too many bones. I feel like it depends on the characters because they are not well balanced. The really good ones like Gillie have lots of options, and the poo poo ones don't.
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Feb 24, 2022 01:08
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FulsomFrank posted:Is 18AL worth grabbing for $120 CAD if I can get it? I already have MEX so unsure about this. Its not very good. Its not terrible, its just fine.
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Mar 2, 2022 04:00
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homullus posted:Playtesting can't catch everything, but the more a game is playtested, the more gets caught. Too many games are let out the gate with too little playtesting and there are very, very few acceptable excuses for it. The best thing about Jamie is he actually has quite a good play testing program - but he doesn't use it properly. For example, his own playtestibg data showed the balance problems with tapestry, but he doesn't know how to analyse it effectively or implement the changes into the game.to correct the issues.
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Mar 6, 2022 00:47
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Bottom Liner posted:What, one player starting with 45 more points than the other 3 players isn’t an elegant balancing solution? No this is the best part. The timeline is A) tapestry internal play testing B) game release C) BGG notices the game is hugely unbalanced D) BGG collates user statistics on the game being a mess F) Jamie publishes his own stats about the game being a mess that have similar aggregate values to the bgg analysis, but he hadn't done any breakdown or even thought about Like his main graph was showing what % of total games was won by each faction - which showed that the factions were all within 5-6% points of each other. But in a game with over a dozen factions if one is at 10% win rate and one is at 4% that's actually a huge problem. But either he didn't think to look into it, didn't realise that that is actually a huge issue, or just didn't care G) then he releases the very clunky balance patch which demonstrates that he has no idea how to use play test data. Given scythe is similarly hilariously unbalanced, it's hard to tell if he doesn't understand his own data, doesn't have the curiousity to look into it deeply, or just doesn't care Mayveena posted:Play testing is hard from a publisher/designer point of view. The worst ‘play test’ ever was New Coke, that was a multi million dollar disaster. Blizzard releasing Diablo 3 in its original state has to go down as the worst AAA game ever. So if board game publishers blow it sometimes that’s not something I’ll especially hold against them as long as they acknowledge the issue(s) and and fix them as errata or if necessary an expansion. This is what's so weird about Jamie. With new coke, the tests didn't bare out int he real world possibly due to study design or congnitive bias, so the test data didn't align to the real world situation. I can understand getting things very wrong in this situation where the data you have gathered to support your decision making is faulty. Jamie on the other has published his own play test data that's shows he had discovered the problems and had all the required data! And then didn't do anything about it!!! Cthulhu Dreams fucked around with this message at 03:51 on Mar 6, 2022 |
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Mar 6, 2022 03:48
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the holy poopacy posted:My impression is that it's a pretty fun game at its core, just held back needlessly by awful faction balance (which is not a dealbreaker for some people, somehow). I've only played it a couple times though, so maybe there are more fundamental issues that I didn't play long enough to pick up on. I know that some people are disappointed that conquest is not more rewarding but I feel that's almost more of a strength than a weakness. I think a bunch of it is that unless you play repeatedly and competitively you just don't notice the issues. if you sit down for a fun time with a less critical mindset, the game does do a lot of things really well (the turns are very fast, the pieces are very nice, the game has a very visible sense of progression on the board, and it comes to an end pretty quickly). The issues are with things like particular combinations of player boards being busted, but it's easy to play 5+ games of scythe and never see an overpowered or underpowered combination, let alone see it twice. Given the modern gameplay environment, how many people actually play a game 5 times? 10 times? I play my collection pretty heavily and with that said half my games are played less than 5 times.
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Mar 6, 2022 10:05
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Jedit posted:There's only two straight up busted faction/board combos in Scythe, one Rusviet and one Crimean. That's not awful out of 49 possibilities. The Nordics are also a bit weaker than the other factions and Crimea are maybe a little too strong. Overall, though, I've never seen someone completely hosed out of the game just by their starting position; by the time someone gets their sixth star everyone usually has 3 or 4 and is close to a couple more. So as you say, it feels nice and you won't notice the problems if you play to play rather than play to win. Not true that there are only two busted combinations. Nordic/innovative is as bad as patriotic/Crimea is good, which is an impressive achievement. Albion/mech manages a 3 player win rate of 10%! But you've touched on another fun issue, why did he ban rusivet/industrious combo when it's not close to as good as patriotic Crimea, despite knowing that patriotic Crimea was broken? It's all very weird. I don't think Scythe is very playable as a competitive game with the rules as written, you need to introduce an auction for playmat combos otherwise the disparities in the combos can be suffocating. Cthulhu Dreams fucked around with this message at 12:27 on Mar 6, 2022 |
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Mar 6, 2022 12:16
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potatocubed posted:What would you lot say is the most accessible 18XX game? Depends how you define accessibility I guess. 1830 is the most broadly available but it's a bit longer than some of the other stuff I will recommend. It does have some big advantages: A) it's maybe the best 18xx ever made (this is arguable obviously but it's in the conversation for sure) B) it's one of the first and cleanest designed ones, so a lot of 18xx games start with 'well it's 1830, but you can also' C) because it was the most commonly available one for some time there are print and play 18xx games (e.g. 1836JR) that are based on having the 1830 tiles, station markers etc and you print out a new map. If accessibility is defined as 'best one for a new 18xx gamer to start with' I'd honestly consider 1830 still, but 1889 (set in Japan and referenced previously) would be my pick. Other alternatives here are 18Chesapeake and 1882 if you happened to see a copy kicking around. Most of the games deaigned as a good introduction for new gamers to 18xx are rubbush: Posideon is one of the worst games I have ever played. I do like 18MS quite a bit but I wouldn't start there, not is it for everyone. The other 18xx that has had a huge print run over the years is 1846 published by GMT. I would not recommend it, but lots of people like it. Cthulhu Dreams fucked around with this message at 03:52 on Mar 13, 2022 |
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Mar 13, 2022 03:50
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Bottom Liner posted:IDK why 46 is considered a good intro other than being the only one that was readily available for so long. The draft for sure helps over a waterfall auction imho. I just don't like 1846 very much but lots of people do.
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Mar 13, 2022 04:14
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Yeah if I had a copy of 1889 and 1830 in front of me and you asked me to teach a new player I'd start with 1889. But the fact that you can find a real physical copy of 1830 fairly regularly has to give it a platform in this discussion. Conversely if you are haoky to wait, 1889 is maybe my personal favourite 18xx long term and a good introduction game.
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Mar 13, 2022 04:40
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Kerro posted:That makes sense when I stop to think about it, I'll definitely just do the $1 pledge thing in future if there's no drawbacks to doing so. It's mostly a problem for the creator because it's hard for people to estimate how much uplift they are going to get in the pledge manager, but it's mostly a good problem for them if order volume shoots up in the pledge manager. So yeah if you want to minimise the money you give to kickstarter it makes total sense.
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Mar 25, 2022 07:40
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It's a very good game and the theming is solid as well yeah.
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Mar 25, 2022 09:20
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Pravda is a trash tier poster who I have on ignore, and I wish the ignore system also blocked me from seeing their quoted posts.
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Mar 26, 2022 05:54
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Slightly wildcard 4-6 player suggestions: For Science! Is a fully coop real time dexterity stacking gaming. Plays in 15 minutes and is pretty excellent. Sidereal Confluence:a game of trading and negotiating in the Elysium Quadrant is a real time 4-9 player trading and negotiation game that is a bit heavier. Edit: though less good at 4 so not great if you're mostly 4 and sometimes plus.
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Mar 31, 2022 21:14
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You could easily play just one with 8, its just a component limitation of the little plastic stands and erasable markers in the box. You could absolutely just give the dude a a piece of paper and a pen and get along just fine.
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Apr 3, 2022 12:45
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dishwasherlove posted:This sounds neat. Is it kinda like Captain Sonar? What's the overlap like with that? Its a similar idea. Its better because it never has the huge anti-climatic moments where you realise that there was a miss communication between the two captains about which direction someone went or someone cheated.
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Apr 5, 2022 08:01
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The thing that blows my mind about the lack of colourblindness accessibility in the hobby is that given the average gaming group is predominantly men, and men have by far the majority of colourblindness in the population, something like a third of gaming groups have someone who suffers from some form of colour blindness in them! This is a huge market share people, what are you doing?!?!? I think it's important just to be inclusive but even if you are just 100% focused on the money there is probably a significant chunk of change riding on it. I suspect publishers can in part get away with it because big reviewers don't mention it either way, but if SU&SD and the dice tower made a point of mentioning accessibility issues you'd see the Pu sihers scrambling
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Apr 18, 2022 04:01
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Leraika posted:Does anyone have any suggestions for physically small and rules light games? And when I say physically small, I mean 'can fit into a standard purse'. I've usually got Tussie Mussie on hand, but wouldn't mind some more options (anyone have any experience with Button Shy's other games?). The gold standard are probably card games, Skull, Regicide, the crew? Hanamikoji is an excellent suggestion. A fake artist goes to New York?
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Apr 21, 2022 06:51
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uncle blog posted:Anybody got tips for a game that plays 2-4 people. Is fairly strategic, good amount of player interaction, plays under an hour and is small enough that it can be played on a small table or a picnic blanket? Is coop okay? If so the crew is an outstanding choice. Otherwise Azul is probably a strong contender though I might be worried about the table space being a bit tight.
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Apr 22, 2022 10:41
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The unwritten rules that do make competitive board gamers made are all about king making though imho.
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Apr 26, 2022 22:33
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Megasabin posted:Thanks for the suggestions. I've heard of both Imperial Steam & Neuland before, but haven't really checked out either. Vanuatu might be another one that has a very interesting and mean auction mechanism.
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May 3, 2022 01:21
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KVeezy3 posted:
These games, particularly the first two, are seminal board game classics, so hard to say you're going wrong with them.
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May 10, 2022 00:33
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Bottom Liner posted:Milestones, Night Shift Manager, Reserve Cards, Lobbyist, new tiles (avoid house 25 at 3p because it can determine the winner from setup). Add in Coffee if you really want to add another layer to the game, all the previous ones just refine the original but Coffee is another level of production/demand puzzle that is more complicated. Yeah I generally agree, I'd actually leave out coffee because it's a lot of faff. My rating of modules would be similar New Milestones >= night shift manager ( this one is important for rebalancing the openings) >= New tiles > Lobbyist > reserve tiles (I go back and forth in these, I originally thought they were a straight upgrade but they do change the game in some ways) >> coffee
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May 13, 2022 23:47
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Impermanent posted:Like the Vagabond is such a novelty figure. very "And you don't even have to be a faction! You can just be a guy!" that is maybe the perfect kind of thing to snag a certain kind of Gamer but it's just very frustrating. I see the same sort of shallowness in how the crows operate, although I think they fit better than the vagabond does. I mean you can just don't play with the vagabond. Wasn't a big part of the vagabond existing the need for a 4th player with a low piece count? Swap in an expansion faction. As a solution for how to get 4players on the base box the vagabond is pretty clever imho if I also don't like it.
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May 19, 2022 04:22
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It's not quite what you are asking for.. But Carcassone surely?
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Jun 14, 2022 09:32
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The crew is absolutely the answer here yeah
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Jul 7, 2022 15:23
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Back Alley Borks posted:What's the thread hindsight on Beyond The Sun? It still looks like it's a unique kind of game that I'd be willing to sell some stuff in my collection for. I'm also considering Ark Nova solely for the theme because I volunteer in animal conservation and have friends who work in zoos. I've played Beyond the Suna 51 times, mostly online. It's got atleast 20-25 plays in, it I reckon. it plays pretty smoothly, the rules burden isn't high, and the decision space is decent. If the core idea of the tech tree appeals to you, you will probably like it.
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Jul 19, 2022 22:40
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Tekopo posted:Being bad at board games is not a big issue IMO. I've seen (and experiencied) elitism in terms of board game skill even during playing a game and it's lovely as hell. Agree elitism is terrible. If people want to be better at games it is imho a learnable skill rather than an inate quality, but I don't think many people intentionally set out to learn.
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Aug 4, 2022 11:58
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Llyranor posted:Aiming for BGG '3.0' ish weight (medium): While Bus is maybe my favourite of those games it's probably the weakest at 5. These games are all crackers though, they are some of the finest designs ever printed. Teams is hard though, I cannot think of a 5 player game that is good that is not 1vAll.
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Aug 10, 2022 06:33
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Kerro posted:Quartermaster General 1914 is the only one I can think of but it is a really solid 5-player team game that is not that complex. Oh yeah that's a great suggestion
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Aug 10, 2022 07:42
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taser rates posted:Would also recommend Navegador at 5, I think I like it more than Concordia nowadays though I never played with Venus. Venus is a bit better than Concordia (it doesn't halve downtime in a 4 player game, but makes a big impact, and the new maps and cards are interesting), but it's not going to make people change their relative ordering of Antike, Concordia, Imperial, and Navegador imho. But if you want teams, Concordia Venus is like the only euro with support for teams lol.
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Aug 10, 2022 09:41
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FirstAidKite posted:
Nothing. Teach the specific game - either use a watch it played video or teach it yourself or whatever. The advice in the intro is very good here, I like the SU&SD approach where you introduce a game off the thematic hook and why you're going to have fun, not this is a deck builder lol. The advice here of making sure to let people get system mastery rather than spamming new games is good advice. You'd be better off playing TTR 3 times than playing three different games. Last advice is people are willing to do more of a rules lift if they really want to play that game for some reason (I. E theme appeals) so use that hook lol.
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Aug 19, 2022 21:49
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Blamestorm posted:I got JC2e too (also in Canberra) after having mostly forgotten I ordered it. Trying to work out online how well it scales with player count, anyone know if it’s good 2p or needs more people to shine? Captain Theron posted:Yeah, got my copy in Canberra today. Thing is dense and beautiful. Should get to play it tomorrow night, looking forward to being some despicable people! You guys should hit me up for a game some time.
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Aug 23, 2022 12:45
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Blamestorm posted:Maybe we should! Canberra is weirdly a board game Mecca compared to most other places in terms of how many stores and board gamers we have. (Probably because we're a city filled with government nerds) I was staggered when I was in the UK how few across the whole country they seemed to have, but I guess their retail has been hollowed out a lot in general by this point. I live a few minutes away from LFG in Kambah and having basically internet prices and that much stock nearby (plus all the other Canberra store options, plus CanCon etc) feels basically crazy compared to anywhere else. I'm keen, but I'd suggest we meet up at one of the meetups (even though they are northside) and sus out if we can stand each other's personality first. Though LFG has tables I think so we could probably do it there. Hit me up on discord as I don't have PMs. Agree though I think the employment here drives weird demographics. Canberra is VERY clique-y though, one my friends only half jokingly said I was weird for making a new friend and bringing them to board game nights hahaha.
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Aug 25, 2022 00:35
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