I left out Jambo, Bring Your Own Book, Deep Sea Adventure, TROLL, Black Friday, Ginkgopolis, Linkage, Planet Steam, Snow Tails, Space Beans, Trains, Trains & Stations, Wyatt Earp and Yardmaster. At this point, I'm leaving out games where I don't have much to say.
I wish I played as many board games as Chris. If I don't get to play a heavy Euro soon I might go insane.
That is a full two weeks of gaming. And for the last three months Anthony and I have played a bunch of two player games...
You are missing some from memorial day. Like Bring Your own Book, Codenames, and whatever else you did after I left.
We basically played a 3-player game of Black Friday, Chris, Anthony, and I. It was very close at the end, just one bar of silver for the win. There's a very casino-like aspect to the game, which makes sense it's about stocks.
As for Wings for the Baron, the last game had Tony Stark designing the Allied planes until the Time Police came and arrested him.
I couldn't get all the way through that video. I trust Eric Lang to make a good game. I don't trust Steve Jackson producing a Munchkin CCG. I'm never going to play it anyway, so there goes that.
Went to game night last night. Started off with Codenames, which continues to be a very good game that I will never suggest playing, but will also never turn down. I predict that is does not win the SdJ, but it will at some point be recognized as one of the major games in the hobby. It is so damn cheap and it already selling well at Target.
Busted out Poseidon's Adventure. Anyone want to buy a copy of Poseidon's Adventure? It's the crazy "roll 15 dice from a giant cardboard wave and see how they wash up on the beach" game. It fucking blows. You take turns collecting dice from around the board, in hopes of later spending these dice on Yahtzee-style dice combos. First person to make all 6 combos ends the game. There's much more to the game, but know that A) the game says 2 hours on the box, and it seems impossible to take that long, but various elements of the game conspire to turn the middle into a hellish grind where nothing fun happens, and That awesome die-rolling wave? It happens to infrequently! That's your hook, you should be rolling that fucker constantly!
Lastly, I got to try The Game (prior SdJ nominee), playing three times. It's good! It's a co-op in the vein of Hanabi, aka, legally play all of the number cards in all of your hands without explicitly communicating what you are holding. At some point one or more of your cards will become impossible to play, and everyone loses. We did a 5 player game (I strongly suspect the game is harder at max player count) and got a loss with just one card left. So close. I already have this one on order, as a free shipping filler for a CoolStuff order of X-Wing crap.
It's been three weeks since I've posted here, so this is super-abridged. It has been a pretty good three weeks for gaming, though. I also put an order in to Amazon.co.jp for some games, which was surprisingly fast (I ordered on Tuesday - they arrived on Thursday)
Collection Played in 2016: 62%. 62 games to go. Games Added: Nautilus, ButaBabel, Yokohama, Word Porters, Stellar Conflict
Nautilus(new to me) - A game that is like no other game, the value of individual actions is still unclear to me most of the time. Money isn't a problem, until it is.
Through the Ages - I play TtA infrequently enough that I often consider trading it away... but I enjoy it enough that I always keep it. Not quite enough to upgrade to the new edition right away, but I'd still like to try it sometime.
Settlers of Catan - I'm a little surprised I've only played Settlers 13 times... and 4 of those games were in 2016. It's been enjoying a renaissance at lunch in the office.
Race for the Galaxy - Similar to Settlers, I've "only" played Race 83 times (not counting the PC game)... and 20% of those games were in 2016. Although in the case of Race, those games were both lunch games at work AND a spree with the new Xeno Invasion expansion.
Space Alert - We managed to lose, even though we were pausing frequently to explain how the game worked. Which we found pretty funny.
Panamax - I haven't played Panamax since last May, and although I still enjoy it, I'm not as in love with it as I was the first time. Still a keeper but I lowered my rating a bit.
Pax Porfiriana - Having played it with 2, 3, and 4 players... I don't know if I can express a strong preference. The shoving match in a 3p game is a lot of fun, though - hurt your right hand opponent to defend against your left hand opponent's imminent victory. Last Saturday's game ended with all three of us able to win on their next turn.
The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game(new to me) - Bit of a surprise here, it's got all of the usual CCG design patterns (lots of keywords, lots of specific timing in the turn structure) in service of a cooperative game, and it really works. I like it.
Yokohama(new to me) - Hisashi Hayashi! The first imported game I played this week, which is a solid sandbox of euro-resource-conversion decisions. There's just enough going on to make some reasonable decisions without being surprised by the outcome.
Word Porters(new to me) - Hisashi Hayashi again! The second import. I was really surprised by how strong the core idea of this game is... "Dixit meets Concept with worker placement." It works best when the clues are all completely inappropriate for the words.
Stellar Conflict(new to me) - Real-time games are divisive - but I like this one. Anthony does, too... and we're the only ones so far.
Coal Baron(new to me) - Very simple game with a lot to like - I suspect the real reason it works so well is the escalating majority scoring between rounds.
No review of Heroquest is complete unless the players stand outside the door to a room and say "We all roll and don't take any actions on our turns until the lead player rolls a 6."
Hell, just squaring up on the door and only opening it once everyone's ready makes HeroQuest too easy, no need to even wait for that 6. Which is a shame, because it was a lot of fun when we were kids who didn't know better.
The game's not great, the review is pretty entertaining.
Agreed. That guy really owns the character. And he hit the fucking nail on the head for me with the painting jokes. I too decided to try practicing painting minis by touching up my old HeroQuest figures in my early teens. And they are FUCKING HIDEOUS.
HeroQuest isn't hard to fix. Just let the GM control the monsters on a piece of paper. Let them open doors. Use fog of war. Also, add some more dungeony stuff like traps and such so it isn't just combat.
The stock images this year are much better than the 2016 calendar. There is some garbage in that 2016 one. Felt like he was just trying to convince people to spring for the custom image selection.
I'm very seriously considering 2018. A big Essen trip will likely kill some other vacation and convention plans, and I'm already locked in for BGG.CON and PAX South two months away from each other, right after Essen. In 2017, I've got a big Alaska vacation lined up for the fall. 2018 is wide open, and I'd sacrifice other cons and vacations to keep it that way, since going to Essen definitely seems like a "do it only once" type of event. Wife already gave the thumbs up.
As for the expense of shipping, you gotta get one person to be the Essen mule. Break those bits out, chuck all the inserts. Nest those boxes inside each other as tightly as possible, drop that sucker off at FedEx, and pray.
Comments
As for Wings for the Baron, the last game had Tony Stark designing the Allied planes until the Time Police came and arrested him.
Went to game night last night. Started off with Codenames, which continues to be a very good game that I will never suggest playing, but will also never turn down. I predict that is does not win the SdJ, but it will at some point be recognized as one of the major games in the hobby. It is so damn cheap and it already selling well at Target.
Busted out Poseidon's Adventure. Anyone want to buy a copy of Poseidon's Adventure? It's the crazy "roll 15 dice from a giant cardboard wave and see how they wash up on the beach" game. It fucking blows. You take turns collecting dice from around the board, in hopes of later spending these dice on Yahtzee-style dice combos. First person to make all 6 combos ends the game. There's much more to the game, but know that A) the game says 2 hours on the box, and it seems impossible to take that long, but various elements of the game conspire to turn the middle into a hellish grind where nothing fun happens, and
Lastly, I got to try The Game (prior SdJ nominee), playing three times. It's good! It's a co-op in the vein of Hanabi, aka, legally play all of the number cards in all of your hands without explicitly communicating what you are holding. At some point one or more of your cards will become impossible to play, and everyone loses. We did a 5 player game (I strongly suspect the game is harder at max player count) and got a loss with just one card left. So close. I already have this one on order, as a free shipping filler for a CoolStuff order of X-Wing crap.
Collection Played in 2016: 62%. 62 games to go. Games Added: Nautilus, ButaBabel, Yokohama, Word Porters, Stellar Conflict
Nautilus (new to me) - A game that is like no other game, the value of individual actions is still unclear to me most of the time. Money isn't a problem, until it is.
Through the Ages - I play TtA infrequently enough that I often consider trading it away... but I enjoy it enough that I always keep it. Not quite enough to upgrade to the new edition right away, but I'd still like to try it sometime.
Settlers of Catan - I'm a little surprised I've only played Settlers 13 times... and 4 of those games were in 2016. It's been enjoying a renaissance at lunch in the office.
Race for the Galaxy - Similar to Settlers, I've "only" played Race 83 times (not counting the PC game)... and 20% of those games were in 2016. Although in the case of Race, those games were both lunch games at work AND a spree with the new Xeno Invasion expansion.
Space Alert - We managed to lose, even though we were pausing frequently to explain how the game worked. Which we found pretty funny.
Panamax - I haven't played Panamax since last May, and although I still enjoy it, I'm not as in love with it as I was the first time. Still a keeper but I lowered my rating a bit.
Pax Porfiriana - Having played it with 2, 3, and 4 players... I don't know if I can express a strong preference. The shoving match in a 3p game is a lot of fun, though - hurt your right hand opponent to defend against your left hand opponent's imminent victory. Last Saturday's game ended with all three of us able to win on their next turn.
The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game (new to me) - Bit of a surprise here, it's got all of the usual CCG design patterns (lots of keywords, lots of specific timing in the turn structure) in service of a cooperative game, and it really works. I like it.
Yokohama (new to me) - Hisashi Hayashi! The first imported game I played this week, which is a solid sandbox of euro-resource-conversion decisions. There's just enough going on to make some reasonable decisions without being surprised by the outcome.
Word Porters (new to me) - Hisashi Hayashi again! The second import. I was really surprised by how strong the core idea of this game is... "Dixit meets Concept with worker placement." It works best when the clues are all completely inappropriate for the words.
Stellar Conflict (new to me) - Real-time games are divisive - but I like this one. Anthony does, too... and we're the only ones so far.
Coal Baron (new to me) - Very simple game with a lot to like - I suspect the real reason it works so well is the escalating majority scoring between rounds.
Would recommend if you want to hear from the other side of the RP spectrum with very little overlap.
Fuck it, just play Torchbearer.
I have backed.
Paging Emily and Rym.
Looks like I'll book some other trip for 2016. Return of PAX AUS? Maybe some tropical island?