I'm nearly there on Agricola, but only if you include solo games. I've also played a lot against the AI on iPad but it's kind of a joke (I don't think the AI has ever won, even on the highest difficulty, at any player count).
Klondike solitaire, Hearts, and Magic should probably go in the list but I never tracked my plays with those.
Love letter and Hanabi are the only games that seem to get play time any more. Anything as complex as panda poker becomes too difficult to explain to anybody.
My lady friend and I decided to open up my kickstarted game New Dawn by Artipia Games. I also backed Among The Stars by them. We loved AtS, so we had high hopes for ND.
It's a fairly broad area control game. You spend place facility cards out on the board and then have a chance to spend resources later in the turn to put based on those facilities. There is a limited form of PvP which you don't have to take part in if you don't want to.
We did a complete component check and read through the rule book completely so the game tool far longer than I think it normally would. Once we started playing we got about 2 hours in when I had to get ready and head out to work.
The games played over 5 rounds and we finished 4 of them. It feels like I'm ahead at this point after assuming a exploration/economy strategy while she took a more militant strategy. We shall be playing the final round tomorrow before we head out to our areas big monthly game meetup.
This is very tl;dr since this is being rushed during a break at work but I wanted to post something about it. The core game here is very solid imo. I'd rank this another solid game from Artipia.
The only glaring hole is the rule book. We have had to discuss a number of rules that aren't clear or are just omitted entirely. We've more or less reached consensus about how we think it should work. I am going to draft an faq to email Artipia about to see what they say.
If anyone is keen on this of Among The Stars, say the word and I'll have them both at PAX South.
Actually, since I actually log my plays on BGG, I can filter down to just the year 2014 on BGG...
Netrunner is easily the game I played the most this year (200+ face to face games) since I've been going to/hosting a meetup almost every week.
Race for the Galaxy and Innovation got 25+ plays face to face, which kind of surprises me. I played them a lot online, but they also hit the table all year long. Coup and One Night Ultimate Werewolf also hit 25+, but that's less surprising (parties with friends, conventions, etc).
Looking at the dimes (10+ plays) casts a wider net, with two heavy games (Caverna, Terra Mystica), some reliable workhorses (Bang! the Dice Game, Dominion, Machi Koro, Fairy Tale) and two games nobody but me* cares about (Pandante, Shadowrun: Crossfire).
Notably absent: Mage Knight. I thought I played it more? I guess that was all last year.
The game I played the most that I don't actually own: Hansa Teutonica. Gotta get those plates.
All told there are 150 different games on here, which seems about right.
*with the exception of people I have personally played with
Fuck, man. Those tiles a Sunrise City-thickness. Not footsteps I'd want to necessarily follow in, you know, being that production and shipping costs for that game bankrupted its publisher.
On the unlikely chance that someone is rich and has a lot of time on their hands, I'm running a 9 player Eclipse game down here in Missouri on the 17th. We have one open spot at the moment.
I just played Roll for the Galaxy, and I probably would have kept playing it if the owner of the game didn't have to leave. It's not just "Race for the Galaxy: the Dice Game", it doesn't have the Yahtzee mechanic, it feels like a Race redesign with a different randomizer to deal with. It's still a game about making the best of what you're dealt, that feels like a 2-hour game compressed into a quarter of the time.
Taught my friend how to play Splendor yesterday. It was the first time I was playing in a 1 v 1 scenario and the game plays quite differently when compared to a group. Double coin denial is a basic mechanic alongside aggressive reserving to deny low and mid tier cards to lead into a Noble tile victory.
Will have to check if I'm not playing denial hard enough in a group setting or if there are too many variables when you have 4 people.
I realize this isn't a game, but today I was introduced to a mechanic where you play a card for Elijah in Card Against Humanity. You just take the top card and mix it in with the player cards -- much like the can of cherry coke at the Yu Gi Oh Tournament. However, I noticed two things: the first is that Elijah won none of the three hands we played, and in the third hand didn't even win a single card, making me think that it is a game of more skill than luck. The second is that the inclusion of Elijah seemed to make the game more fun, not less. It also utilized two of my custom cards to great affect, the first being "No one can tell you about __HTMKSteve's Crazy Ex__ you have to experience it for yourself" and "__[my recovering drug addict friend]'s central nervous system__ is way better in __smoking crack, for instance__ mode."
I think a large part of why Elijah didn't win was because we picked the right people to play with. We were all (except Constantine) fairly jaded and didn't care much for shock humor. The name of the game wasn't "play the most outrageous white card that you have", but rather "play what logically fits the scenario." I maintain that CAH is a legitimate and enjoyable game if you have a properly curated group.
That variant is suggested in the rulebook Greg. They call it Rando Cardrissian instead of Elijah.
I like using CAH as a warm up game at the monthly board game meetup I run, we tend to play it as people are arriving because its super quick to learn. I prefer the "play what logically fits the scenario" way of playing. Having the Australian edition really helps this, because instead of playing a random card because we don't understand/have no frame of reference for very specific USA or UK cards, so it stays pretty on track.
I got my copy of Aquasphere on the table today and enjoyed it quite a bit. It is by the same guy who created The Village, but has a significantly different feel to it (other than time).
On your turn, you choose to either move your scientist in the main control room to program one of your bots, or you can move around the habitat and activate your bots. As you deploy more bots, your score also rises. The trick is having enough time and planning your moves accordingly. The game seems like it will play fairly quickly (like under 90 minutes with 4 players), and has a lot of variety as card and lab bonuses change each round as well as the order of the programming rooms.
It is definitely one of the few Kickstarter games that I have really enjoyed and look forward to playing again. I will be bringing it to PAX South for sure, and most likely Prime.
I believe you are getting The Village confused with The Castles of Burgundy. Stefan Feld is probably my favorite board game designer at this point (I mean damn, go back and play The Speicherstadt), but I haven't gotten to play his newest games. Glad to hear this one is good too.
Yeah, you're right. The artwork is by Dennis Lohausen, who also did art for Village (as well as Camel Up and Terra Mystica). Stefan Feld designed it, and it was developed by Ralph Bruhn (who worked on Rialto, At the Gates of Loyang, Luna, Il Vecchio, and Istanbul.
One of the board game groups I am part of via Facebook is a designer group. The guy who runs it, James Mathe, posted his write up on game design resources. As I scrolled down and got to the Video and Seminar portion, I saw Rym and Scott's Practical Game Theory lecture as well as their Mastering Game Mechanics lecture. So-you-want-to-be-a-tabletop-game-designer
Comments
Agricola
Le Harve (I have a problem, I know)
T&E
SotM ( my friends love this one )
Power Grid
Puerto Rico
Small World
Klondike solitaire, Hearts, and Magic should probably go in the list but I never tracked my plays with those.
It's a fairly broad area control game. You spend place facility cards out on the board and then have a chance to spend resources later in the turn to put based on those facilities. There is a limited form of PvP which you don't have to take part in if you don't want to.
We did a complete component check and read through the rule book completely so the game tool far longer than I think it normally would. Once we started playing we got about 2 hours in when I had to get ready and head out to work.
The games played over 5 rounds and we finished 4 of them. It feels like I'm ahead at this point after assuming a exploration/economy strategy while she took a more militant strategy. We shall be playing the final round tomorrow before we head out to our areas big monthly game meetup.
This is very tl;dr since this is being rushed during a break at work but I wanted to post something about it. The core game here is very solid imo. I'd rank this another solid game from Artipia.
The only glaring hole is the rule book. We have had to discuss a number of rules that aren't clear or are just omitted entirely. We've more or less reached consensus about how we think it should work. I am going to draft an faq to email Artipia about to see what they say.
If anyone is keen on this of Among The Stars, say the word and I'll have them both at PAX South.
- Netrunner is easily the game I played the most this year (200+ face to face games) since I've been going to/hosting a meetup almost every week.
- Race for the Galaxy and Innovation got 25+ plays face to face, which kind of surprises me. I played them a lot online, but they also hit the table all year long. Coup and One Night Ultimate Werewolf also hit 25+, but that's less surprising (parties with friends, conventions, etc).
- Looking at the dimes (10+ plays) casts a wider net, with two heavy games (Caverna, Terra Mystica), some reliable workhorses (Bang! the Dice Game, Dominion, Machi Koro, Fairy Tale) and two games nobody but me* cares about (Pandante, Shadowrun: Crossfire).
- Notably absent: Mage Knight. I thought I played it more? I guess that was all last year.
- The game I played the most that I don't actually own: Hansa Teutonica. Gotta get those plates.
- All told there are 150 different games on here, which seems about right.
*with the exception of people I have personally played withOrganizing!
It's pretty fucking weird.
It was the first time I was playing in a 1 v 1 scenario and the game plays quite differently when compared to a group.
Double coin denial is a basic mechanic alongside aggressive reserving to deny low and mid tier cards to lead into a Noble tile victory.
Will have to check if I'm not playing denial hard enough in a group setting or if there are too many variables when you have 4 people.
I think a large part of why Elijah didn't win was because we picked the right people to play with. We were all (except Constantine) fairly jaded and didn't care much for shock humor. The name of the game wasn't "play the most outrageous white card that you have", but rather "play what logically fits the scenario." I maintain that CAH is a legitimate and enjoyable game if you have a properly curated group.
I like using CAH as a warm up game at the monthly board game meetup I run, we tend to play it as people are arriving because its super quick to learn. I prefer the "play what logically fits the scenario" way of playing. Having the Australian edition really helps this, because instead of playing a random card because we don't understand/have no frame of reference for very specific USA or UK cards, so it stays pretty on track.
Dominion for $14 if anyone wants it? Or $11 for base cards?
On your turn, you choose to either move your scientist in the main control room to program one of your bots, or you can move around the habitat and activate your bots. As you deploy more bots, your score also rises. The trick is having enough time and planning your moves accordingly. The game seems like it will play fairly quickly (like under 90 minutes with 4 players), and has a lot of variety as card and lab bonuses change each round as well as the order of the programming rooms.
It is definitely one of the few Kickstarter games that I have really enjoyed and look forward to playing again. I will be bringing it to PAX South for sure, and most likely Prime.
So-you-want-to-be-a-tabletop-game-designer