The Big Board-Gaming Catch-All

El-Producto wrote:

Can anyone recommend a new game to play with my 8 year old son? Something dungeony with some theme would be cool.

Two quick dungeon theme games my 8 yr old enjoys...

Fast real time co-op... 5 Minute Dungeon.

Small push your luck game... Welcome to the Dungeon.

El-Producto wrote:

Ghost Fightin Treasure Hunters was a hit.

Cool

El-Producto wrote:

Ghost Fightin Treasure Hunters was a hit.

It's a good 'un! To me, despite the theme, it's kind of a Pandemic for kids. We've played a ton of it.

I got in a game of Vast the Mysterious Manor last night, 3 players (me as Paladin, Manor, and Spider). The Manor player won fairly convincingly (Paladin had hit the spider 3 of 5 times and the Spider was only at 5 terror due to some mistakes).

Very fun and much more different than the original Vast than I expected. I can see why the Manor player wins so many early games - it's easy to underestimate how quickly he/she can complete rituals until it's too late to stop them. Looking forward to the next play.

Bubblefuzz wrote:
El-Producto wrote:

Can anyone recommend a new game to play with my 8 year old son? Something dungeony with some theme would be cool.

Two quick dungeon theme games my 8 yr old enjoys...

Fast real time co-op... 5 Minute Dungeon.

Small push your luck game... Welcome to the Dungeon.

My 7 year old enjoys both of these as well.

Got some friends together and finally got to play Dinosaur Island this weekend. Everyone was intimidated by the sheer number of boards, meeples and various other components, but reservations melted away as they saw how one thing led seamlessly into the next and all of that cardboard was simply there to keep track of the fiddly bits. Great theme, great execution and everyone seemed to have a really good time. Can't wait to get it back on the table.

Just finished painting all the minis for Stuffed Fables. I'm looking forward to carving out some time to play it with my wife and son so we can help Stitch, Theodora, Lumpy, Flops, Lionel and Piggle protect their girl from the Nightmare King and the horrors under her bed. As an added bonus my daughter is about ready to move with her stuffed friends into her big girl bed.

IMAGE(https://scontent.fbne3-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/70833837_10157314134225491_7703919496381071360_n.jpg?_nc_cat=106&_nc_eui2=AeECvUW5r3dcdTkDYFDE2JBwWLgTVnWu3Oh_ZUYFKHmmH-WlzrDqYxVKfDurrsNXR4b7thV14TVpAfi-2AzcdtV909wkQA2sWp_WEx19ynj9cw&_nc_oc=AQmiQlmTQjElExAbk4pVpEKHTwfW7o81gVh7VBoTkfIhqKtXwunBoNwlRdof_O1Lads&_nc_ht=scontent.fbne3-1.fna&oh=e7f05b12b3d05217a7d9cb0b75409644&oe=5DF2CFFF)

Quick follow up on Vast: The Mysterious Manner as we played it again. During the first game the person playing the Paladin seemed to have the most issue understanding how to use their abilities and what to do to win. The second game we use The Armored Knight instead of the Paladin and it went a lot smoother. The Armored Knight is the same character as the Knight from Crystal Caverns, but with a few new abilities at her disposal. Overall, I think her game play is a little simpler, which made it easier to learn, but then once players know the game better will be easier to stop her than the Paladin. So, might be worth considering using her in the first game or two, especially if you already are familiar with Crystal Caverns, as you get use to the other characters.

Prozac, any interest in accepting some cash for either that miniature set or duplicating it on someone else’s?

Amoebic wrote:
Aristophan wrote:

Our second, and last game was PARKS, a recent release where you move two hikers across the wilderness, collecting tokens to be able to visit National Parks. Our FLGS got a few Kickstarter copies, and my wife was really impressed by the artwork. It is a gorgeous game! Every new park that was revealed resulted in "oohs" and "aahs" from everyone. I ended up winning, but it was a close game, and everyone enjoyed it. Personally, my only drawback is that it didn't have Crater Lake National Park, but since it did have Mount Rainier, my wife was quite pleased. Again, thumbs up from everyone.

Oh my gosh, I'm so glad you mentioned this. I have my copy of PARKS waiting at my mom's house right now!

For those who have played PARKS, has anyone else noticed the Park Pass (gear) being overpowered? In any game where it's come up it is immediately purchased even if it requires skipping the whole trail with your hiker and then the person who grabbed it inevitably wins.

We haven't played enough games yet to really confirm that but it seems very strong.

Jolly Bill wrote:
Amoebic wrote:
Aristophan wrote:

Our second, and last game was PARKS, a recent release where you move two hikers across the wilderness, collecting tokens to be able to visit National Parks. Our FLGS got a few Kickstarter copies, and my wife was really impressed by the artwork. It is a gorgeous game! Every new park that was revealed resulted in "oohs" and "aahs" from everyone. I ended up winning, but it was a close game, and everyone enjoyed it. Personally, my only drawback is that it didn't have Crater Lake National Park, but since it did have Mount Rainier, my wife was quite pleased. Again, thumbs up from everyone.

Oh my gosh, I'm so glad you mentioned this. I have my copy of PARKS waiting at my mom's house right now!

For those who have played PARKS, has anyone else noticed the Park Pass (gear) being overpowered? In any game where it's come up it is immediately purchased even if it requires skipping the whole trail with your hiker and then the person who grabbed it inevitably wins.

We haven't played enough games yet to really confirm that but it seems very strong.

I have not had that experience, but I have only played one game. I had to look through my game to see that The Park Pass allows you to visit an additional park (and get those points) when you visit a park, and it costs 2 sunshine (some other gear costs 3). There are 35 gear cards, this card only appears once, and it never came up in the game we played. In our game, getting the resources to visit parks was more of a challenge than getting the opportunity to visit parks, especially since there is a 12 token limit on resources. It doesn't feel like this would have helped someone win in our game (the winning score being 36, which I don't know is good or bad).

Keithustus wrote:

Prozac, any interest in accepting some cash for either that miniature set or duplicating it on someone else’s?

These were really fun to paint, here’s all the Stuffed Fables minis.

https://www.facebook.com/646985490/p...

Thanks for the compliment, I’m not that good a painter and international shipping would probably make it unreasonable cost wise.

Steam-edition Scythe is currently 60% off ($7.99). I remember it looked terrible and read that it played pretty terribly when it launched into early access a few months ago. How is it now? Worth that price? Btw I’ve never played the physical edition either.
link

Keithustus wrote:

Steam-edition Scythe is currently 60% off ($7.99). I remember it looked terrible and read that it played pretty terribly when it launched into early access a few months ago. How is it now? Worth that price? Btw I’ve never played the physical edition either.
link

I've found it fine. Certainly a step up compared to setting up the game and running the automa, anyhow.

Haven’t participated in this thread for awhile but I do want to pop in and say Awkward Guests is probably one of the best game I’ve played in the last year couple years. It’s basically Clue but good and you’re sharing clues with each other via bidding (each clue is tied to a card). You need to be careful what Information you share or you might give too much away of piss someone off for giving something they have seen already.

I also recommend looking up Cyber Siege. A friend from my old game group in Denver designed and had a successful kickstarter. I thought it was going to ok and I figure I would be nice and back it. Got it and was very surprised that I LOVED IT. Probably my second favorite game I played over the last year.

I compare it to cosmic encounter. You’re always convincing people you’re in second. The goal is to get rid of all of your cubes. You don’t have powers but you bid for one turn powers via cube allocation. You’re always building one turn alliances, trying to get through the bank door, and backstabbing. He published via gamecrafter and he’s still trying to find a proper publisher. Most of the publishers are saying it’s too abstract to sell. You can buy it via game crafter but it is in the expensive side.

My Wichita my open game group is going great. My only frustration is only two people and myself is only putting in the effort of buying games and learning to teach them. And sometimes those guys can’t come all the time! It’s getting better but it can be frustrating. Nice to play my own games but sometimes I just want a break!

Oh geeze. PAXAUS is in 2 weeks.

I better brush up on how to teach Small World again. The brand recognition that game has is odd among those new to board gaming is strange to me. But I will do my best to make it as fun as possible so they can step on to more stuff.

And where did I put my werewolf pre-made sets?

YAAAAASSSSSS

So Dune has finally been reprinted by Gale Force Nine in a 2019 "nice try, but requires more effort" edition with recycled art from Dune Express. The new version feels a tad bit derivative while also adding some welcome visual elements: worms, a destroyed Shield Wall token, an action track, double-sided Sisterhood tokens, etc. Most perplexing is that the GF9 team failed to address the huge number of rules issues and apocryphal fixes put in place over the last forty years. Some of the holes are plugged, but just as many others are still in need of rigorous editing, and there are some recent designer additions that are just baffling. True, GF9 would have had to host the equivalent of the First Council of Nicaea to address all the holes and ambiguities, but if not now, when?

Even so, the game is still a hoot, and I admit to being a bit more relaxed teaching it knowing that 99.9% of my rules interpretations are correct this time. The game was very well received by the other five players, even though we failed to finish the game by Turn Six (out of Ten). That was due to the detailed rules explanation, which took up an hour of time, so experienced Arrakis tourists shouldn't have that problem. 3-4 hours should suffice for most games, though they can be longer (or shorter, of course!)

I played the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood, who are always hugely fun to play. I prefer playing the ostensibly weaker factions--BG, Atriedes, and Fremen--because if you can survive the opening, you've got a very good shot at victory while the other powers are reeling from their early-game defeats. There is a lot of chaos in the game, but it's player-created chaos, not designer-mandated chaos, and the asymmetry of the factions is truly a marvel.

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Tonight I played... (again, but actually finished)

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Rising Sun!

I bought the Kickstarter awhile back and had a hard time getting it to the table. I finally did and 2 people who joined us i has conflicting personalities with them. I had a long time friend play with us but his personality went south quickly. Every other person was AP and everyone complained about a broken thing and instead of taking it out or house ruling they decided to exploit it. We couldn’t even finish the game because it took way too long! Let’s just say I had a bad experience and started to regret my backing.

Fast forward today I finally decided to give it another try with different people...

I freaking loved it.

This time we had everyone who just wanted to have fun and have a good time. The game was smooth, there was just so many strategies you can build up too. There is so many different ways to win. There was so much trash taking and funny moments. The game is smooth with the action selecting system.

It’s crazy how I went from “why did I buy this” to my top 10 all times games. To be fair though I saw the good game underneath, I just didn’t want another bas experience.

Can’t wait to play more. Will probably play another around December!

That’s cool. I’ve only got it out twice since I backed it all in with everything including coins and mat so it’s in my why did I buy this pile. Maybe I should try again.

Funnily I’m pretty sure it’d see more play without the money miniatures as the setup and break down annoys me a bit.

I just played Rising Sun a few weeks ago and have got another game scheduled for a few weeks from now. It's great! We didn't really see anything broken about it at my table and had a fun time with it.

I believe the broken faction is the Kickstarter exclusive Fox clan. they can seppuku over and over and spam new units into areas for control.

Prozac wrote:

I believe the broken faction is the Kickstarter exclusive Fox clan. they can seppuku over and over and spam new units into areas for control.

Rising Sun broke me. I just couldn't get into "character", as it were, largely because of the mass seppuku mechanic and the heavy chaos on the board. But everybody's chaos tolerance will vary.

Prozac wrote:

I believe the broken faction is the Kickstarter exclusive Fox clan. they can seppuku over and over and spam new units into areas for control.

Ya we had fox clan in it but our player didn't do that luckily. It seem more interested getting a lot of bad ass monsters. I'll have to houserule it if someone goes crazy.

Glad you guys are enjoying Rising Sun. I've played it three times now and, while I enjoyed my time with it overall, it eventually felt like every part of the experience was slightly too long and too complex. I played Kemet for the first time soon after my second game of RS and that scratched the same itch for me, but with less bloat.

Found this gem about Eric Lang's next mythology dudes on a map game:

Summary:
-Game is about people stop believing in the polytheism and moves towards monotheism. You're trying to be the last god to remain relevant.
-Players share an action board, but depending how many actions are taken can activate events that can incentive players do different actions.
-Two players can combine as one god and win together. (ie Root vagabond win)
-Map gets split up and redefines the boundaries for battles and effects other interactions.
-You play as a god, and each god has a tech tree. Looks like to me you advance the tech tree by doing specific interactions (ie participate in a battle)
-You can be eliminated towards the end of the game.
-Kickstarter early next year.

After my very positive experience with Blood Rage and (finally) Rising Sun, I'm probably going to back this. Sound like I have plenty time to get Rising Sun plays in before then. I scheduled a game in December and I already have people RVSPing for the event!

Crockpot wrote:

Found this gem about Eric Lang's next mythology dudes on a map game

Can't wait to play, but I will pass on the KS, though I love Egyptian mythology.

Been out of the board game.game for a while, and was pleasantly surprised to see the wealth of options for solo gaming. I got out of it b/c it was really hard to get people together to play, especially theme heavy stuff which I really like.

Picked up a copy of Arkham Horror LCG and 5 Minute Dungeon (to play with my 8 year old son)

Next on the shortlist is Mage Knight!

El-Producto wrote:

Been out of the board game.game for a while, and was pleasantly surprised to see the wealth of options for solo gaming. I got out of it b/c it was really hard to get people together to play, especially theme heavy stuff which I really like.

Picked up a copy of Arkham Horror LCG and 5 Minute Dungeon (to play with my 8 year old son)

Next on the shortlist is Mage Knight!

Cool! There are also some really good one player modes for games I wouldn't peg as one-player games, namely worker placement. Architects of the West Kingdom, A Feast for Odin, and Manhattan Project: Energy Empire all are great multiplayer games that have excellent solo modes.

Architects even allow the use of a competitive Automata dummy player (same as in solo play) that really spices up a two-player game. My son and I have played that way twice and had very different outcomes (in a good way) in how we went about scoring points.