The Big Board-Gaming Catch-All

I finally moved to Wichita! My buddy I met at a con invited me to play a game with him with his group. We played at probably the best board game venue I’ve ever been to, Sente Games & Refreshments. Extremely clean, ton of space, lots of tables, very active but never overwhelming and great drinks and snacks! It was fun to see diverse group of gamers. There was Families, college students, nerdy gamers, couples, etc. To be fair, my last game venue was terrible so it wasn’t hard to pass it.

It was only 3 of us but we played 6 hours straight of games and played a ton! I played...

Montana is an area control euro race with a spinner! Yes, an euro game with a spinner. The goal of the game is to get rid of all of your city hexes chits. On the map, each hex requires a specific set of resources. You get resources from workers that are spent on a worker placement board and you get different kinds workers from the spinner.

I enjoyed it. It’s easy to learn and does have a race to the finish vibe. Very refreshing from the normal point salad euro games. Spinner is hilarious and it works. With a world of dry euros it’s cool to see something different but still has those euro sensibilities.

I also played Alone. It’s basically a sci fi Descent reversed. One player playing a space marine vs multiple DMs. Each DM player is assigned of a deck that has its own personality. The DM team only does react actions from their cards.

It’s a very interesting game. I mostly enjoyed it. Everything looks great. Cool premise. Unique. However it’s got some problems. DM team is very loosely goosey with the react actions. There is no turn order. It wasn’t bad but it also wasn’t great. I felt like there almost could of been one DM. Also the game was just too long for what it is. I think the experience was putting me off because the guy teaching didn’t really had the rules down.

Then we played the intro/tutorial scenarios for Chronicles of Crime. This is basically Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective with an app. You basically use an app to scan cards of people, locations, evidences to solve the crime. So for example I can scan a suspect card and an item in the crime scene to ask them specifically about the item. It has this cool VR game where you investigate a scene with the app. The goal is to describe to the other players what you see in a limited time. At the end of the game you answer questions about the crime. The longer you take the less points you get.

I enjoyed it but I feel like I’m not raving about this game due to how bitter I’ve gotten from detective games like Sherlock Holmes consulting detective. My problem with these games is the whole “how would I ever know that?” when you are ask to solve the crime. It feels very binary and you miss the smallest thing you’re done. Also red herrings are awful in these games. One game I think does it right is Mansions of Madness. There are a couple scenarios where you are solving a crime and near the end you have to name the killer or name the cultist. The cool thing is that if you got it wrong you don’t lose. It just changes the ending and you might need to fight more monsters to make up your lose! So, CoC has a lot of promise and love what they are doing, it’s just probably not for me because the genre has so many design flaws.

I also played the weirdest license game I’ve ever played, Monster Crunch. It’s license is from those cereals that had different monsters. Count Chocula and Frankin Berry to name a few. It’s trick taking with special powers and to the point. I really liked it. Trick taking can be obnoxiously long and this didn’t had that problem. The theme grab me because it was so bizarre but fun.

We ended with a game that’s basically Yathzee but with engine building. Stuffed is about you dying but waking up as a stuffed animal to reconcile your past life. The goal of the game is to complete objective before anyone else but you need get rid of personal objectives first. Basically you roll dice to but cards that give you powers. All powers require to lock in dice.

There isn’t much to say about this game but I enjoyed it. The engine building feels nice and gaining more control over what you roll towards the end of the game is fun.

That’s it! So far the gaming scene Wichita seems great!

I enjoyed it but I feel like I’m not raving about this game due to how bitter I’ve gotten from detective games like Sherlock Holmes consulting detective. My problem with these games is the whole “how would I ever know that?” when you are ask to solve the crime.

OH. Yeah you are 100% not wrong there! I'm four scenarios into Consulting Detective and It's frustrating because pretty much every scenario so far has been like that. You get to the questionnaire at the end thinking you have a solid handle on what's gone on and there's, like, an entire second set of questions referencing this whole SECOND MURDER going on elsewhere that we didn't even know about, OR it's all tied into some obscure crime or another by some Bulgarian Anarchist who's barely even referenced in the text.

Also Holmes is a cheating Muddy Funker.

I’ll always have a soft spot for Consulting Detective. We’ve only played 3 cases but my wife used a post it note stuck to the answer page with an additional clue written on on our last case to reveal that she was pregnant. Man, that was over 2 years ago now and we’ve still got 9 cases to go!

Prozac wrote:

I’ll always have a soft spot for Consulting Detective. We’ve only played 3 cases but my wife used a post it note stuck to the answer page with an additional clue written on on our last case to reveal that she was pregnant. Man, that was over 2 years ago now and we’ve still got 9 cases to go!

Ha! That’s cute!

All the note taking detective work is fun. It’s just the end that leaves an awkward silence of frustration.

I want to like Consulting Detective very much. I love the concept, but I've run into the same issues. The last scenario I pulled on my friends the one thing we wanted to do was talk to the suspect in jail. We spent about 80% of our investigation just trying things that we thought might allow us to talk to him: talking to experts, going to locations, going through people in the directory. Never found him because we couldn't sort the logic of the game, and we couldn't make any headway with the meagre clues we otherwise found. Very frustrating as we felt like we were struggling against the game, not a mystery.

Only after giving up were we able to figure out what we were supposed to do to talk to him.

Spoiler:

The intro offhandedly mentioned the name of the jail, which we needed to visit, and I guess we missed that throwaway detail.

Aristophan wrote:

I tried to pick up the Keyforge Starter Set at my FLGS today, and they were all sold out.

I hope that didn’t keep you from playing! The contents are completely substitutable. Talking with management at multiple FLGSs to get my own core box, it sounds like FFG did not predict there would be much interest in the core boxes and believed that most players would build their own kits and just buy decks to save $20.

What you need are cubes or discs or glass counters or dice to represent:

  • Keys: coins or other binary toggle indicators, 3 per player
  • Amber, 15-20
  • damage tokens or dice for about 20-25 damage among 5-8 creatures—I use red D8s
  • chain tracker: four D6s per player is the most possible but you should be fine with two per player. Each chain adds one to a die, and when a die is at 6 and you add more, just add a new die. The number of dice indicates the draw penalty.
  • stunned effect indicators x10
  • +1 power indicators x10

Yeah, last week I picked up a few decks and my son and I played. I didn't quite realize how many different counters I would need, so I was going though my box of random pieces quite often. I've never really collected a nice set of counters (although I do have a big bin of dice). We did have a good time, and plan on playing again.

There are already a couple of apps out that replaced a lot of the components. (Keys, ember, chaining). Not a perfect solution but something you can use for the time being.

I played a game called "Paradox" this weekend.

IMAGE(https://cf.geekdo-images.com/itemrep/img/eDnhub4n2XnoT1tADTagA8bMx70=/fit-in/246x300/pic2555713.png)

It certainly was different. I am not sure if its a successful game but it sure was different. So we all play time scientists who are trying to save planets from "the quake", a disruption of time and space which is destroying planets. You are trying to save the past, present and the future versions of these plants, which boils down that if you save the past version of the planets you have more time to save it, but it costs more research points.

To get said research points, each player has their own bejeweled game that they are trying to solve. Each match 4 or 5 gives you either 1 or 2 research points. At the end of your turn, you assign the research points to the planets you have drafted and lastly each planets slides one step towards doom on your player mats. At the same time, the quake moves along and destroys planets which, if you don't save them with research points, gain you 0 VP at the end of the game.

Uh. Well, it's different, that's for sure. It does present you with a interesting puzzle to solve each turn, and literally a puzzle as you move pieces on your bejeweled board to get rows and columns of matches. On the other hand, it's a competition and you are trying to stop other player from gaining VP, but it all ends up being "well, I see you are collecting this type of planet, so I am going to try to rescue the future of that planet, so you can't score big at the end of the game".

I was talking to a friend in my gaming circle and I think he nailed it when he said "it feels like you are fighting the mechanics and the theme is just kinda... there". I agree. You are fighting against the mechanics of the game and there's only so much you can do not to get completely screwed by random pulls of cards and tokens that it felt like a quagmire that you are struggling to get through.

It was really interesting and something completely new to me, so that's cool, but I think it goes into my sale pile.

Fredrik_S wrote:

I played a game called "Paradox" this weekend.

IMAGE(https://cf.geekdo-images.com/itemrep/img/eDnhub4n2XnoT1tADTagA8bMx70=/fit-in/246x300/pic2555713.png)

I'm stealing your idea of posting the game box.

I officially started a game group in Wichita! I've already have 5 RVSP across Facebook and Meetup and it's still 2 weeks away!

I got my Kickstarter copy of Fireball Island: The Curse of Vul-Kar today. They really nailed it with the delivery date. Kudos to Restoration Games. The game looks great. All the artwork is top-notch. I played a quick round of the base game with my daughter, and we had a lot of fun. It is definitely an improvement over the original game, more chaos, more choices, many more fireballs. I can't wait to break out the expansions and play this with a larger group.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/n3szan4.jpg)

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/jQ6QXny.jpg)

That looks great. I have a friend who also is getting it so hopefully I’ll be playing it soon.

I picked up a couple of Keyforge decks with some friends who bought a starter box at the same time. Seems fun. My deck got trounced my first game with it, but I can partially blame me not being familiar with it and trying to stick with a bad hand for too long and not being aggressive enough to counter an enemy skirmisher with poison and skirmish.

Damn, I didn't realize that was out. I might decide to splurge and get that for the older kid*, plus Andean Abyss for me.

Don't know if I'll get the expansions or not. Hopefully taking a wait and see approach doesn't mean they're sold out by the time I see.

*He's 2.3 so he'll have to grow into it.

Chaz wrote:

Damn, I didn't realize that was out. I might decide to splurge and get that for the older kid*, plus Andean Abyss for me.

Bonus points if you combine the games. It could work.

Crockpot wrote:

I officially started a game group in Wichita! I've already have 5 RVSP across Facebook and Meetup and it's still 2 weeks away!

That's awesome Crock, and I'm glad to hear that the move went well. It's already been five months since our move and I've not done a good job of taking advantage of the opportunities and rebuilding a gaming group (for the third time in a decade). The good news is there is no shortage of anything but time on my part...still, it's inspiring to hear about someone else making it work!

I know I'm way behind the times, but I picked up Tiny Epic Galaxies and hope to play it over the break with family. They tend to be scared of complexity in games, so we'll see. It looks really straightforward and fun to me.

If I have to suffer another session of Trivia Pursuit, someone is leaving in an ambulance (probably me from hitting my head into the wall repeatedly...)

PewPewRobo wrote:
Crockpot wrote:

I officially started a game group in Wichita! I've already have 5 RVSP across Facebook and Meetup and it's still 2 weeks away!

That's awesome Crock, and I'm glad to hear that the move went well. It's already been five months since our move and I've not done a good job of taking advantage of the opportunities and rebuilding a gaming group (for the third time in a decade). The good news is there is no shortage of anything but time on my part...still, it's inspiring to hear about someone else making it work!

Wichita's gaming scene isn't very organized. Denver had it together. You're almost guaranteed that there was an open game night somewhere in the metro area. So when I ask my buddy when was the open game nights I was surprised he didn't give me a straight answer. After doing research there was no weekly open game group despite having 3 game stores/cafes. Only league games of miniature games and TCGs and roleplaying. I think the only consist open game group only plays 2 times a month and isn't well advertised, I had to ask around to find them.

I was more surprised when he told me this and the cafe had a decent number of people playing board games that night at the cafe, but they were all just friends getting together and not an open game group.

It's been only 48 hours and I've already have 9 RVSPs on the meetup and 3 on facebook and it's still 2 weeks away until the event. So it's very obvious there is a demand for it but nobody really taking lead. My goal is to provide Wichita the same thing I had in Denver. No matter what night it is, you should be able to game in some open group somewhere in town.

I'm planning on doing flyers, facbook ads (hoping to get donations and a budget going), and team up with food and game venues. Start a facebook group that is having discussions every day. I think it's very possible here, I feel like there are a lot of gamers here but they aren't well organized.

I convinced my wife to let me pick up the new Fireball Island, with the caveat that it stays shrink wrapped and in a closet until the oldest kid is old enough to be given it. Which is fine, considering how it'd probably just sit on the game shelf unplayed these days anyway.

I just need to keep an eye on the expansions to see if any of them are worth picking up. I'm kinda guessing I don't need them. The whole appeal of the game is that it's relatively simple.

I also threw in a preorder for Andean Abyss with that order. Because I needed another COIN game to sit on my shelf unplayed along with the other five.

I got to play my copy of Root for the first time last night.

Definitely delivered on its promises, I thought.

A pretty tight game all the way through, with a win by the eyrie. I think there were two more of us who would have got there on the next turn (I was the vagabond, and had quests in hand that would get me there, and I think the cats would have managed too.

Looking forward to a second game... I am very keen to play the vagabond again and see if I can do better. And then try out all the others.

Chaz wrote:

I also threw in a preorder for Andean Abyss with that order. Because I needed another COIN game to sit on my shelf unplayed along with the other five.

I hear you, brother. I routinely bray that COIN games just aren't for me, but they end up finding their way into my schedule. I'm actually looking forward to trying out Andean Abyss and Cuba Libre.

There is a really interesting discussion on a subreddit of internal politics of FFG.

Anonymous source is making allegations that Corey Koniezkca is driving out any rising stars designers within FFG. There is also rumors the unique design originated from Eric Lang.

Obviously take this as a grain of salt. Might make sense why Discovery is getting such terrible reception. That’s how the thread started.

Crockpot wrote:

There is a really interesting discussion on a subreddit of internal politics of FFG.

Anonymous source is making allegations that Corey Koniezkca is driving out any rising stars designers within FFG. There is also rumors the unique design originated from Eric Lang.

Obviously take this as a grain of salt. Might make sense why Discovery is getting such terrible reception. That’s how the thread started.

I find this quite plausible. FFG isn't a design shop, but a license shop. If they come up with any truly innovative designs, it's quite by accident.

I have zero faith that this u/FFGInsight account is legit

very quick to dismiss any contradicting sources while providing none for their own points beyond "I'm an insider, I know this stuff"

GrandmaFunk wrote:

I have zero faith that this u/FFGInsight account is legit

very quick to dismiss any contradicting sources while providing none for their own points beyond "I'm an insider, I know this stuff"

Ya, there isn’t really anybody who can vouch this.

Great discussion on Reddit about an article talking about games treated as commodity from a publisher.

I’m linking via Reddit because there is some great comments talking about the board gaming bubble popping. Also there was a great quote in the article:

And because publishers are focused on more at the expense of better, consumer have been conditioned to think in a similar way: to pay attention to whatever the new thing is, try it, maybe kind of enjoy it, and then never play it again because because the NEXT new thing is dropping and we need to try that. For hobbyists, game nights aren’t game nights anymore; they’re rules-learning nights.

I think for sure I’ve drastically slowed down my game buying for this reason alone and started to prefer the more “one and done” games like TIME Stories, Unlock, Mansions of Madness, and Choose Your Own Adventure. Play games that come out as a series that have the same rule set but offer a different experience with each scenario. Learn once but the experience is different each time. I like playing these as a private game night and have dinner 1-2 a month with the same people I’ve played with in the series. Playing this way seems to provide my favorite gaming experiences.

I treat my tabletop purchases as I do my video game purchases: patronage for designers and companies I like, but most of whose products I am unlikely to ever try or truly like. This wasn’t a problem until the last few years and the insane rate of releases. Games like Rising Sun with stupid exclusives, cumbersome gameplay, and prodigal miniatures—and I’m glad I had no part in backing or buying it—make me glad I’m at least somewhat selective.

Keithustus wrote:

I treat my tabletop purchases as I do my video game purchases: patronage for designers and companies I like, but most of whose products I am unlikely to ever try or truly like. This wasn’t a problem until the last few years and the insane rate of releases. Games like Rising Sun with stupid exclusives, cumbersome gameplay, and prodigal miniatures—and I’m glad I had no part in backing or buying it—make me glad I’m at least somewhat selective.

I would be happy with my Rising Sun if I had actual people to play with. It seems great and has crazy amount of content.

Drove back to Colorado for Thanksgiving and I was still 3 hours from home and I had family texting when will arrive to play games. What was great is I brought some games I haven’t played forever and it’s like seeing an old friend. Specifically HMS Dolores and Spyfall. I’m still confused why HMS Dolores got zero reception when it first came out. It’s simple, unique, and has a lot of strategy. Spyfall is my current favorite hidden role game but a year ago I played with my game group and they decided to house rule when they borrowed it and made it terrible when I started to play with them. I think that’s a family/non gamer only game for me because we had a blast. Also we got out Deception and was very well received. I almost made Deception my favorite hidden role game because it actually goes well with everybody but Spyfall just makes everybody laugh and has the best tension. It’s a thing of beauty.

It looks like it’s going to be a great weekend of gaming, my relatives want to play games all the time now. Heck, they even played Ticket to Ride and Sheriff of Nottingham without me! This is very different for my family from past holidays. Maybe we play sheriff if Nottingham once and that’s it.

Family Christmas/Birthday* board game gifts purchased...

Ticket to Ride New York
A small step up from My First Journey but still short

Patchwork
For the boy and Mrs Bubble to play together and theme will be appreciated I think.

Rhino Hero Super Battle
Rhino Hero plus more, a no brainer.

Blokus Trigon (about to order)
My tother half is more likely to play a visual puzzler than anything else. We've borrowed and enjoyed Blokus, but I figure Trigon will work better with three.

Edit. Think will be switching in Santorini after giving it a run out.

*My wife's birthday, the boy's birthday and Christmas all fall within a fortnight... expensive times.