Buried Gems of the Ameritrash Rehabilitation Movement

Shellhead wrote:

Mad Dog wrote: I've only played Vampire: Prince of the City once, but I liked it and would definitely play again. Anyone have more experience with it?

Yes. Sometime in the coming months, I will write a series of blogposts here at F:AT about my attempt to design Vampire: Prince of the City. It's been almost eight years since I signed a non-disclosure agreement with White Wolf, so I think I am finally free to talk about it. And yes, I have played the version that got published a few times and thought it was a good game.

You designed that? I fucking love that game. I have to admit though, we always have difficulty with the rulebook though, sadly. I would love to hear more about this.

Colorcrayons wrote:

Shellhead wrote:

Mad Dog wrote: I've only played Vampire: Prince of the City once, but I liked it and would definitely play again. Anyone have more experience with it?

Yes. Sometime in the coming months, I will write a series of blogposts here at F:AT about my attempt to design Vampire: Prince of the City. It's been almost eight years since I signed a non-disclosure agreement with White Wolf, so I think I am finally free to talk about it. And yes, I have played the version that got published a few times and thought it was a good game.

You designed that? I fucking love that game. I have to admit though, we always have difficulty with the rulebook though, sadly. I would love to hear more about this.

No, I tried to design Vampire: Prince of the City. Long story short, there were two competing designs, and the other one got the nod. My game got heavily revised and published by White Wolf as Vampire: Dark Influences. If you want something closer to my original intent, play both games at the same time.

No eBay APP ID défined in Kunena configurationI love Dungeons and Dragons Fantasy Adventure Board Game. I've owned it and all of its expansions 3 times, but people offer me crazy money so I buy it. I guess people just don't know where Ebay is, maybe? Anyhow, it does almost everything I want, and the leveling, spells, and weapons make the game special. Other than that, I think the new D&D Adventure System games beat it out pretty soundly.

Twilight Imperium 2, still an awesome, waaaaaaay under-rated game. Like Wade said: smash mouth. There's no hybridization, not a drop of Euro, it's a "punch you hard in the balls, steal your planets, rape its inhabitants, destroy everything, and control the universe" masterpiece. Anyone who says it's not equal or better than TI3 probably hasn't played it a lot.

I still like Monsters Menace America. It's silly fun. The endgame kind of kills it for me but we've house-ruled around that and simply refused to do the final showdowns because the whole mechanic sucks.

Dark World is one of the better Heroquest clones of that time period. Really great bits, fun little game. On sale now, $4.99+12$ shipping on ebay:

...and there's a REALLY complete copy on Bartertown.com.

Rush n' Crush is still a game I really never hear much about, but that fucking rocks. Great racing game, even without the carnage.

It's all Talisman all the time around here, but let's not forget that gem, Prophecy. Still one of the best traditional adventure games of all time, in my book.

Red November is a game nobody talks about, and it's truly one of the most fun games I've ever played. Mamasan and I have literally over 200 plays and we're still playing. It's like Flashpoint in many ways, but better, in my opinion.

Drakon is the shit. It's everything I could ever want in a light rules kind of game. Really a blast to play.

Zombie Survival is one that people have never heard of but that rocks. It's very unique in that in the setup phase, each person takes turns stocking up their home, barricading walls, and preparing for the zombie assault that begins when the game does. There's some of the usual "what the fuck do I do in this situation" kind of rules omissions that makes Twilight Creations a dirty word in some parts, but it's still a really fun game.

Spy Trackdown is a lot of fun, especially as a family/Ameritrash game. It's one step below what I would consider a "hobby" game, but it's so close I feel the need to add it to the list. Really fun deduction game.

Caveman is one that is so much fun, especially a little high/drunk, that you kind of have to own it. It's got mamas, and papas, and they can make babies. All of them are eaten by dinosaurs that you control. What the hell is more Ameritrash than fucking in shrubs to make babies, and then eating the babies with a dinosaur? It's a lot of fun.

A Call To Arms: Star Fleet is one that I may be the only one here who has played. If you have Attack Wing stuff, all you need are those models and a couple scraps of paper to play. And a ruler, and some dice. More or less. Don't let that stop you from trying it though, it really is the best "star trek" licensed game I've ever played.

Dungeon Run got a bad rap because people don't understand how to play it. And I don't mean the rules, but the spirit. It's an incredibly fun little game (that I'll own in 2 weeks AGAIN!!!) that people overlooked because a couple of asshats on BGG said it was stupid for one or two reasons. Those reasons are generally the same thing I think are its merits. If you play it like Ravenloft, you're doing it wrong. It's Cutthroat Caverns, with miniatures.

One that I do not have, and have never owned, but want to buy SO BAD is Broadsides and Boarding Parties. It is mind-blowingly fun. You have big, plastic ships and miniature pirates who cut each other to ribbons. You can blow people off the deck with your cannons. Masts are removable when they're destroyed. It's epic. It's usually 100-150$ and I keep wanting to pull the trigger on it, but then sanity reminds me that I could probably just mock it up using foamcore and use my "cheapie plastic miniatures bag" to supply pirates, and for about 25$. Still, if it ever is reprinted, I'm buying 5 copies.

Most of the games I just mentioned have reviews at superflycircus.com, if you want to know anything more about them.

SuperflyTNT wrote: One that I do not have, and have never owned, but want to buy SO BAD is Broadsides and Boarding Parties. It is mind-blowingly fun. You have big, plastic ships and miniature pirates who cut each other to ribbons. You can blow people off the deck with your cannons. Masts are removable when they're destroyed. It's epic. It's usually 100-150$ and I keep wanting to pull the trigger on it, but then sanity reminds me that I could probably just mock it up using foamcore and use my "cheapie plastic miniatures bag" to supply pirates, and for about 25$. Still, if it ever is reprinted, I'm buying 5 copies.

After I finally tracked down a copy I've come to realize that it is perhaps the most over-produced game ever. There's all these bits and you expect something more. Most of the game is played with a deck of cards and a few ships on a map, then the big ships only come into play with the dice-fest at the end.

You can always trade it to me. I found it to be un-fucking-believable.

HA!
Never did I say the game was bad. Fantastic...Just overproduced.

OH...I'll kick you a TM here in a little bit about Mighty Empires. I've gone through and have a better idea of what I'm dealing with here.

Dungeon Run is straight up garbage, you're confusing trash with garbage.

Cutthroat Caverns is a good game that seems undermentioned. I'm sure most of you know about it though. It's a cross between Munchkin and Cosmic Encounter with a small side of Roborally pre-programmed chaos. It's loud and boisterous and ends in a proper time frame of about an hour. Some of the most clever and fun pieces of design I've come across are the monsters from this game.

Gangsters is a WBC staple and a pretty fun/thematic take on sort of a Monopoly style game. You run a gang and you have different people under you with different powers and abilities, you're roaming around town trying to claim more turf and knock back other players.

My copy of Hotel Tycoon came in which is Asmodee's reprint of Hotels.

The game time on the box is listed at 40 minutes, which seems short. It's been decades since I played the original so I don't remember the timeframe too well. But I'll be getting this to the table on Sunday if all goes well.

The production looks great, but the biggest letdown is the walls for the buildings and the yards are a very thin cardstock, not the durable thickness of the original. I suppose some cuts were needed to actually make the game a reality so I'm happy to have a copy again...Now here's hoping my memory matches reality.

VonTush wrote:

SuperflyTNT wrote: One that I do not have, and have never owned, but want to buy SO BAD is Broadsides and Boarding Parties. It is mind-blowingly fun. You have big, plastic ships and miniature pirates who cut each other to ribbons. You can blow people off the deck with your cannons. Masts are removable when they're destroyed. It's epic. It's usually 100-150$ and I keep wanting to pull the trigger on it, but then sanity reminds me that I could probably just mock it up using foamcore and use my "cheapie plastic miniatures bag" to supply pirates, and for about 25$. Still, if it ever is reprinted, I'm buying 5 copies.

After I finally tracked down a copy I've come to realize that it is perhaps the most over-produced game ever. There's all these bits and you expect something more. Most of the game is played with a deck of cards and a few ships on a map, then the big ships only come into play with the dice-fest at the end.

You can always go get yourself the all-cardboard first edition published by GW/Citadel. Same good game with 91% less storage and table footprint required...

Once again, Shellhead and I prove to be of the same vintage as Asteroid came immediately to mind, as did Imperium, FASA's Circus Imperium [greatest racing game ever, period] and maybe Centurion, too, and, of course, Car Wars.

The earliest editions of Car Wars combine theme, narrative development, and pure bloody-mindedness in a way that is, as far as I'm concerned, AT at its best.