Misjudged or Overlooked Games

This is easy: The Bucket King, though you *have* to play with the two common variant rules (reversals, choose direction of play) or you'll be totally underwhelmed. With the variants, everyone in my weekly group loves BK. Also has the best official rule ever: If you forget to draw a card, too bad. You don' get one.

Also: Shadowlord! (old mass-market game), Spectral Rails (good unique game, bad rules), Dragonland (Knizia! dice tower!), Battle Beyond Space (totally light and fun), Micro Mutants (my wink eats yours), and Fading Glory + the entire Nap 20 wargame line.

And as far as underappreciated Euros: Moai (cannibalism) and Cavum (explosions).

Micro Mutants (X-Bugs) was so much fun. Avery gave me a copy back when he was a F:ATtie.

I believe Room 25 to fall under this category.

A Matagot title with the usual overproduction. Preprogrammed movement and numerous game modes (though traitor is the only way to play imo) it's a game that is just far too overlooked.

If you enjoyed the movie Cube and had a laugh at Running Man, this title strikes all those chords and is something that should not be bypassed.

I own the original tiny box edition, and don't feel the need to own the larger version with special rules for each character and an insert to make the most anal retentive organizer have an orgasm. The old generic quality was great and didn't need to be updated despite numerous sjw online claiming it did. Nerds, bimbos, and other tropes are as it should be. But now the snowflakes can enjoy each character being called Jennifer and Martin. (I hate those buzzwords I just used, but they certainly do apply in this instance.)

Vanilla traitor Room 25 all the way.

Still in my top 5 ameritrash games of all time.

How does Room 25 compare to Drakon?

I think drakon feels very programmed (as it should since it basically is a game of building program logic), while room 25 is a more thematic game especially when traitor is added.

The programming is vastly different from each other. Room 25 has a smell but set amount of moves that can be made each turn, and each player has access to all of them. Drakon depends largely on what tiles you draw to build the program with.

Similar components, but significantly different designs.

How about Homeland? That game is great and ended up in the bargain bin almost immediately.

stoic wrote:

DukeofChutney wrote: I agree with the topic but no Darker Darker Darkest. But then I don't really like coop games.

Hoist another game up the mast then...let's hear your thoughts. What do you think is a misjudged or overlooked game worth mentioning?

The two games I love that generally get passed over are Dreadfleet and Ares Project.

I can understand why both got sidelined by the majority of the gaming public. Ares Project is a fairly hardcore strategy game with an unfriendly UI and Dreadfleet is very random and stupid. I think quite a bit of it is misjudged expectations and the sheer volume of product on the market. In Dreadfleets case I think people either expected Man O War, or a strategy game. Deadfleet is neither. With Ares Project im not really sure what people expected but i doubt it was a double blind card game with dice combat.

ARES project with miniatures is really a decent wargamelite

DukeofChutney wrote: The two games I love that generally get passed over are Dreadfleet and Ares Project.

There was a 5-year period when Z-Man cranked out 20 games annually. A mix of weird imports and stateside oddities. I ignored all of them for sanity's sake, so I'm glad that a few are fondly remembered.

Z-Man was eminently weird back then. Their releases were unabashedly strange (to their benefit), but the quality was all over the place. Hey, at least the games were interesting and nonconformist.

Too bad Scorched Earth (from Dan and Al) never saw light of day. It was on the Z-Man schedule one day, then it wasn't. It wasn't entirely my bag, but many folks here would have enjoyed it.

Colorcrayons wrote: If you enjoyed the movie Cube.

I just watched Cube on Friday. It was horrible, but Room 25 still sounds interesting to me. Do the Cube sequels get any better?

update: I had some Amazon credit so I just ordered Room 25 Ultimate. I think my kids will like it.

wkover wrote: This is easy: The Bucket King, though you *have* to play with the two common variant rules (reversals, choose direction of play) or you'll be totally underwhelmed. With the variants, everyone in my weekly group loves BK. Also has the best official rule ever: If you forget to draw a card, too bad. You don' get one.

Also: Shadowlord! (old mass-market game), Spectral Rails (good unique game, bad rules), Dragonland (Knizia! dice tower!), Battle Beyond Space (totally light and fun), Micro Mutants (my wink eats yours), and Fading Glory + the entire Nap 20 wargame line.

And as far as underappreciated Euros: Moai (cannibalism) and Cavum (explosions).

I think my one experience playing a Nap 20 game might have been against you at WBC. It was fun and I was tempted to buy it but then I tried to think of who I'd play it against.

FWIW, Zev is taking some pretty interesting risks at wiz kids right now. Could just be Zev's management.

He'll probably get fired after SEAL Team Flix.

*Promoted

Fixed that for you.

hotseatgames wrote: Do the Cube sequels get any better?

As a general rule, sequels are worse than the original. The Cube is no exception.

But the game is still a lot of fun, even if you don't like the movie. It does give a bit of potential background to the game to help solidify the setting.