What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

Another day at the Dallas Games Marathon. Got the chance to play a couple of games with Zev that he was considering for Z-Man. Don't want to be too specific about that, but the first one was a simple card game that was kind of fun, and the second seemed promising at first but really didn't go anywhere and seemed undeveloped.

Then I played a fun game called Onward to Venus, the latest from Martin Wallace. I never really had much interest in Wallace's games for many years... just seemed very dry and soulless to me from what I gathered, but regardless, I'm definitely appreciating his more recent offerings. In this one, you are vying for control of several planets, using a small army of rockets and infantry and tanks to influence and build factories and mines on planets. Ultimately, it's an area control game, but there's some decent interaction, a need for using your limited actions and timing effectively, and some basic combat with dice and card play. I really liked it, though apparently we got a couple of rules wrong, so I'm hoping to play it again tomorrow.

Also played OddVille, a small box Euro, vaguely reminiscent of Carcassonne. It was pretty good for what it is, I suppose.

Played like six games of Defenders of the Realm. My opinion on this game has gone back and forth over the years but I'll say it's pretty good. I wouldn't mind adding some new characters but they are OOP and are expensive for what you get.

^Yeah, sometimes I think of getting rid of the game but then I'm like... I've had a lot of fun games of it. It's an ugly design that is in a lot of ways much worse than Pandemic, but on the whole, I'd say my Defenders outings are considerably more fun than my Pandemic games. It doesn't help that Pandemic is WORN OUT for me. I grit my teeth every time I see it hit the table, but I know my friends and my wife adore the game so I end up having a good time.

metalface13 wrote: Wow, 4 players on 5 hours? My 2-player games tend to go 3.5-4 hours.

We agreed to call it after the first city. I think the scenario was intended to run longer.

Oddville is a lot of game for $12.

Hex Sinister wrote: Played like six games of Defenders of the Realm. My opinion on this game has gone back and forth over the years but I'll say it's pretty good. I wouldn't mind adding some new characters but they are OOP and are expensive for what you get.

They have many of these expansions at www.Eaglegames.net .

Grudunza wrote: Another day at the Dallas Games Marathon. Got the chance to play a couple of games with Zev that he was considering for Z-Man. Don't want to be too specific about that, but the first one was a simple card game that was kind of fun, and the second seemed promising at first but really didn't go anywhere and seemed undeveloped.

Then I played a fun game called Onward to Venus, the latest from Martin Wallace. I never really had much interest in Wallace's games for many years... just seemed very dry and soulless to me from what I gathered, but regardless, I'm definitely appreciating his more recent offerings. In this one, you are vying for control of several planets, using a small army of rockets and infantry and tanks to influence and build factories and mines on planets. Ultimately, it's an area control game, but there's some decent interaction, a need for using your limited actions and timing effectively, and some basic combat with dice and card play. I really liked it, though apparently we got a couple of rules wrong, so I'm hoping to play it again tomorrow.

Also played OddVille, a small box Euro, vaguely reminiscent of Carcassonne. It was pretty good for what it is, I suppose.

I had hoped to touch base with you there, but I think we passed each other by. I did get to meet Zev though.

I was wondering if you were there. I'll be there again today from about noon to 4 pm or so.

stoic wrote:

Hex Sinister wrote: Played like six games of Defenders of the Realm. My opinion on this game has gone back and forth over the years but I'll say it's pretty good. I wouldn't mind adding some new characters but they are OOP and are expensive for what you get.

They have many of these expansions at www.Eaglegames.net .

Huh, I was just over there the other day and didn't find anything. Thanks.

@Gary - I'd heard Pandemic was supposed to be good but then DotR came out and opted for that. So I've never got to compare the two. Besides, I don't like pathogens.

Bad enough that KingPut is squeezing me into a corner in our turn by turn game, but then ventured out into a live Vassal game of Twilight Struggle, holy shit I got absolutely fucking battered by a guy who took the USA, winning on VP on the 9th turn, the scary thing is he took something like 8 minutes TOTAL, I Think I was up to 50 minutes or so, and I felt very very stressed for time. It didnt help that he Red Scared me twice, that once again I pulled all the scoring cards early when they didnt do anything and drew a swathe of US events just when they were worst for me. I also lost almost every coup and war (except one hilarious Brush War win in Thailand that ended up with me having 11 IP to 0 haha.) Not that this was the reason for the loss, but it probably added to the hopelessness of it all. A humbling experience though he did say I play "good for a beginner". Probably just being nice.
It must be nice to be that good at the game, on the other hand, he was literally playing cards near instantaneously so I wonder what he was getting out of it.

I've been getting a chance to play Room 25 lately, and it packs quite a bit of game into a true filler, that is meaty and satisfying. It's the movie "Cube" in board game form.

An excellent example of how good a traitor mechanism can be implemented, as the "suspicion" mode is the only way to play it. I've never had a game go longer than 40 mins, and when everyone is in the spirit, the entire game is full of lies and accusations. Odd that a search here brings up no chat about this at all.

In a five player game tonight, I was the only traitor (guard). Since all actions in the game are deliberately preprogrammed and simultaneous, its harder to blame bad luck for results that hurt another player, yet I was still accused by one person early on. I got the other three to kill him eventually since he flubbed a program and pushed a person into an unrevealed room. They all swore he was the ratfink.
Since all traitors win if two prisoners die, regardless if one of traitors die too during the course of the game, I didn't feel bad if they turned out to be a guard (he wasn't). 2 turns later I killed a second prisoner by convincing them one room was safe, when in fact it was instant incineration. With the second prisoner dead, game was over before the the exit room was revealed.
They were all convinced I killed the guard, until we all turned our allegiance tiles over to reveal I was the villainous scum. Much shouting and moaning ensued at this point. A successful game, and we were only 35 minutes into the evening.

Its even more fun to play something dry right afterwards. People are still recovering from the adrenaline jolt, so euros take an interesting confrontational spin as old betrayals are remembered.

I think I'll stick with my streamlined portable version of Room 25. There is plenty enough room to store the components from the season 2 expansion for suspicion mode without having to use the big box. Somehow, the slim box really works for this game.