What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

black inferno wrote: As much as I'm grateful that a robust and diverse online community has developed around the hobby, back then there was an element of wilderness and mystery to learning about these strange games from overseas.

Yeah, this. One could argue that the internet has erased the mystery from a lot of domains, and as such is an extension of the project of "legibility," or making the world governable through imposing order, ostensibly in the service of the citizenry.

The Authoritarian High-Modernist Recipe for Failure <--great stuff.

But we crave mystery and discovery. I just saw an interesting but uneven documentary called "The Institute" about an alternate reality game whose appeal was the injection of mystery back into modern life.

So anyway, governments impose order on the citizenry--

The more I examined these efforts at sedentarization, the more I came to see them as a state’s attempt to make a society legible, to arrange the population in ways that simplified the classic state functions of taxation, conscription, and prevention of rebellion.

In other words, government is playing a resource management game and we are pawns.

But in regards to BGG--like the aforementioned governments, it took something unorganized and somewhat organic and imposed a database over it, and created a virtual economy, making everything consistent but at the same time either reflecting or imposing (not sure) a culture of systemic orderliness, hence the toxic fear of randomness--an element that sits in opposition to the legibility of a database. The place is also like catnip for those who like to inhabit databases (among whom I count myself, when I'm being honest).

"One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes a revolution in order to establish a dictatorship."
George Orwell


F:AT is like an attempt at revolution, that, like all revolutions, slowly creeps towards conformity and unintentional control, at least until we sacrifice the new king.

In this decayed hole among the mountains 385
In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing
Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel
There is the empty chapel, only the wind’s home.
It has no windows, and the door swings,
Dry bones can harm no one. 390
Only a *** stood on the roof-tree
Co co rico co co rico
In a flash of lightning. Then a damp gust
Bringing rain
Ganga was sunken, and the limp leaves 395
Waited for rain, while the black clouds
Gathered far distant, over Himavant.
The jungle crouched, humped in silence.
Then spoke the thunder

--T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land

Everyone wants to go home to the forgotten country, the games of our wasted youth, or that moment when you entered the hobby and everything was possible.

It's like 12:22 a.m. over here. I'll stop now and give you all a chance to pull on some hip waders.

Fantastic post, craniac, and interesting article. I did a little fist-pump when the author invoked Jane Jacobs (one of my personal heroes).

craniac wrote: Everyone wants to go home to the forgotten country, the games of our wasted youth, or that moment when you entered the hobby and everything was possible.

Beautiful.

I'm confused at this point. Are ya'll claiming people who haven't been in the hobby since 90's are inferior gamers or just people who prefer FFG games over Lost Cities? Please clarify.

black inferno wrote: Yeah. I mean, I remember when pretty much the sum total of online board game discourse (rec.games.board notwithstanding) was user reviews at Funagain.

Game Cabinet was even earlier! Other than Settlers and Quandary (my first Knizia!), Game Cabinet was where I first started reading about these crazy German games...which I think I was turned onto by reading an interview with some indie game designer Alan Moon, who talked up how he was trying to design in a German style. So then I decided I needed to learn German so I could find out more about these things, if they were anywhere near as good as Settlers!

I've been playing Rogue Agent of late. Got a review copy a while back and shelved it while I worked on the transition to the new site. Played several games now and I really don't see how people can give it even a mediocre review. I think they wanted Blade Runner and got something that had the same feel, but in a truncated manner. Same thing happened with Android, but I think it was closer, while not being as good a "game" because of the burdensome rules.

The Android/Human version of the game is definitely the way to go. I really like it, but I have to admit, the rules left me scratching my head at first. It's a game you have to play through once to really understand...just reading the rules isn't enough. Opinion's not formed fully at this point and I want to use the new module before I really form it.

SuperflyTNT wrote: I've been playing Rogue Agent of late. Got a review copy a while back and shelved it while I worked on the transition to the new site. Played several games now and I really don't see how people can give it even a mediocre review. I think they wanted Blade Runner and got something that had the same feel, but in a truncated manner. Same thing happened with Android, but I think it was closer, while not being as good a "game" because of the burdensome rules.

The Android/Human version of the game is definitely the way to go. I really like it, but I have to admit, the rules left me scratching my head at first. It's a game you have to play through once to really understand...just reading the rules isn't enough. Opinion's not formed fully at this point and I want to use the new module before I really form it.

Are the people you playing it with letting their inner assholes out? It's best when everyone is trying to dick each other over, setup bombs to go off on their informants, stealing Criminals, funneling assassins through to block off pathways, etc. It can be downright nasty with the right people.

Are the people you playing it with letting their inner assholes out?

Yuck, sounds like rectal prolapse!

Charlie's just trying to communicate in words Pete will understand..."dick", "nasty", "asshole", "funneling"...

scissors wrote: Yuck, sounds like rectal prolapse!

Charles' rosebudding fetish confirmed?

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Maybe one's preferences are colored by what they started out with? Or is that taking a too simplistic view? I was introduced to board games around 2005-2006 with Arkham Horror. My first game group was heavily into AT-style games with direct conflict, which is what we mostly played. We tried playing Settlers once, and I thought it was completely boring. I know a single play isn't the best circumstance to judge a game, but there were plenty of other games that I would rather play than spending more time trying to 'get' Settlers.

I fully admit I find many Euros pretty boring; maybe I just have a latent agrarian hostility. Although I do really really enjoy Carcassonne and Ticket to Ride, so who knows?

Also, I didn't discover BGG until 2010.

Yah Catan Sucks!!!

You know what doesn't suck though?

STAR TREK CATAN!!!

Which is what we played last night.

I didn't find my gaming tastes unduly influenced by what reintroduced me to the hobby. It was mostly Euros. Some older Pre-Beige era Euros which I found interesting. Things like Ra and Power Grid and Tikal. I still enjoy those but my most favorite games are not of that genre.

PS: Catan does not suck. That was typed for shock value.

You know what does suck? Catan with that awful card deck to replace the dice. Horrible idea.

Last night I met up with my normal game group after not getting together for a couple weeks. Kicked things off with a 3 player game of Kaosball which I'm liking a hell of a lot. It's like Fantasy Rugby with a touch of Wiz-War craziness. It's light, fast, but there's solid tactical choices and depth.

I fielded the Amazons with Cretin the Ettin as my Ringer and had the Hate upgrade which gave me a point every time I damaged or killed someone. I was up against the Ogres with the Ringer that heals every round. Ogres also had the Hardy upgrade which lets them ignore the first point of damage. The third team was the Demons and their upgrade allowed them to field two Ringers (the Dragon and the guy who auto-kills if he wounds you).

It was a nasty game as I scored the most kills, with the demons trailing behind. The Demons got stuck fighting over the ball with the Ogres while I swept in and cut down whoever was left. The Demon player should have switched his focus to me as my score was getting out of hand due to kills. I didn't pick up the ball the entire game and won by the Mercy rule in the third period.

Despite that the best moments were when the Ogre player threw down some walls and then stomped my Ringer and another figure into the walls, knocking them down. Love when games let you get creative like that.

After Kaosball we played 2 very quick 4 plaeyr games of King of Tokyo. I had Pumpkin Jack from the Halloween expansion and didn't get a single Power Up upgrade card into play. I did pretty well in points but both games were won by others.

We closed out the night with several hands of Love Letter. I ended up winning, coming from behind and claiming several hands in a row.

I played 6-player and 7-player games of Thunder Alley. It's quite chaotic with that many players. There's really no point in planning your next card play until the player before you is taking his/her turn because the track is going to change dramatically between turns. So very much tactical rather than strategic with that many players. I presume it becomes more strategic with 2-4 players.

Fun game, and very thematic despite being much more of a Euro (with all the abstractions that implies) rather than a simulation.

I think I might like the game better without the Event Deck. It can be too much of a wrench in the wheel, and the cards can slam the brakes on the pace of the game if you draw a yellow flag. It adds drama but at the cost of making the plays previous to a yellow flag reset feel pretty inconsequential.

I also tried Incan Gold. That's a fun little push-your-luck game that generates some laughs. I like that player actions are all simultaneous.

bfkiller wrote: . . . if you draw a yellow flag. It adds drama but at the cost of making the plays previous to a yellow flag reset feel pretty inconsequential.

This is a pretty accurate reflection on how real racing works. I wouldn't be surprised if people ignore yellows as a variant, but it's in the game that way for a reason. Taking them out is more "fair" but less similar to the real thing.

They tend to tighten and tense up the finishes too, which is all the rage in game design these days. Because, you know, we consumers aren't smart enough to figure out when games are specifically designed to produce a close finish every time and stop giving a damn about it.

S.

Sagrilarus wrote:

bfkiller wrote: . . . if you draw a yellow flag. It adds drama but at the cost of making the plays previous to a yellow flag reset feel pretty inconsequential.

This is a pretty accurate reflection on how real racing works. I wouldn't be surprised if people ignore yellows as a variant, but it's in the game that way for a reason. Taking them out is more "fair" but less similar to the real thing.

It can sometimes feel inaccurate, though. My buddy's lead car was on the space adjacent to the finish line on the final lap when we drew a yellow flag. His car ended up finishing fifth.

Part of that dissonance is the abstraction of 500 laps compacted into 3 or 4 "laps." So I guess his car wasn't seconds from crossing the finish line at the time of the reset, even though that's how it's visually represented in the game.

Has anyone played the new Ogre: Pocket Edition yet? Seen it popping up recently, wondering whether it's worth three bucks.