What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

Played two games of Nations with my wife this weekend. It's a solid game that I'm not sure I would recommend to almost anyone here. I recommend putting the intermediate and advanced cards into the game after your 1st or 2nd play, they really help.

Game two ended in the equivalent of a board flip, with my wife rage quitting on the last turn when I took a war event at 24 warscore (I <3 frigates). It's a 0 conflict zone around here when my wife and I play, and I pushed her too far. I sort of knew it, but I had built Chichen Itza which rewarded wars so I went for it...

Played more videogames than boardgames this weekend. Friday night I played Moby Dick: The Card Game with my buddy Matt and we were both underwhelmed. I don't mind a random, event-driven game like that, but it just didn't really get either of us going. Beautiful looking game, though.

Then we played Impulse, which I like more and more each time I play it. Just a lot of fun.

Finished out with Coin Age, which I backed and he hadn't tried. It's a nifty game, and one that I could actually see playing in a restaurant or bar instead of simply being a game you COULD play there.

Legomancer wrote: Friday night I played Moby Dick: The Card Game with my buddy Matt and we were both underwhelmed. I don't mind a random, event-driven game like that, but it just didn't really get either of us going. Beautiful looking game, though.

Same exact impression we had. Not a great game.

Recent plays:

Black Fleet: Pretty good boiled-down, family-style pirate game. All about picking up and delivering, and plays in 90 minutes. Plays best with the maximum # of players, since the board doesn't scale (i.e., it doesn't get smaller with fewer players).

DC Deck-Building Crisis Expansion: Coop expansion that was seriously not playtested enough. Way WAY too long.

Danube 20. More Napoleon 20 goodness from VPG. I hadn't realized one of the two scenarios (Wagram?) will be included in the upcoming Rising Glory compilation from GMT.

LOTR Return of the King Deck-Building Game: The "ring movement" board is new, and the cards themselves add a few new mechanics, including ongoing Beacons that reward all owning players (beakers?). Bottom line, the game is still fun. There is some power creep in this set, but that just makes the game faster and crazier. So no complaints here.

Also, there's a Hobbit deck-builder now? I don't need 47 Cryptozoic deck-building games, but I seem to be heading that way. I hear the Smaug expansion is pretty decent.

My family and I also recently completed the full Pathfinder experience: base game + all expansions. They loved every minute of it, and I imagine that Pathfinder is now my most-played board game ever. 34 games total? (Games that are close: Age of Steam, Survive!, Risk.) Skull and Shackles is definitely an Xmas gift this year.

Quarriors: Light vs. Dark: If you're hoping to mix this version with the base Quarriors set or any of its expansions, dispose of that thought immediately. This expansion doesn't play well with others due to the light/dark special requirements. If you treat the game as a stand-alone variant, which is exactly what it is, it's OK. Not much new here, so probably not worth the time/money overall. Unless you get it for half-price, which is likely given how unpopular this expansion seems to be.

In random news, the Victory in Europe (Columbia Games) release date has been pushed back. Cards aren't even finished yet, and there are still balance issues. No doubt I'll be regretting my Kickstarter backing sometime next year. When will I learn? Columbia does everything at the very last minute, and sometimes it shows.

Finally, I've been reading the rules to No Retreat! again so that I can get in a second play. First and last play was 2-3 years ago with IguanaDitty. Of course, reading rules doesn't count as doing something unless you actually play. By December, hopefully.

Didn't even know there was another Quarriors expansion.

Glad to see Pathfinder getting some love, it's a solid campaign game even though everyone is selling it off.

Gary Sax wrote: Glad to see Pathfinder getting some love, it's a solid campaign game even though everyone is selling it off.

I just sold mine off at my local boardgame store's auction. I liked the game a lot for a while, but eventually got bored with it. All the scenarios kinda play the same. I'm excited about the upcoming iOS app though.

I played Machi Koro with my family this weekend. It's a short card game where everyone is trying to build their own little towns from about 15 or so available cards. Once purchased, each card "activates" based on a dice roll (2d6), so anyone who's ever played Catan will be familiar with the probability. I bet heavily on the 7-card, and true to form, never once rolled a fucking 7 the entire game.

There are some neat combos between some cards, and some other cards that let you steal money from other players (my son made serious bank off those cards). The artwork is cute and the turns go super-fast. I'm a little concerned about replayability -- I think eventually you'd learn all the combos, and maybe settle on a predictable "best path." But, we'll see. I like it so far after one play.

Boomtown uses a similar 2d6 activation mechanic. Now that's a great, mean game.

wkover wrote: Boomtown uses a similar 2d6 activation mechanic. Now that's a great, mean game.

This is exactly the game I thought of when I played Machi Koro with my family this week (which was very pleasant). Also you, because you and Boomtown are inextricably linked in my brain. I will be picking Boomtown up at long last soon before it is completely oop.

Got in a game of Sails of Glory tonight that was pretty damn good! Pete Putnam made the trip as well which is a long way from home for him.

Much more dynamic sailing this time around, plenty of shooting and the kind of brutal slog that reminded me of playing Star Fleet Battles when I was a kid. MUCH simpler rule set though. I may have to reassess this game.

S.

Some more notes on Kemble's Cascade since I saw that CSI has it in stock now and it'll probably sell out...

After four games (two solo with two/three ships, one three player, one four player) I'm really torn on it. There are undoubtedly some really neat things going on it, it's a solid design, visuals are top notch, etc. but I keep getting this sense that the designers didn't trust the core concepts and added all of this extra stuff on top of those to make it feel more like a board game. Which is kind of awkward, because it's a game effectively simulating another kind of game. Its subject matter is a type of game in another genre, so it's adapting rules that work in video games to board games.

The moving, shooting, powering up, scrolling, and so forth work great. The problem I've having is that the "extras" are what make the game lose its immediacy- which is one of the key values of arcade shooters. So instead of just flying around and blasting ships until you get to the boss, there are not only "achievments" for random things (like crashing?!?!), but there are also secret player missions. And then there is a currency, income for shooting stuff and shopping for ship upgrades, which are different from randmly drawn power-up cards. Almost feels like too much packed in there, and the game feels like it's too short to really get powered up effectively. I hate that you have to basically pause and not move to shop/recharge. Makes no sense.

The threat idea is BRILLIANT- you take on X threat, you are forced to move X times in your turn to dodge all of the abstracted bullets which is freaking hard to do if you're low on energy and don't have upgrades. But sometimes it's almost non-existent as a game factor...which is why I think they added a PVP element where you can shoot at opponent ships to add threat and essentially gamble that they're going to blow up- you get a payout for every PVP cube a rival has when they explode. Wait, what arcade shooters have PVP or even friendly fire for that matter? That's right. None.

The boss fight LOOKS awesome when it shows up and there's a couple of neat things about it...but the game just kind of ends with everyone crashing into it since the board no longer scrolls, it just gets smaller. It's almost like they couldn't come up with a way to end it effectively so they just push everybody into the boss.

But the game is REALLY neat, and there is NOTHING like it. I love that it has the standard shooter weapons (although no spread/shotgun). I love that there's a bird dude in a bird ship (whom I have claimed permaently). The energy management is interesting, and it's both fun and a little thinky.

So it's a *shrug* on this one...it's definitely good, definitely compelling...but I wish the designers had trusted their concept more and didn't feel like they had to add on so much "game" to make it feel legit. If it had been just moving, shooting, energy management, dodging and scrolling it would have gotten by just fine without getting glory points for dumb things like getting scroll-pushed.

Michael Barnes wrote: So it's a *shrug* on this one...it's definitely good, definitely compelling...but I wish the designers had trusted their concept more and didn't feel like they had to add on so much "game" to make it feel legit. If it had been just moving, shooting, energy management, dodging and scrolling it would have gotten by just fine without getting glory points for dumb things like getting scroll-pushed.

Thanks for the early thoughts. I'm looking forward to your review.

I kind of had the same game in mind that you did, so all the extra nuts and bolts might come off as more annoyance than anything else to me as well. Probably a try before I buy for me.