What board games are you BUYING?

Hex Sinister wrote: I pre-ordered Gloomhaven retail back in like... June? It was supposed to be here around my birthday in September, which is why I splurged. Then it was pushed back to November. Now it's pushed back to the New Year. This is one of the reasons I don't dig Kickstartered crap. I'm a pretty patient person but I have my limits.

I'm still waiting on my Shadows over Brimstone shipment....

DICE AGE going to show up any year now.

Anyway, the only games I cam shoping for this year are ESCAPE FROM THE ROOM (or whatever the good one is) and TERRAFORMING MARS. The former because I think my eldest will love the shit out of that. She is puzzle person and a puzzle with stakes? Easy. The latter because everyone seems to be shitting themselves about how good it is, and I think my wife would dig it. She likes AGRICOLA and other games where you can't really mess with people's shit and that let you plan.

For escape room puzzle games: my order of preference is: Exit (Kosmos, clever puzzles, destructable components), Escape the Room (ThinkFun!, fun simple puzzles, cool components), Unlock! (Space Cowboys/Asmodee, cool implementation, a little buggy in the app, a little light on actual puzzles) and then a huge gaping hole before Escape Room: The Game, which is fucking terrible (stupid plastic timer/puzzle box, dumb puzzles). I hate ER: The Game. I have only played the first wave of Exit and Unlock!, both Escape the Room games, all of the core ER:TG and I have the second wave of Exit and Unlock! along with Deckscape on the way.

bfkiller wrote:

Hex Sinister wrote: I pre-ordered Gloomhaven retail back in like... June? It was supposed to be here around my birthday in September, which is why I splurged. Then it was pushed back to November. Now it's pushed back to the New Year. This is one of the reasons I don't dig Kickstartered crap. I'm a pretty patient person but I have my limits.

I wonder why the delay. I got my copy in the mail a week or two ago.

I dunno. Did yours have a lot of defects? I heard that was a problem.

barrowdown wrote: For escape room puzzle games: my order of preference is: Exit (Kosmos, clever puzzles, destructable components), Escape the Room (ThinkFun!, fun simple puzzles, cool components), Unlock! (Space Cowboys/Asmodee, cool implementation, a little buggy in the app, a little light on actual puzzles) and then a huge gaping hole before Escape Room: The Game, which is fucking terrible (stupid plastic timer/puzzle box, dumb puzzles). I hate ER: The Game. I have only played the first wave of Exit and Unlock!, both Escape the Room games, all of the core ER:TG and I have the second wave of Exit and Unlock! along with Deckscape on the way.

Ha! I'm almost completely opposite.

The huge plastic decoder gives it a physical presence that adds to the feel for me. I also was a little disappointed in EXIT after it had so much rave reviews. I disliked the card system for solving puzzles honestly, although the puzzles were pretty good.

I'd rank them -> Unlock! (the new wave is especially good -> Escape Room: The Game -> EXIT -> Escape the Room

I absolutely loved the virus/bomb scenario in ER: The Game. It was totally Die Hard with a Vengeance.

It's a huge plastic decoder thing that wastes space/cost that could have been spent on not being shitty. The only decent scenario in the whole box is the bomb scenario (which I think rises to average), otherwise it's just straight up garbage. How do you put it above Escape the Room (which certainly has simpler problems) when EtR does a much better job with the physical components it has (mechanical puzzles using gears! puzzle box-type things!)? I really cannot emphasize how much I think ER:The Game sucks. The jail one sucked, the virus one sucked, the bomb one was okay, and the Aztec one is easily the worst experience I have had in any game ever. It was not related to the other individuals because I only play these with my wife and we have enjoyed all the other ones.

If you dislike the card system for puzzles, I can understand ranking Exit lower, but Unlock! wave 2 would need to be a big step up over wave 1 to push it past Exit in my mind. The puzzles are generally not as good and are primarily addition problems combining the red and blue cards. The first wave only seemed to have 3-5 puzzles a game that were not addition-based compared with the 10-ish higher quality ones that Exit provides.

We enjoyed the Jail, Virus, and Bomb. Really didn't like the Aztec one as the puzzles were too difficult/didn't make sense.

The box is just plain cool with that big ticking timer and slots for keys. It utilizes the sides pretty well as puzzle solving keys. I think you're the only person I've seen who actually doesn't like it. Even people who would pick it last still like the decoder box.

The Escape the Room game has cooler bits, but the game is too easy and geared towards families, which is fine but not what I'm looking for with these games.

One of the things I really enjoy about Unlock! is the sheer speed of it. It gives it a different feel than the others as you're flying through cards and really feel the time pressure. I enjoy the built in app in this regard. I'm also repeatedly surprised with just how different and unique each Unlock! adventure is and how creative they are with puzzles despite lacking physical props.

Another thing I didn't like about Exit is the use of the booklet and having to flip back and forth. It makes it a pain to share with others at the table and you really need to pull the pages apart. It doesn't really make sense to me. With the other games you can split the clues/puzzles between people very easily. It's difficult to see the booklet in Exit when playing with more than 2 players.

I do think the Exit puzzles I've seen are better than the Unlock! wave 1 puzzles - except for maybe a puzzle or two in each. I really enjoyed the final Squeek and Sausage puzzle (which I know angered some people), and I love the ones that use audio clues.

Also - the underwater Unlock! adventure in the second series is the only escape room game that actually felt thematic and like it was telling a story (even if faint) to me.

hotseatgames wrote: I bought Cosmic Alliance, (the one with the white ships) so now I can play Cosmic with 7.

I accidentally bought Cosmic Alliance twice, so I can now play Cosmic with 8. I wrote "Not White" on the five extra white planets, and used a sharpie to put identifying marks on the white ships.

My wife debated returning ER:tG before playing because of how terrible the stupid box is. I think it is a waste of money that I would have happily traded for a lower cost, more scenarios, longer scenarios, or better puzzles. It just does not add a lot to the experience for me and, despite all of the puzzles in all of the games boiling down to some kind of cipher/code, felt more obviously restrictive than the other games. Exit has fewer places in its codes and it still felt more open than ER:tG.

A lot of Unlock!'s bulk in its deck feels like it was added as a placeholder to give the impression you are doing more than you are actually doing. It does burn through its deck much faster, but it seems like a design decision to hide its relative lack of puzzles under noise and movement.

Your comment on more than 2 players impacting the quality of Exit could be a crucial difference here as I have only played with two.

I really don't need more boardgames right now, but I am wrestling with the temptation to buy This War of Mine.

Shellhead wrote: I really don't need more boardgames right now, but I am wrestling with the temptation to buy This War of Mine.

TWOM: The Board Game is an INSTANT PLAY game, with no need for reading the manual before starting the adventure.

That alone makes me want to buy it.

That claim is legit too. I'm a big fan of the game, but it's grueling. Some people hate how the rules are kind of distributed in different places, but I enjoy the rules structure personally.

Shellhead wrote:

hotseatgames wrote: I bought Cosmic Alliance, (the one with the white ships) so now I can play Cosmic with 7.

I accidentally bought Cosmic Alliance twice, so I can now play Cosmic with 8. I wrote "Not White" on the five extra white planets, and used a sharpie to put identifying marks on the white ships.

It's that kind of DIY attitude that is the spirit of F:AT

A local guy has $190 of Arkham LCG that he'll trade for two games I'm not playing and $65. It is tempting.

I would make that trade.