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Post by The Spice Weasel on Dec 17, 2020 16:02:25 GMT -5
Thanks for the suggestions, everyone. I ended up grabbing a copy of Spot It!
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Post by ganews on Dec 27, 2020 21:51:28 GMT -5
Liz n Dick , Hugs and Hisses , and fans of Uwe Rosenberg games everywhere - have you played A Feast for Odin? It was my Christmas present this year. I haven't played Agricola but of course in this house we're big fans of All Creatures Big and Small. This is a similar mechanic: competitive placing of tokens to build up one's own land, but far more complicated with game paths through animal husbandry, hunting, shipping, and raiding. Took a long time, but we liked it. Lots of little cardboard pieces.
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Post by Superb Owl 🦉 on Jan 2, 2021 11:53:27 GMT -5
We played The Pyramid of Pengqueen today, first with me and BGirl, and then a second game with Mrs B joining us. It was very easy to learn and a lot of fun! Treasure hunters race to find specific treasures on the board, while the Mummy chases them. The center board is vertical and the pieces are magnetic. The treasure hunters can see where they are and the Mummy, but the Mummy only sees themselves, and the only way to know where the players are is by what treasures they pick up! Definitely a recommended fun family game. boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/36648/pyramid-pengqueenGot it for Christmas, super fun and simple enough for the youngest to fully participate!
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Post by Liz n Dick on Jan 4, 2021 12:37:03 GMT -5
Liz n Dick , Hugs and Hisses , and fans of Uwe Rosenberg games everywhere - have you played A Feast for Odin? It was my Christmas present this year. I haven't played Agricola but of course in this house we're big fans of All Creatures Big and Small. This is a similar mechanic: competitive placing of tokens to build up one's own land, but far more complicated with game paths through animal husbandry, hunting, shipping, and raiding. Took a long time, but we liked it. Lots of little cardboard pieces. Feast For Odin is one of Hugs's favorites! She and Boomer play it. I'm not a fan of fiddly, sprawling games like that, so I tend to find something else to do when they're playing. But they really love it, especially for all the little pieces. I'm glad that you're enjoying it!
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Post by Hugs and Hisses on Jan 4, 2021 12:45:32 GMT -5
Liz n Dick , Hugs and Hisses , and fans of Uwe Rosenberg games everywhere - have you played A Feast for Odin? It was my Christmas present this year. I haven't played Agricola but of course in this house we're big fans of All Creatures Big and Small. This is a similar mechanic: competitive placing of tokens to build up one's own land, but far more complicated with game paths through animal husbandry, hunting, shipping, and raiding. Took a long time, but we liked it. Lots of little cardboard pieces. I sure have! It's one of my top three games of all time! I adore it! It really is a bear though. I play at a card table, so I have to set up multiple smaller tables around the perimeter to have a place to put all the extra stuff. I'm terrible at the actual strategy, but my favorite thing about Euro games is going into a turn thinking "I'm going to do x, y, and z. Oh, wait, but h looks fun! And wait, I can do k or d, too? There are SO many choices! Wheeeee!" So I have trouble focusing. There is no better game for "there are so many choices, whee!" than Feast for Odin. I'm glad you're enjoying it! Did you get it with The Norwegians version? If not, the Norwegians is definitely a must buy. It changes up the board and offers a few more things but somehow, that works to tighten up and streamline the game. Also, check out the boardgamegeek.com forums for some interesting variants on the occupation card rules. I played around with a few options, and have settled on a fun system where each player drafts a personal mini-deck of occupation cards that they choose from as the game goes along. I'm a big fan of occupation cards, but I like having a more functional selection than just randomly pulling from the big deck.
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Post by Hugs and Hisses on Jan 5, 2021 10:52:27 GMT -5
Speaking of Uwe Rosenberg, I got NY Zoo for Christmas and it's awesome. It's all the good stuff of Patchwork without all the fiddly stuff I don't like. And all the fun of breeding wooden animals from All Creatures Great and Small without the brain burning (which I love, but don't want all the time). We've played twice and each time we were all within a point or two of each other, and it wasn't clear until the final turn who would win.
I also got Watergate which I recommend for anyone looking for 2-player games. The theme and box art are underwhelming, but the game itself is great fun. It's an asymmetrical small-deck card game, where one side plays as the press trying to collect matching evidence to link Nixon to conspirators, and the other side plays as Nixon trying to stop the press. It's really snappy, and the art design (inside the box) is fabulous.
Also on the docket was the Oceania expansion for Wingspan which is totally worth it. I was afraid it was going to be one of those expansions that tips a perfect game into something too complicated, but nope! Elizabeth Hargraves hit it out of the park again.
The real winner of Christmas, though, was Fleet: The Dice Game. I had never heard of Fleet: the Non-Dice Game, and reading the rulebook for Fleet: The Dice Game I was dismayed that I'd never convince my buddies to play a game about activating fishing licenses and consulting a market chart for fish sales values. But almost immediately upon starting to play, we were all completely in love with it. I had heard Quinns on Shut Up & Sit Down describe it as being the roll & write that lets you roll the most and write the most and he wasn't kidding! The score sheets have you constantly unlocking free rolls, which let you trigger bonus actions that lead to more free rolls, and so on and so on. If you like roll & writes, and you welcome some silliness in your games, I highly recommend this one!
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Post by The Spice Weasel on Jan 5, 2021 18:30:27 GMT -5
Speaking of Uwe Rosenberg, has anyone played My City? Uwe has nothing to do with it, but it uses Tetris like pieces and can best be described as Patchwork Legacy. Looks interesting and the base game can still be played after you complete the legacy, though from what I've read/heard, the base game is nowhere near as interesting as the legacy aspects of the game.
But now that I've just learned about NY Zoo, I might be leaning that way. Patchwork is one of our favorite games and Mrs. Weasel is way ahead in our on-going head to head series so that's good. Add in some cute wooden animals? Forget about it.
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Post by Hugs and Hisses on Jan 6, 2021 10:21:50 GMT -5
Speaking of Uwe Rosenberg, has anyone played My City? Uwe has nothing to do with it, but it uses Tetris like pieces and can best be described as Patchwork Legacy. Looks interesting and the base game can still be played after you complete the legacy, though from what I've read/heard, the base game is nowhere near as interesting as the legacy aspects of the game. But now that I've just learned about NY Zoo, I might be leaning that way. Patchwork is one of our favorite games and Mrs. Weasel is way ahead in our on-going head to head series so that's good. Add in some cute wooden animals? Forget about it. I haven't played My City but I've heard good things about it! NY Zoo is SO good.
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Post by sarapen on Feb 21, 2021 18:55:06 GMT -5
I still haven't tried out the Mansions of Madness game I got last April when the news was guilt tripping me about supporting local businesses. Back in the summer I read like half of the manual and started painting some of the monsters and the Catholic priest character, but otherwise I haven't cracked it open since. This would probably be fun once my board game group starts meeting in person again. I guess I should finish painting the figures so we're not playing with basic plastic. And since there's a 1 player option, I can give it a spin so we're not stumbling in the dark the first time around.
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Crash Test Dumbass
AV Clubber
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Post by Crash Test Dumbass on Feb 26, 2021 13:52:41 GMT -5
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Post by Hugs and Hisses on Mar 10, 2021 18:39:57 GMT -5
I got Hallertau to the table and promptly messed up two of the most important rules! Whoops! It was still fabulous, though, and I can't wait to play again, only, you know, maybe this time I won't make it impossible for us all to score any points?
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ABz B👹anaz
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Post by ABz B👹anaz on Aug 20, 2021 17:14:55 GMT -5
Playing Star Wars: Outer Rim for the second time tonight. I enjoyed it quite a bit the first time around - it's complex without being complicated and flows pretty well once you know how to play. But more importantly, I get to meet the board game night host's two-month-old son.
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ABz B👹anaz
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This country is (now less of) a shitshow.
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Post by ABz B👹anaz on Sept 29, 2021 13:29:04 GMT -5
I still find this US Politics / Tabletop Game intersection amusing.
This is Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri.
In the long-running game of Delta Green that I played in a couple years ago, the GM used a photo of Blunt as a stand-in for an "evil" character, Senator DiTorrio, who was apparently in league with alien forces.
Now every time I see Roy Blunt, including when he spoke at Biden and Harris' inauguration, I briefly worry about extraterrestrial influences.
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Post by ganews on Oct 5, 2021 10:49:12 GMT -5
I had been thinking to buy Wingspan for Wifemate for years, and after playing at a friend's house a couple weeks ago I finally pulled the trigger. It's pretty good, not nearly as complex as some have made it out to be. It's kind of a deck-building game with only certain amounts of player interaction like Dominion (there are even rules for solo play), and once we started using the correct rules I found that you really have to plan things out to make use of limited resources, especially with fewer players and less resource turnover. There are also infinitely many game and bonus variations that occur through chance but are visible so that the game doesn't feel random.
It's a good game, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend it to an adult hardcore birder solely on the strength of being about birds, because the birder will already know everything. This would absolutely be a fixture in a sixth-grade gifted program. It would be cool to see an international version, because this is just North American birds.
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Baron von Costume
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Like an iron maiden made of pillows... the punishment is decadence!
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Post by Baron von Costume on Oct 5, 2021 11:01:11 GMT -5
I had been thinking to buy Wingspan for Wifemate for years, and after playing at a friend's house a couple weeks ago I finally pulled the trigger. It's pretty good, not nearly as complex as some have made it out to be. It's kind of a deck-building game with only certain amounts of player interaction like Dominion (there are even rules for solo play), and once we started using the correct rules I found that you really have to plan things out to make use of limited resources, especially with fewer players and less resource turnover. There are also infinitely many game and bonus variations that occur through chance but are visible so that the game doesn't feel random.
It's a good game, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend it to an adult hardcore birder solely on the strength of being about birds, because the birder will already know everything. This would absolutely be a fixture in a sixth-grade gifted program. It would be cool to see an international version, because this is just North American birds.
There are expansions with international birds I think?
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ABz B👹anaz
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Posts: 1,872
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Post by ABz B👹anaz on Nov 27, 2021 2:41:58 GMT -5
Played Dead of Winter: Long Night for the first time tonight, and a "hardcore" objective, but a co-op variant without a betrayer, and four players. Also including the Raxxon, Bandits and Graveyard add-ons.
We strategized which survivors we'd each start with to work well with each other...but then the first player lost both of her survivors to bites IMMEDIATELY when trying to move. Then I went second, and my survivor Rosa Rodriguez the prison guard was elected group leader. (One of the survivors who died one player earlier was the only person who could contest it!) Thanks to my excellent leadership (and everyone else working together well) we ended up winning, which was also the first time my friend's board game group had won in something like six weeks' worth of different variations of the game.
The best moment in the game, however, was when we started riffing on stupid things the zombies would say, which escalated from "Brains!" to "Guns!" (They must be from Texas) to my "MY BODY MY CHOICE!"
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Post by Hugs and Hisses on Dec 14, 2021 14:24:43 GMT -5
I had been thinking to buy Wingspan for Wifemate for years, and after playing at a friend's house a couple weeks ago I finally pulled the trigger. It's pretty good, not nearly as complex as some have made it out to be. I'm glad you enjoyed it! First of all, there are two expansions for other regional birds -- Europe and Oceania. The Oceania expansion changes the game a lot; it's fun but I think inessential unless you play a lot of Wingspan. Europe, however, is a fabulous expansion. I love Wingspan and have played it a lot. I think without the European birds, it's a pretty good game. With the European birds, it's a very good game. The European birds had new color powers, some more complexity, and more interesting choices. A very good game isn't really enough to make me love it, so why do I love it? Why, because of my house rules! Rule 1: Add More Turns
Do not place an action cube on the end-of-round bonus scoring card at the end of the round. Either substitute another token, or record a running tally of the end-of-round scores on the score pad as the game goes along. All players retain all 8 of their action cubes for each round. This does increase the playing time, but it also means that players will almost certainly fill their entire board with birds. The original game felt unsatisfying to me because with so few turns, I ended up building birds I didn't want just because I felt time was always running out. Playing with this house rule means I find myself having more time to push my luck to get better cards, and ultimately get more good birds than I have time and space to play, knowing I will use every space available to me. It becomes a delightful dance of knowing when to push my luck and when to pull the trigger on the cards I have in hand. Rule 2: Add a Round
Start the game with a round where there is no end-of-round bonus score. Use the 8 actions in this “starter round” as a way to build a foundation for the meat of the game -- the four rounds that do have end-of-round bonus scoring. With the original rules, I felt that too much of the game time was spent just trying to get an engine going. It's like if those awkward first two hands of Dominion took up a full quarter of the game. This starter round goes quickly, and feels more like you’re jumpstarting your engine when the first real round starts and you actually have some food and cards to work with. Rule 3: Surprise Bonus Cards
To spice things up, do not look at any bonus cards until tallying the final score. When your action would have you drawing two bonus cards and keeping one, draw two but do not look at them; choose one of the two at random and set it aside. Return the other card unseen to the bottom of the bonus card deck. The number one complaint I see online about Wingspan is that you get these bonus cards to focus your engine, but they’re often worthless if you don’t get the right birds for them. My household is not at all competitive about games, so we find this blind draw aspect hilarious. You don’t spend your game getting frustrated that you aren’t getting the right cards, and instead focus your energies on the things you can control. And if someone does win on the strength of their bonus cards, you can just laugh about their dumb luck, rather than being pissed that they choose a good card and you got screwed by the deck. Rule 4: Starting Hand Draft
To avoid having a terrible opening hand, draft starting hands a la Sushi Go. Each player is dealt 5 cards. Each player chooses 2 to keep and passes 3 to the player to their left. Each player then chooses 3 of the 5 cards in hand to keep and passes 2 to the player to their left. Each player then chooses 4 of the 5 cards in hand to keep and passes 1 to the player to their left. Players then proceed to choose their starting hand of cards and food as per the traditional rulebook. The other big complaint is if your opening hand is worthless, it takes forever to build it back up. Avoid that by drafting!
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ABz B👹anaz
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Post by ABz B👹anaz on Dec 20, 2021 11:40:19 GMT -5
Good news, everyone! Games Workshop is rereleasing Warhammer Quest: Cursed City next year! This was their most popular boxed game released this year and notorious for immediately selling out all preorders. It got people so upset when they couldn't get a copy that GW changed their entire preorder system to include a "preorder promise" that they will fulfill all preorders made on the weekend they open them. I didn't even try to get this box last time because I already have a huge backlog of minis, but the game sounds fun too so I might get it the second time around. www.warhammer-community.com/2021/12/20/cursed-city-resurrected/
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Post by ganews on Dec 25, 2021 13:29:47 GMT -5
For Christmas I got "Herd Metality", a party game that seems to be based on answering questions the same as everyone else, and "Forbidden Island" which looks like a deck game. Anyone played either of these?
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LazBro
Prolific Poster
Posts: 10,049
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Post by LazBro on Dec 28, 2021 9:19:34 GMT -5
Ticket to Ride: First Journey. A really solid version of the classic game for the younger set. It's been awhile since I played the original, but best I can tell the only meaningful difference is that the rails between cities are shorter. It was an okay time for a first play with my daughter. At first I thought she was really getting it, and she was crushing us in the early game by completing 3 tickets in the first 5-6 rounds. But then she hit a point where she would just draw, turn after turn after turn. We assured her with as many cards as she had, she must have SOME play she could make, but she insisted she didn't. Turns out she'd gotten really stuck on this black train she wanted to make, and so she was just drawing to get a black card no matter what (despite having something like 5 wilds in her hand).
Then she got mad, because the game didn't go the way she wanted, and she quit and says she never wants to play it again. So, basically the way it has gone with every board and card game we've ever played with her that isn't purely luck based.
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Post by ganews on Dec 28, 2021 13:05:20 GMT -5
For Christmas I got "Herd Mentality", a party game that seems to be based on answering questions the same as everyone else, and "Forbidden Island" which looks like a deck game. Anyone played either of these? Forbidden Island is a 2-4 player cooperative game. The strategy is pretty straightforward: collect treasures and escape before all the land masses of the gameboard disappear. The variable layout and special abilities ought to keep it fresh for a while. It's a fine addition to our small game library. But I can't get over the feeling that games like this would be best for playing with bright children who are good at sharing and interested to talk over strategy, and awful for sharing between players who are new and experienced. I could just as well play this game as solitaire.
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Post by Hugs and Hisses on Jan 14, 2022 11:52:03 GMT -5
Time for Hugs's Annual Christmas Gift Game Report!
I maybe overdid a bit on the games purchasing this year, and added a ton of new games to the collection. So far, I'm batting 1.000!
1. Cascadia It's every bit as good as the hype suggests. It's a mid-weight tile-laying game themed around nature. It's an excellent game to play two or three games in a row on a weekend, but I think it's going to really excel in my household as a lovely weeknight option. It's got almost no set-up, and putting it away means just sweeping all the pieces back into the box. It's also got a ton of replayability thanks to multiple options for scoring conditions and a very clever achievements campaign in the rulebook. I could see this being a Dick and Hisses Manor favorite for a long time.
2. Hadrian's Wall I love the eurogames! I love the roll and writes! I love the eurogame/roll-and-writes! I played this twice over Christmas vacation and can't wait to play again. For a game that looks insanely overwhelming at first, it's actually remarkably thematic and kinda runs itself. It's essentially Mega Fleet The Dice Game. (If you like roll and writes and haven't played Fleet -- run, don't walk, to Fleet.)
3. Lost Cities Roll and Write I had "meh" expectations for this, but since I love the card game, and my buddies all love roll and writes, it seemed worth a shot. The first game we played was strangely undynamic and a little flat and yet, as soon as it ended, I was like, "I can't wait to play again!" The second game was considerably more fun. It's certainly flawed, but not in a dealbreakery kind of way. For it's size and prize and potential, it's worth the prize.
4. Cartographers Heroes I love me some Cartographers, but was afraid the scoring condition cards were getting a little stale. Heroes introduces new cards that interact with the monsters differently, which is fun enough, but what really sells me on this is the more complicated scoring cards. They feel essential to me, in terms of making this game as replayable as I want it to be.
5. Between Two Castles of Mad Kind Ludwig Expansion There was a lot of trepidation that the expansion was going to overcomplicate things, but it turns out it added just enough new stuff to freshen up the game but not too many new mechanics to make it feel unwieldy. Did it need an expansion? No! Am I glad I got the expansion? Yes!
6. Dinosaur World I haven't managed to play this all the way through, but so far I'm a fan. I really liked Dinosaur Island, but the visitor mechanic always felt a little bizarre. I'm intrigued by the tightened up approach this time around.
And there's a few I haven't gotten to the table yet: IKI, Quacks second expansion, EXIT jigsaw puzzle.
TL,DR: Everyone should try out Cascadia!
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Post by Celebith on Jan 21, 2022 11:45:41 GMT -5
I want to get a game for my friends and their soon to be six year old daughter. She plays the hell out of Uno and other card and basic board games. Wanted to get something that she would like and that the parents wouldn't get too burned out on. Any suggestions? I own a five year old and some of the non-Candy Land/Chutes & Ladders games we've played with her are Dobble (apparently called Spot It! in the US), Rasselbande (apparently called "The Piggy Brigade" in English speaking countries), and Halli Galli. We've also got a game called Pig Mania! where you throw toy pigs like dice and earn points based on how they land that she really likes but that was something I had when I was a child so I've got no idea if it's something that's still in print or not. We played that as 'Pass the Pigs' in the Army, with a house rule that you could jump on any pigs that went off the playing surface in order to to become the next roller. It's more fun that way.
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Post by Celebith on Jan 21, 2022 12:04:37 GMT -5
Picked up Micro-Macro Crime City for my sister's kids for Xmas 'Where's Waldo + find clues and solve mysteries'. Not sure how re-playable it is, but they tried a couple of cases and it's fun enough for them to play cooperatively together. There's a sequel available as well. I also tracked down a used copy of Honey Buzz, a 'worker bee placement game', for my parents. It may be too complex for them to ever play, but they're beekeepers, and the game is gorgeous. The honey components look good enough to eat, and are made of a rubbery resin with a nice texture. I sent them some 'how to play' YouTube links, and we watched a review or two while I visited.
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Post by Celebith on Jan 21, 2022 12:43:25 GMT -5
I hadn't seen them mentioned anywhere here yet, so Shut Up & Sit Down is a fairly entertaining, comprehensive TTG Review collective, and Before You Play is a nice wife-and-husband (with occasional dog) team who review games and have long 'how to play' tutorials. There are a bunch of similar channels, but I've enjoyed these videos more than most. I'd play more board games if I had more folks to play them with, so I spend more time watching these YouTube channels than I should.
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Post by Hugs and Hisses on Jan 24, 2022 14:35:06 GMT -5
Shut Up & Sit Down is 100% responsible for me getting back into board games! I was looking for interesting podcasts and didn't care what the topic was. Someone suggested them, and I was like, "Sure, why not?" I'm so glad I did because my life is demonstrably better for having table top games back in my life! Pre-SU&SD, the only games I played was cribbage and whatever lame party games my friend owned. Post-SU&SD, I have more games that I can play in a year, and now I never have to be stuck playing Taboo for the zillionith time!
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Post by Celebith on Jan 25, 2022 23:58:09 GMT -5
Nudeviking and others with small childrens - Fart Quest is a series for young readers, with an age appropriate rules-lite RPG 'expansion'. Black Magic Craft talks about making some low-budget, kid-friendly map tiles, and the books / game, here
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Post by Celebith on Feb 2, 2022 21:49:15 GMT -5
Shut Up & Sit Down is 100% responsible for me getting back into board games! I was looking for interesting podcasts and didn't care what the topic was. Someone suggested them, and I was like, "Sure, why not?" I'm so glad I did because my life is demonstrably better for having table top games back in my life! Pre-SU&SD, the only games I played was cribbage and whatever lame party games my friend owned. Post-SU&SD, I have more games that I can play in a year, and now I never have to be stuck playing Taboo for the zillionith time! Quinns just reviewed Mind MGMT (or did he....?) and it looks like a blast, but also, it's one of the better videos they've done. He's so excited about it! It reminds me a lot of Stop Thief! but with a human instead of the device playing the hare.
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Post by Hugs and Hisses on Feb 9, 2022 17:45:29 GMT -5
Celebith -- The production quality on their videos just keeps going up! I like Tom's zany scripts the best, but I adore when Quinns gets really, really excited about a game. Mind MGT looks cool, but sadly, I think hidden movement games aren't really up my game buddies' alleys.
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Post by Hugs and Hisses on Feb 10, 2022 14:31:51 GMT -5
The more I play it, the more I think "Fleet: The Dice Game" might be my official Favorite Game of All Time.
In other roll and write news, I finally tried out Dinosaur Island Rawr 'n' Write. My expectations were really low for it. I really like Dino Island and enjoyed the one game I've played of Dino World, but I just assumed Rawr 'n' Write would be some pasted-on novelty that wasn't quite all there. Boy was I wrong! It's fantastic! It's got an excellent mix of drafting and worker placement mechanics, and then it adds in the fun of tetronimo drawing from Cartographers and the zany bonuses of Fleet.
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