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Post by ganews on Feb 14, 2022 16:10:41 GMT -5
Oh hey, A Feast For Odin is now on Board Game Arena. It looks difficult to keep track of everything unless you're already very familiar with it, which I am. Hit me up if you want to play.
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ABz B👹anaz
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Post by ABz B👹anaz on Mar 8, 2022 10:52:01 GMT -5
Finally got to play Gloomhaven again last Friday, exactly two years to the day from our last session.
The game host and I were both playing new (to us) characters, so we opted to start at level 1 to help with the whole "we haven't played this in so long we have to remember all of the rules" thing. (We could start anywhere up to level 7 due to the advancement of the campaign and our "town level".) Our other two players had level 6 and level 9 characters.
It was close, but we managed to beat the scenario with three of us becoming exhausted or getting defeated before the end, and the last one standing completing the final objective!
We're going to be playing every Friday until the campaign is complete, which is presumably going to be a couple of months at most, since we THINK we were pretty close to the end already.
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ABz B👹anaz
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Post by ABz B👹anaz on Mar 30, 2022 15:02:34 GMT -5
This is more "rationally happy" but the subject is gaming so I'm putting it here.
On Monday I was chatting on the Warhammer 40K Discord, and decided to post a message in Trade Chat asking if anyone in my area had any new/used Necromunda terrain available to buy or trade. Almost immediately I was contacted by a guy offering information about his store in my area where two guys had a weekly Necromunda game on Monday evenings. I got the location and hours of the store, and it turns out it's just a few miles away from my OLD house, but they opened about a year after we moved away.
I didn't have time on Monday, but swung by after work yesterday, and I am VERY glad that I did! Their location is in an office complex so the main store is a bit cramped, but it is this way because they are COMPLETELY STUFFED FULL of miniature stock, AND they discount prices! (Just a bit, not enough to "anger" Games Workshop, but enough to make them cheaper than any other store in town outside of sale days!) In addition, they also have a second suite in this office complex set up with 4-5 rooms just for playing tabletop games!
I grabbed the newest Necromunda box set with the latest edition of the main rules and started immediately building the terrain in the box to play in the future with Mrs B and BGirl, but am looking forward to popping by to play at the shop once in a while too.
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ABz B👹anaz
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Post by ABz B👹anaz on Apr 5, 2022 10:37:01 GMT -5
Necromunda last night was a TON of fun. I am definitely playing more of this in the future. It's far more entertaining to me than Warhammer 40K, and easier to teach others how to play! Also, I brought in a bunch of old sealed-box stuff that I was never going to get around to building/painting, and managed to get enough store credit to get this $300 box of Necromunda terrain for $25 after tax! (And ALSO earned another $30 in store credit for the future!) (Official pic of the contents of this box:)
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Trurl
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Post by Trurl on Apr 12, 2022 19:35:27 GMT -5
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Baron von Costume
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Post by Baron von Costume on Apr 21, 2022 13:56:48 GMT -5
Finally grabbed a copy of ElDorado and yeah definitely what a great flexible game that's over quickly. I can see it being the go to "X isn't here yet, let's play something while we wait" game from now on.
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ABz B👹anaz
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Post by ABz B👹anaz on Nov 2, 2022 16:28:37 GMT -5
In chatting with our Gloomhaven (and former Friday Night Board Game Night) host over the weekend, he let me know that his plan for games going forward is that when one of his groups finishes whatever long-form game they're playing now (such as our Gloomhaven, and another group that plays Risk Legacy), he will open it up for them to decide what to play next, including one of the many, MANY tabletop RPGs he has access to.
I am so excited! This is the guy that ran that Delta Green campaign I raved about on here several years ago, and he's been a fantastic player in all of the other games I've been involved in with him, so I'm really hoping we can get a D&D, Pathfinder or Shadowrun game going. I could go for more Delta Green, but that one's so much more stressful because it is VERY HARD not to die. I'd like a campaign with more survivability.
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Post by Hugs and Hisses on Nov 3, 2022 10:18:56 GMT -5
In chatting with our Gloomhaven (and former Friday Night Board Game Night) host over the weekend, he let me know that his plan for games going forward is that when one of his groups finishes whatever long-form game they're playing now (such as our Gloomhaven, and another group that plays Risk Legacy), he will open it up for them to decide what to play next, including one of the many, MANY tabletop RPGs he has access to. I am so excited! This is the guy that ran that Delta Green campaign I raved about on here several years ago, and he's been a fantastic player in all of the other games I've been involved in with him, so I'm really hoping we can get a D&D, Pathfinder or Shadowrun game going. I could go for more Delta Green, but that one's so much more stressful because it is VERY HARD not to die. I'd like a campaign with more survivability. You need to start laying subtle hints for Delta Green as you play through the end of Gloomhaven! Work the words "delta" and "green" into every sentence so the rest of the group finds themselves voting for it without even knowing why. Of course, the only sentence I'm coming up with is "I'm green with envy you're flying Delta for your next business trip" so this plan might be tougher than it seems... Speaking of D&D, I starting playing it for the first time this summer! I'm GMing for Liz n Dick and Boomer and it's such a blast. I've read the DMs and player's manuals over a bunch of times and I'm still fucking up pretty much every rule in the house, but everyone seems to be having fun, so it's all good. Based on the few sessions of Mouse Guard I GMed, I think I have a tendency to railroad too much, so I've been trying really, really hard not to do that this time. My approach was to come up with a bunch of locations with NPCs, since those seem the hardest for me to improvise. One of the locations was a casino, but I was sure the players were going to go to the docks, where'd I'd designed a whole shopping district so they could make up for their lack of starting resources. As soon as I said "Casino", they were all "CLEARLY we're supposed to go to the casino!" So now the whole thing is taking place in the casino, and their approach to making up for a lack of starting resources is to gamble and enter three-dragon ante tournaments. I love it!
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ABz B👹anaz
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Post by ABz B👹anaz on Nov 3, 2022 10:41:27 GMT -5
In chatting with our Gloomhaven (and former Friday Night Board Game Night) host over the weekend, he let me know that his plan for games going forward is that when one of his groups finishes whatever long-form game they're playing now (such as our Gloomhaven, and another group that plays Risk Legacy), he will open it up for them to decide what to play next, including one of the many, MANY tabletop RPGs he has access to. I am so excited! This is the guy that ran that Delta Green campaign I raved about on here several years ago, and he's been a fantastic player in all of the other games I've been involved in with him, so I'm really hoping we can get a D&D, Pathfinder or Shadowrun game going. I could go for more Delta Green, but that one's so much more stressful because it is VERY HARD not to die. I'd like a campaign with more survivability. You need to start laying subtle hints for Delta Green as you play through the end of Gloomhaven! Work the words "delta" and "green" into every sentence so the rest of the group finds themselves voting for it without even knowing why. Of course, the only sentence I'm coming up with is "I'm green with envy you're flying Delta for your next business trip" so this plan might be tougher than it seems... Speaking of D&D, I starting playing it for the first time this summer! I'm GMing for Liz n Dick and Boomer and it's such a blast. I've read the DMs and player's manuals over a bunch of times and I'm still fucking up pretty much every rule in the house, but everyone seems to be having fun, so it's all good. Based on the few sessions of Mouse Guard I GMed, I think I have a tendency to railroad too much, so I've been trying really, really hard not to do that this time. My approach was to come up with a bunch of locations with NPCs, since those seem the hardest for me to improvise. One of the locations was a casino, but I was sure the players were going to go to the docks, where'd I'd designed a whole shopping district so they could make up for their lack of starting resources. As soon as I said "Casino", they were all "CLEARLY we're supposed to go to the casino!" So now the whole thing is taking place in the casino, and their approach to making up for a lack of starting resources is to gamble and enter three-dragon ante tournaments. I love it! GMing for me - I ran two campaigns 15-20 years apart - was a ton of fun but also extremely stressful, as I worked for hours and hours between sessions to try and come up with fun stuff, and of course my players would frequently go somewhere completely different after I'd spent a couple of weeks fleshing out an area!
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LazBro
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Post by LazBro on Nov 3, 2022 11:05:35 GMT -5
You need to start laying subtle hints for Delta Green as you play through the end of Gloomhaven! Work the words "delta" and "green" into every sentence so the rest of the group finds themselves voting for it without even knowing why. Of course, the only sentence I'm coming up with is "I'm green with envy you're flying Delta for your next business trip" so this plan might be tougher than it seems... Speaking of D&D, I starting playing it for the first time this summer! I'm GMing for Liz n Dick and Boomer and it's such a blast. I've read the DMs and player's manuals over a bunch of times and I'm still fucking up pretty much every rule in the house, but everyone seems to be having fun, so it's all good. Based on the few sessions of Mouse Guard I GMed, I think I have a tendency to railroad too much, so I've been trying really, really hard not to do that this time. My approach was to come up with a bunch of locations with NPCs, since those seem the hardest for me to improvise. One of the locations was a casino, but I was sure the players were going to go to the docks, where'd I'd designed a whole shopping district so they could make up for their lack of starting resources. As soon as I said "Casino", they were all "CLEARLY we're supposed to go to the casino!" So now the whole thing is taking place in the casino, and their approach to making up for a lack of starting resources is to gamble and enter three-dragon ante tournaments. I love it! GMing for me - I ran two campaigns 15-20 years apart - was a ton of fun but also extremely stressful, as I worked for hours and hours between sessions to try and come up with fun stuff, and of course my players would frequently go somewhere completely different after I'd spent a couple of weeks fleshing out an area! Same. My approach to DM'ing eventually became running what were effectively self-made modules. Like I don't have it in me to DM a campaign that could potentially last for years with no specific end in mind. From the top I'd be, "Folks, I'm thinking about 10-12 sessions on this one." I was never a great DM though, because I wanted to be very story driven and had trouble letting the party ruin my plans. Fortunately my party for the most part liked my stories and wanted to play them. I'm a very empathetic player too. If it's within my power, I always try to steer toward wherever I think the DM wants to go. I try to be the player that I, as a DM, would want to run a game for. Part of this is also that I'm not good at roleplaying and mostly enjoy the fighting and "numbers go up" side of things. I mostly played the stoic types who hit things good.
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LazBro
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Post by LazBro on Nov 3, 2022 11:13:44 GMT -5
You need to start laying subtle hints for Delta Green as you play through the end of Gloomhaven! Work the words "delta" and "green" into every sentence so the rest of the group finds themselves voting for it without even knowing why. Of course, the only sentence I'm coming up with is "I'm green with envy you're flying Delta for your next business trip" so this plan might be tougher than it seems... Hmmm.... "delta" can be two words. Just need to find the right context. "So, in this phase, everyone is dealt a green card." Not sure if Gloomhaven has anything green to deal though.
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ABz B👹anaz
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Post by ABz B👹anaz on Nov 3, 2022 11:22:01 GMT -5
You need to start laying subtle hints for Delta Green as you play through the end of Gloomhaven! Work the words "delta" and "green" into every sentence so the rest of the group finds themselves voting for it without even knowing why. Of course, the only sentence I'm coming up with is "I'm green with envy you're flying Delta for your next business trip" so this plan might be tougher than it seems... Hmmm.... "delta" can be two words. Just need to find the right context. "So, in this phase, everyone is dealt a green card." Not sure if Gloomhaven has anything green to deal though. Y'all seem to have missed where I said I MIGHT want more Delta Green, but would prefer a campaign where people don't die every other session. I've wanted to be in a GOOD Shadowrun campaign for 20 years now. My friend who introduced me to the system was completely inept at GMing and never prepared anything ahead of time.
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Post by Liz n Dick on Nov 3, 2022 12:46:55 GMT -5
Same. My approach to DM'ing eventually became running what were effectively self-made modules. Like I don't have it in me to DM a campaign that could potentially last for years with no specific end in mind. From the top I'd be, "Folks, I'm thinking about 10-12 sessions on this one." I was never a great DM though, because I wanted to be very story driven and had trouble letting the party ruin my plans. Fortunately my party for the most part liked my stories and wanted to play them. I'm a very empathetic player too. If it's within my power, I always try to steer toward wherever I think the DM wants to go. I try to be the player that I, as a DM, would want to run a game for. Part of this is also that I'm not good at roleplaying and mostly enjoy the fighting and "numbers go up" side of things. I mostly played the stoic types who hit things good. This D&D with Hugs and Hisses is still very introductory for me, so whenever she sets a scene and is like, "So, what are you going to do now?" I'm really desperate to be told what it is she wants. So for the record, with this whole casino situation where she wanted us at the docks instead, maybe it would have helped not to have gone to great lengths to describe, as our characters headed to the docks, this giant, golden pyramid casino that is the centerpiece of the skyline and the major tourist attraction and the thing that everyone in the area is immediately drawn to. Like, I only suggested we stop at the casino because it really sounded like that's where Hugs wanted us to go!
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Post by ganews on Nov 3, 2022 16:11:51 GMT -5
I've started playing Catan on boardgamearena, and this is the first time I've played it 100% by the rules. (I like to play with some amount of bribing the robber.) It's okay online, though it takes the charm out of negotiating when you're not in-person, and it's harder to keep track of who is seeking what resources when the computer automates everything.
Of course, rarely does anyone want to play Catan in person because they've already played it so much. Online might be the only option in the future with that one.
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LazBro
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Post by LazBro on Nov 29, 2022 11:50:19 GMT -5
Space Escape / Mole Rats in Space
We like playing games with our kids, but the sore loser-ism reached such a pitch that we pretty much only play cooperative games now. (Though, weirdly, we've played Uno a few times lately and no one whined when they didn't win. Maybe it's safe now?)
Space Escape / Mole Rats in Space has been our favorite recent acquisition. Your team of 4 mole rats has to escape a spaceship infested with snakes by moving around the board, picking up pieces of equipment, and making it to the escape pod at the board's center. Each player is dealt a face up card with two actions on it: move one or more moles, move one or more snakes (or spawn more snakes). The two core mechanics are that you can control where the snakes move - you're instructed what color of snake to move and how many steps it has to take, but the direction of those steps is up to the player - and the face up cards themselves. Not only can you see your moves, you can see the others' as well. You know the next 3 cards in sequence. This encourages planning ahead and working together toward the best outcome. Table talk is expressly encouraged in the instructions, th0ugh I do try to let the kids take the lead of their own turns.
Of all the co-op games we've tried that are 4 and 5 year-old friendly, this has been the best. It has actual tension where it feels like every player is helping the other out, where every decision is critical and one false step, one failure to look ahead will be the end of it. We've had several games come down to the wire, including a game last night where we won at the last possible moment. The last card in the deck got our last mole into the pod. Most co-op games we've found at that age level are either far more simple or virtually impossible to lose. I mean, you could lose them, but you'd have to be really, really unlucky. Mole Rats in Space we've actually lost more games than we've won. Like Arkham Horror or anything in that vein, winning feels like an accomplishment.
It's also not perfect. The most common complaint I saw in the reviews on BGG, and which I expected to see and fully agree with, is that sometimes it feels that there was nothing you could have done. There are close games, and then there are games where the stack of the deck simply trounces you. Lots of early snake spawns. Lots of aggressive snake moves. Poor movement draws making it impossible to get into the pod. (You have to land on exact spaces to either pick up equipment or go up ladders or into the pod, and we had a game where one mole danced around the ladder into the pod for 5-6 turns because we just could NOT get the right number of steps in the right order to land on it.) In those times it feels more frustrating or even unfair. Also, it's a small thing, but the equipment mechanic could have been something more. To win, you must pick up four pieces of equipment on the board (set spawn points) and get all moles into the pod. But the equipment doesn't do anything. It's just a task toward the win condition. It'd be cool if the equipment was usable. Like maybe you could get space boots that let you hop over snakes, or a teleporter that lets you warp to set spawn points, or a space wrench that lets you lock ladders (keep snakes down) or chutes (keep self from falling). Just spitballing.
My 9 year-old could handle more complex games, but it's really good for my 5 year-old and a fun game all around for our family. I like it.
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Post by ganews on Dec 31, 2022 0:19:21 GMT -5
Christmas games with the family were Dutch Blitz (I dominated), For Sale, and Herd Mentality (basically small-scale Family Feud).
We also did something called Fishbowl, where everyone writes words on slips of paper to be drawn out of a pot to be described Taboo-style, described in one word only, and acted out.
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Post by Hugs and Hisses on Jan 10, 2023 10:51:47 GMT -5
As usual, Santa brought scads of board games to Stately Dick & Hisses Manor! I haven't tried them all yet, but the report so far:
Super Mega Lucky Box
This is a small roll and write that's essentially if you combined Bingo and Gonz Shon Clever. I figured it would be a "play it over lunch three or four weekends a year for a change of pace from Rummikub" kinda game, but after one game, we were all hooked and couldn't stop playing it. It's far more fun that it has any right to be!
Rustling Leaves Another small box roll and write, and the game I was most excited for this year. It didn't disappoint! It's a roll and write with four sheets to choose from, one for each season. The sheets are filled with a grid of little illustrations. You roll two d6s and then enclose a shape that's the size of the two dice (say, a 1x3 box, or a 2x4 box). You then pick one illustration type within that box to score, and mark it on your sheet. Each illustration scores in a different way (some are set collection, some are multipliers, some are "these things will only count at the end of the game if you haven't met some other goal", etc.). Each season has different illustrations with different scoring methods. It's really, really replayable, and nice and meaty for such a quick game.
Akropolis Another solid recommendation from Tom Brewster on SU&SD! This is a tile-laying city-builder with clever scoring. I was hoping it would be a nice weeknight game with a Cascadia-esque vibe and that's exactly what it. The production quality is also top-notch.
Orleans We're big fans of Altiplano here, so I figured we might as well try the original bag-builder! We only played the base game once over the holiday, but everyone seemed to thoroughly enjoy it (after battling through a bit of the "Why play this when we have Altiplano?"s). I'm looking forward to trying all the expansions.
Flamecraft Every now and then I succumb hard to the BGG hottness and this was one of those times. But I'm glad I did as the game is delightful, and absolutely adorably gorgeous! It's a little resource/hand management game with a very gentle, friendly vibe. The games are all really close in scoring, which is pretty unusual for us, so that's fun. And the game is extremely generous with dishing out bonus scoring cards, which I find enormously appealing.
Ark Nova This was actually a birthday present back in September, but this vacation saw everyone getting involved in playing it. We played it twice and both times it took over four hours start to finish, but everyone was so engrossed the entire time no one really noticed. I love how you really can't do any long-term planning in that game; it really suits my "I just want to try all the fun things!" approach to big games.
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Post by ganews on Jan 19, 2023 17:01:34 GMT -5
I got the Disney edition (I gather there are multiple versions?) of Villainous for Christmas. It's pretty good, kind of different. Each of the two to six players has their own gameboard and card decks based around a different Disney villain. Each player thus has their own objectives and victory mechanism, so there's a some okay replay value there. There is also a mechanism where you can screw with your opponents, so even though everyone is doing their own thing I'd say it's still more interactive than Dominion. My only criticism is that it's hard to be strategic in knowing the best choice to screw with your opponents, and if you haven't played in their role before it's hard to know how close they are to victory.
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LazBro
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Post by LazBro on Jan 24, 2023 11:36:38 GMT -5
This isn't a really a "game", but it's an experience that assumes that same life slot as playing a game. We ordered a Mail Order Mystery! Treasure Hunt to do with our kids (9 and 5). The company sends you a box filled with numbered envelopes. Each envelope is intended to be opened in sequence at your own pace and contains an assortment of letters, newspaper clippings, a magazine, a treasure map, and a few physical artifacts like a small burlap sack containing a key. All of the letters are addressed to the kids using their actual names (or whatever names you gave the company to use), and piece after piece they introduce shady characters with conflicting stories and ambitions, all allegedly distantly related to your family, and all caught up in the search for pirate treasure.
"Experience" is really the word for it, because as a game it would fall woefully short. Reading all of the letters and whatnot was fun, and the items were well designed. The letters came on official stationary, there was several handwritten elements, a secret parchment was dutifully rolled and tied with string, "old" documents were stained or torn. But there just wasn't a lot to do. 95% of the activity was just reading. The bits of gameplay were cool though. We solved a secret message using a pigpen cipher. We called one of the characters on the phone and left a voicemail detailing some of our findings (they don't call back). And at the end we got to unlock a small wooden chest using one of the keys we'd been sent, revealing a treasure trove of fake doubloons, a shark tooth, a ring, and some other small items for the kids.
The kids seem to like it, but overall we weren't very impressed. The presentation was nice, a cool idea, but we wanted more. More interactivity, more elements that made us feel we were involved with the solution.
A couple notes: 1. In fairness to the company, they don't claim this to be anything other than what we got. They're clear on the website that this is not a deep puzzle game or "escape box" type attraction. It's a storytelling experience for children.
2. There are two delivery methods. Weekly or all at once. We chose all at once, I believe because it's cheaper, but I do think the weekly deliveries would have added something to the experience. One thing we struggled with was not knowing when to open the next envelope. Are we supposed to just move on, or is there still something to solve here? We never felt great about that question. We'd be pretty sure we'd done everything we could (after all, there was little to do), but quickly moving on to the next envelope could make it feel underwhelming. If so inclined you could "play" the whole thing in 30 minutes. We ended up breaking it out over a couple weeks and four sessions, just to give it a sense of progression. If instead you received one envelope weekly, I think that would feel better and would play into how the characters who are contacting you are developing over time.
Anyway, for the parents here looking for something to do with kids, if you see Mail Order Mystery programs (they also have a spy one), I don't personally recommend it. Or as Mrs. Bro put it last night after we'd finished: "I feel like we could have done this ourselves but better."
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Post by Hugs and Hisses on Jan 27, 2023 16:20:58 GMT -5
Uh-oh, I just found out there's a new Uwe Rosenberg game. Do I need another? No. Do I want this one? Desperately.
Speaking of resource management games, I finally played all the way through Beer & Bread for the first time. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's a much snappier game than I usually from a box full of little wooden wheats and hops, and the pace of the rounds (some rounds you do card drafting, some you don't) makes for what I'd call "casual brain burn".
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Post by Superb Owl 🦉 on Jan 30, 2023 18:04:01 GMT -5
I got Plunder: A Pirate’s Life for Christmas and have enjoyed it. Our 10 year old who really loves board games was able to pick it up fine and it doesn’t take hours to explain to a new person (always a plus in this house). It would be a good one for folks looking for something Catan-esque that’s a little less random or prone to making it clear half the table can’t win way before the game is over.
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Post by ganews on Mar 8, 2023 17:04:31 GMT -5
We had a houseguest on Monday night but everyone was sleepy and couldn't decide on a game. She picked up a deck of cards, I said "that's my old Egyptian Ratscrew deck", and she got very excited because she hadn't played since high school. I also hadn't played in many years...good times.
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LazBro
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Post by LazBro on Mar 9, 2023 0:12:36 GMT -5
We had a houseguest on Monday night but everyone was sleepy and couldn't decide on a game. She picked up a deck of cards, I said "that's my old Egyptian Ratscrew deck", and she got very excited because she hadn't played since high school. I also hadn't played in many years...good times. Egyptian Rat was THE GAME amongst my crew from grades 8-12. I have very fond memories of playing it while killing time in the band room on those weird days where the kids in band were excused from class but also had hours to waste.
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Post by Superb Owl 🦉 on Apr 17, 2023 10:19:17 GMT -5
We had a houseguest on Monday night but everyone was sleepy and couldn't decide on a game. She picked up a deck of cards, I said "that's my old Egyptian Ratscrew deck", and she got very excited because she hadn't played since high school. I also hadn't played in many years...good times. Egyptian Rat was THE GAME amongst my crew from grades 8-12. I have very fond memories of playing it while killing time in the band room on those weird days where the kids in band were excused from class but also had hours to waste. Egyptian Ratscrew was always super popular at swim meets when I was that age too because it was tailor-made for a situation where people were constantly leaving or joining the game between their individual races. That and Closest-to-8 (a hearts variation that seemingly no one has ever heard of outside of that specific group) were king.
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Post by Superb Owl 🦉 on Apr 17, 2023 10:24:57 GMT -5
Randomly found out that our branch library was hosting one-off D&D games for relative newcomers yesterday afternoon and decided to check it out with the kids. None of us had ever played, but they were familiar and curious because I used to listen to TAZ and still get the graphic novels as they're released. We kind of lucked out because the poor weather and construction near the library kept anyone else from showing up, so the library and gaming club volunteers were able to give the kids one-on-one attention on making characters and how to play the game. It also turned out that one of the volunteers running the game was the Spanish teacher they'd had up until this year! Very fun, will probably end up going to some of their future events as well.
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Post by sarapen on May 9, 2023 20:22:07 GMT -5
So I liked Bucket of Bolts. It's a solo journalling game, which means it gives you structured writing prompts as you write the story of a spaceship - from its construction, to the many captains who commanded it, and down to its inevitable end. You're basically writing the backstory of the Millennium Falcon, although you can even use the ship and history you've created in a regular space TTRPG like Traveller or Starfinder. The guided structure really prevents the writerly paralysis of being confronted with a blank page. There's even a random ship generator if you're stuck imagining what your ship looks like and even a soundtrack to listen to as you meditate on your choices. Anyway, it's a fun writing game to get your creative juices flowing for an hour or two. This was the first of several pages I wrote last night.
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Post by Hugs and Hisses on May 17, 2023 13:45:52 GMT -5
So I liked Bucket of Bolts. It's a solo journalling game, which means it gives you structured writing prompts as you write the story of a spaceship - from its construction, to the many captains who commanded it, and down to its inevitable end. You're basically writing the backstory of the Millennium Falcon, although you can even use the ship and history you've created in a regular space TTRPG like Traveller or Starfinder. That sounds like so much fun! I love the idea of a time travel antenna, picking up ancient signals. Have you played "1,000 Year Old Vampire"? I've heard great things about that as a solo journaling experience.
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Post by Hugs and Hisses on May 17, 2023 13:49:27 GMT -5
I played Hamburg over the weekend and loved it! I've been anxiously awaiting playing it since SU&SD reviewed it and it didn't just live up to my own hype, it exceeded it! It was exactly the weight I wanted (exactly medium, not medium-light or medium-heavy) but played at a far clippier pace than I was expecting. The decision making is just enough to feel impactful, but not so complicated that you get bored waiting for your turn. And it has quite possibly the easiest teach for a Euro ever. I also introduced some friends to Flamecraft. I knew my one friend would love the artwork but wasn't expecting her to say, after a few minutes of play, "I hope I dream about this world tonight!" I'd say that recommendation was a score.
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Post by sarapen on May 17, 2023 18:26:09 GMT -5
So I liked Bucket of Bolts. It's a solo journalling game, which means it gives you structured writing prompts as you write the story of a spaceship - from its construction, to the many captains who commanded it, and down to its inevitable end. You're basically writing the backstory of the Millennium Falcon, although you can even use the ship and history you've created in a regular space TTRPG like Traveller or Starfinder. That sounds like so much fun! I love the idea of a time travel antenna, picking up ancient signals. Have you played "1,000 Year Old Vampire"? I've heard great things about that as a solo journaling experience. No, this is my first solo journalling game ever. That one looks like a more substantial offering than the handful of PDFs got with this game, but it was only $10 anyway. It did come with a random spaceship generator for those of us who have trouble coming up with ship designs, which I appreciated. I think I'll add 1000 Year Old Vampire to my list, it looks pretty neat.
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repulsionist
TI Forumite
actively disinterested
Posts: 3,563
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Post by repulsionist on Jun 27, 2023 20:45:18 GMT -5
Aggh! I lost my bridge "cheat sheet" for current NZ Contract Bridge bidding rules. Today, while I was out on a bike ride at work. Just flew outta my jacket pocket without me knowing.
Also, I managed a Grand Slam 3 weeks ago. Not yet able to ascertain all hands' card distribution after seeing my own and first round of bidding. But getting there. Got that Henry Sugar mojo in my brains. My "partner" is someone from my group of "How to Play Bridge, Noobs!". They are multi-pronoun'd and have grown decreasingly amused calling me (cis-het; he/him) their "partner".
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