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That's my recommendation. Good with women, good with kids (lets them use their imagination while recognizing themes in the amazingly illustrated cards, no reading), good all around. Dixit: Journey was just released and is basically a re-issuing of the original Dixit for the USA with a saner scoreboard (like the one in Odyssey) and without the rules in half a dozen languages. Sadly it does not include the rabbit meeples, but hey.
Gaming Unplugged columnist and video game reviewer at Snackbar Games
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They both allow up to 6 players, which is good when a kid wants to join us or playing with my wife's family of 5 plus myself. And both come in to about $55 on Amazon where the gift card was purchased.
Dixit should be fun for story and if I'm understanding the game correctly, a somewhat Apples to Apples feel of picking cards but without the bias. Flash Point will be a good coop game since they seemed to enjoy helping each other defeat monsters in Munchkin but without the fantasy element of Castle Panic or complexity of Pandemic but complex enough to keep my friend and myself interested.
How is Lost Cities for a game for my wife and I to play together? We have spent too many nights on the couch watching tv and playing games on the 3DS or Fire. It'll push by budget a little, but I'm ok with that for a good two player game. Any other recommendation?
Backloggery XBox Live 3DS: 1805-2274-4550 (Jonathan)
There is also Lost Cities: The Board Game (aka Keltis) which has the advantage of supporting up to 4 players. I have a fondness for the simplicity of the original card game, though. If you have access to a second copy, then you can play the card game with four players in teams, too, which is a nice twist.
Dixit: Odyssey has actual rules support for up to 12 (without teams being involved) if that's your thing.
Yes but no. You can play it that way ("Dixit Party" rules provided in Odyssey), but the main game is the non-"storyteller" players trying to identify which card was the storyteller's. It's not a "which was best" as much as it is "which card provided the description". It's closer to Balderdash without being able to bluff by voting for you own entry.
Gaming Unplugged columnist and video game reviewer at Snackbar Games
I can't imagine how you could ever win Pandemic without open information.
Well, you still tell people what you have, or what you can do, but you don't just leave it out for everyone to inspect. It's unlikely people will keep a mental tally of your cards at all times, so it means that they still have to consult you for what you can do. At least, I assume that's what this means, since in order to keep your hands fully secret, you wouldn't be able to actually coordinate in the slightest.
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3 magical syllables for you, say it with me now: BOH-NAN-ZA. It's a trading game for 2 to 7 people, I've only ever seen one person not instantly love it and want to play another round, and that person was one of the ultra-competitive if-I-didn't-win-it-must-be-a-bad-game types.
Another game I've enjoyed is Forbidden Island. It plays very much like a stripped down pandemic, for 2 to 4 players, collect sets of cards, get to the right place to exchange those cards for the treasure, get all the treasure, and get off the island while the whole thing is sinking into the ocean.
The great thing is if you bought both Bohnanza and Forbidden Island, you'd still have money left in your budget to buy a pizza!
I own Forbidden Island, and while the game works, I don't find it as interesting as Pandemic nor as versatile as Flash Point. I'm going to stand by my Flash Point recommendation for that particular genre.
Yeah, I'm going to second all of this. Forbidden Island is GREAT with kids, but I'm not going to crack it open on game night. Need to play Flash Point, though. Sounds great.
On a totally unrelated note, why the heck am I having a difficult time getting people to play Yomi with me? I love it for a light and quick head-game, but neither my wife nor my ultra-analytic brother-in-law (two extremes of the spectrum) enjoy playing it, though they love most of the games in my collection. Perhaps some people have a difficult time seeing past the luck aspect, and/or don't enjoy the head-game, but I'm really not sure. Thoughts?
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I've only played Yomi once, but the big impression I got was that it's both quick and incredibly heavy. You really have to get deep into the strategy to do well at all, or even enjoy it, it seemed to me. There's so many levels to it, and ways to mess up, and I think it would take a decent commitment to learn it to enjoy it.
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I picked up Flash Point, Dixit: Odyssey, and For Sale. They all seem to fit a niche that we all like and want to branch out into more, and I cannot wait for them to arrive. I'm keeping an Amazon wish list (though I'm starting a Board Game Geek inventory and will probably migrate my wish list there) of games to keep an eye on and as we branch out I'll just keep on buying.
I'm hoping to turn Sunday afternoons into game time with friends and family, so these games will be coming off the shelf often!
I picked up the Odyssey version of Dixit because I heard from Dice Tower it can hold the cards from Dixit and Dixit 2 if I pick them up later, but it has support for up to 12 people which makes it great for large family parties.
Backloggery XBox Live 3DS: 1805-2274-4550 (Jonathan)
It came out at a bad time apparently (about the same time risk legacy did) and didnt get much attention but alot of what they did really makes it a more strategic risk with a few gameplay twists.
1)the pieces have different attacking values and costs
2) 'bidding' on hiring ninja or ronin
3) spending resources on other then just units (castles, fortresses, etc)
anyway, we had fun.
Well, any amount of help you give an ally on card info is equally valuable to the enemy. If you're telling the truth and really want the card, then your enemies know to out bid you. If you're bluffing and it's a weak card you just want to raise the price on, your ally doesn't know that for sure and might try to buy it at the inflated price.
I'd much rather have the Xxcha ability to block a known card (not to mention their non-combat abilities). Saving or killing a leader is more important than knowing which one is going to be played. The Jol-Nar ability is only better if the enemy has multiple weapons while you have multiple defenses to block them all. Much rarer.
Lost Cities has (in my opinion, which is totally correct BTW) three levels of strategy:
1) Creating the best expeditions you can
2) Denying your opponent great cards for their expeditions even if it means hurting yourself a bit
3) Bluffing
Once you work out how to effectively bluff in Lost Cities it becomes a whole other game. Discarding a yellow 5 even though you have the 9 and 10 to sucker your opponent into going for it is pretty damn boss. And then because bluffing games are as deep as the people playing them you have your bluff-bluffing. Your bluffing-bluff, your standard triple bluff and, of course, trying to pass of a grievous error as some kind of multi-layered super bluff.
That's the problem, I'm afraid.
My gaming group isn't one for deep gameplay. Bluffs and counter-bluffs in Game of Thrones only really work because they're spelled out at the table, not because the necessary people would pick up on them. (And even that - if you remember earlier threads - is contested.)
So I kind of lack the type of player who would actually move to level 3-strategies in a game like Lost Cities.
Or "Where Wolf?"
Has anyone here also tried Summoner Wars and The Resistance? Are you fans? And if so, are there any other, similar titles that you'd recommend? Thanks!
I've tried them both, and the former I purchased on your recommendation. I'm also a big fan of both, and from what I've seen most people around here are as well, though I think The Resistance tends to edge out Summoner Wars in popularity.
The Resistance is great because of it's distilled essence of game mechanics; it ended up completely replacing Battlestar Galactica in our game group. We loved BSG for the hidden roles, the tension, the paranoia and the suspicion. The Resistance captured all of it for ~15$, achieves it in 15 minutes, supports larger groups, and is teachable to just about anyone, board game enthusiasts or not. The player interaction is fantastic; all of the stress is still there, but at the same time if one game is goofed it's no big deal to start over and try again. I've had too many games of BSG ruined by meta-moments (e.g. using "you/ you guys" when referring to human strategy as opposed to us/we/our, looking at your remaining loyalty card when one is randomly chosen to be seen by another player (after all, why should you need to look if they're both human?), playing a card face down when you didn't know there was a face-up investigative committee card and then having to take it back and choose a different card, etc.)
Summoner Wars isn't quite as clever, and thus it doesn't seem to have that same magical feel, but it sure is fun nonetheless. Affordable, portable, expandable and easily understandable. Asymmetrical card chess with just enough randomness thrown in (through dice and card draw) that no one loses any feel of intellectual self worth when they are defeated.
As for other games, I think mechanically you're already exceedingly familiar with the few similar titles. In the case of The Resistance, for example, the closest I could think of would probably be Bang! (first and foremost) and Citadels, simple card based games with hidden roles. Battlestar Galactica (and it's older cousin Shadows over Camelot) could apply, but I think its scale takes away any chance of moving from one to the other. Aliens from Outer Space (which again you are familiar with) and Panic Station could also be worth considering, though I believe they are considered more hit or miss. As for asymmetrical duels as in Summoner Wars, perhaps Small World? Or Chaos in the Old World? Not a gametype I am very familiar with. I'm sure the veterans around here could suggest many more.
Maybe a better approach, instead of mechanics, would be to look for what provides the same "feel". Does the tension of the Game of Thrones/Diplomacy resemble the Resistance, for example. In which case, it really depends on what you enjoy Summoner Wars/Resistance for, and what they feel like to you.
COME FORTH, AMATERASU!
Summoner Wars is my most-played 2-player game right now. I've ended up buying most of the factions for it. Recently I bought a bunch of other new games, so SW got pushed to the back burner for a month or two, but when I finally got the Filth faction, I was reminded just how much fun it all is. There are more straightforward factions (Shadow Elves, Mountain Vargath), and then ones that have a lot of "tricks" (Deep Dwarves, Cloaks), and then the crazy ones that feel different from anything (Filth, Fallen Kingdom, Swamp Orcs). It has also taken my family by storm: my brother-in-law and my 6-year-old (!) nephew both got the Master Set. The funny thing is that I prefer C&C:A, but SW is way easier to get people into.
Similar titles to Summoner Wars? Let's call the genre "chess-like tactical 2-player games". Well, as I hinted at, there's Commands & Colors: Ancients. The complexity level is a bit higher, but it's not really much longer to play (depending on the scenario). I personally think that it's a superb game and the pinnacle of the C&C system (out of Battlelore, C&C:Napoleonics, Memoir '44, and so on). It should be mentioned that out of that list Memoir '44 is probably the easiest to introduce to new players. I've also heard really great things about Neuroshima Hex. I can tell it's right up my alley: asymmetrical factions, positional maneuvering, destroy the enemy base. I wish I knew someone who had it.
EDIT: OH! I just remembered, what about Battleground: Fantasy Warfare? You use cards like you would use a group of miniatures (i.e. without a board), and you measure out their movement and firing range with the short and long sides of the cards themselves. The "hook" is that you can't control all of your units every round: they have certain "orders" that they carry out automatically, and every round you have a certain number of "points" that you can spend to change the order on a card. GAH! See, this is why I try not to think about these things -- now I have a burning desire to finally break down and buy it.
The Resistance is, of course, also super great. HUGE hit whenever I break it out. But games that are similar? That's a bit tougher -- The Resistance is so stripped-down, you could "flesh it out" in a couple of ways. If you went in one direction you could end up with Battlestar Galactica. If another direction you could end up with Cosmic Encounter. It has it's closest relatives in "Werewolf" or "Mafia", but I don't know that those are really the categories you're looking for.
This is great, great news, though I don't have any iOS devices myself. Hope it does fabulously well.
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There's a game called Shadow Hunters which plays with similar mechanics, but I haven't been able to try that game out yet, as much as I'd like to.
So, in the new high-value math trade, someone put up this game called Dorn, which I expect nobody has played (but would be pleasantly surprised to hear about if they had), but I now find myself very much desiring. I guess I might have to enter this one after all to try and get that, because it seems to be out of print otherwise. A shame indeed ...
Check out this no-nonsense Czech dungeon crawler here.
As an aside, I want to downsize my collection some to make room for more games I want to try, but I'm struggling to think of the best way to do so. Trading doesn't actually make space, and finding buyers will probably take a bit of time. I suppose that's my best option though ... Now to figure out exactly which games I want to part with, the actual challenge. >_>
For suggestions, check out my BGG collection! Also, feel free to shoot me an offer if you see something you really like. </shameless self-promotion>
(Thanks for that)
Looks interesting.
Yeah, makes me want to Czech it out.
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Jergarmar you just totally yomi'd me with that spoiler. I was so sure it was going to say "I'm not sorry." that I couldn't understand it for a while.
Well played.
Well played...
Evil had finally slain the forces of Justice. There would be no symbol for children to look up to anymore.
Oh, cute, you think you're a Netrunner? Come join us!
I only like dice games in real life. I played Roll Through The Ages on yucata.de and it was dulllll.
Throwing dice is a lot of fun, and we are all convinced we are somehow affecting the result by the way we throw or the thoughts we have. A very fun self-deception!
so what you're saying is my profound clarity of mind and lack of self-deception is why i don't like dice-based games
gotcha.
COME FORTH, AMATERASU!
:^:
Oh geez. Diceless RPG game? Sounds like something Id love to try.
The petz from Dungeon Petz, bard enemies (apparently they do damage prevention against monsters), new monsters, traps, rooms, Cthulhu and beholders as new monsters, variant action slots, an extra round for each of the 2 years.
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Ugh. I already think Dungeon Lords is overlong. I really don't think I could deal with an expansion that adds any more play time.
Shadow Hunters can be kind of random (because you have no real control over where you move) but it's a fun 30-60 minute hidden loyalty game for a large group.
I know a lot of people love The Resistance, but I played too many games of it with 9-10 players to figure out that it's way WAY too easy for the spies to win with that many players (seriously, we're talking about spies winning nine out of ten times). If I have an hour or less, I'd play Shadow Hunters... if I have longer, I'd play BSG.
There's also a lesser known hidden-loyalty game called The Target that looks interesting. Our game club library has it but I just haven't tried to drum up a group yet.
I've played Shadow Hunters once and I wasn't quite sure what I thought of it because, well, I wasn't sure what I thought of it. I think the game didn't have enough of us talking directly to each other, though. We didn't spend as much time lying and pretending and trying to deduce who was who. Battlestar Galactica has never been high on my list and I'm afraid I keep hearing people saying how much they're not fans of it.
I've also had a chance to have a quick go at a not-yet-in-print Arthurian take on The Resistance, from the same publisher. It's a bit more like the more complex versions of Werewolf, where you might also have a character as well as a good guy/bad guy role. If the bad guys manage to find out who a particular character is and kill them, they can win the game that way, rather than by causing missions (ahem, "Quests") to fail. Certain characters know who certain other characters are, or have unique abilities. It throws more confusion into the mix, which is exactly what you need.
Have you tried the variation where the spies don't know who the other spies are, so that everyone's playing blind? That can help balance it a lot. And please let me know how The Target goes, as I've never played it and I'd love to hear from someone who has.
On the two-player thing, I may try Lost Cities sometime soon, as I have to admit that I've never played it, even though so many of my friends have and they all say it's the absolute classic two-player game.
Awesome, I do love this game. Not sure I play it enough to warrant getting an expansion... But hell, getting an expansion means I WILL play it more right?
Anyway, I have been watching the PBP of Lords of Waterdeep here and quite like the look of it. Do people here think this is a good buy, as everything I have seen makes me think that it will be good. I personally prefer more complex games than this but my gaming group prefer things like this so I think it fits well. Thoughts?
Although my favorite bit of flavor smuggling is the "Tame Owlbears" quest, which gives you a warrior as part of its reward. It takes a while to realize that the warrior is the owlbear.
Gaming Unplugged columnist and video game reviewer at Snackbar Games