You know where all the mountain ranges are too? :P
The review made me more interested in the game than I ever had been previously, but also, I'm getting exactly the same feelings playing Labyrinth. Mostly, I regret unloading 1989 because I really love the asymmetry in these games and don't _really_ want to go back to Twilight Struggle, despite the things it does better than the others.
Unrelated, I continue to play the random solo game of Menara here and there, and still think it's fantastic. I kinda wish there was more buzz around it overall.
Hehe, this is where I admit that I missed the exact mountain range that Matt missed my first time playing that game
I overall liked the review even if I felt it got a little overly whiny in the middle.
Like, oh no, you have to put effort into learning a game in order to enjoy its rich complexities! The horror!
I definitely wouldn't take their view like this. Frankly, games have reached a point where you really need to make that good first impression or else you're going to be shelved for something that does so better (Arctic's jerk opinion is that exactly this is why games like Terraforming Mars do so well - they show off well. >_>). But hell, they both wound up wanting to play again because they couldn't stop thinking about it, which is the much more honest version of their experience.
They have a fairly clear vision about what games they recommend, and honestly I'm pretty surprised that it made their "recommended" list, even if they personally liked the game. They are really picky about those longer games, just think of their review of Terraforming Mars! Certainly makes me want to play War of the Ring, even once.
And speaking of their "vision", I really appreciate SU&SD for also highlighting and recommending "pseudo-games", like The Mind, Escape From the Aliens in Outer Space, Decrypto, and Tales of Arabian Nights. You could make arguments that these games are, for one reason or another, not in the same category as regular board games, or even perhaps that they don't meet a strict definition of "game". I'm glad that they include this highly-social edge of the hobby, where sometime you just want to have a good time with friends.
jergarmar on
When I was a child, I had a fever... My BoardGameGeek profile
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yeah if people insist on sticking to games that someone can legitimately fully understand on a first playthrough its going to be a bunch of party games and hidden-role shit. That sounds horrible.
I'm exaggerating your position a bit here (I know you were responding more specifically), but we should separate "I understand how to play/progress the game" from "I understand how to win". I enjoy playing Puerto Rico, but I'm pretty terrible at it. I have friends who are WAY better than me, but as long as they are okay with me playing with them, I enjoy playing it too, because I understand what I can do on my turn, my options are inherently interesting, and the games aren't very long.
But certain games, like Dominant Species perhaps, can be very frustrating and bewildering for new players in a gaming group, as the rule set drags them over a cobblestone street paved with mechanisms and errata, or because the endgame crushes them and makes them feel like they played the whole game wrong. Or perhaps the game runs way long because the new players don't know how to push the game to completion.
I think that for many gaming groups, the more successful longer games are the ones that can be played at multiple levels, and so even if the game isn't top-tier everybody still has an okay time. Regardless of what one's opinion is about Terraforming Mars specifically, Arctic's "jerk opinion" is probably true about a lot of games, that the ones that "show off well" do better in most gaming groups. And that's probably as it should be? For a reviewer to a general audience, the amount of time spent not mastering but simply grasping the basic ideas of the game should be a valid point, even if after that point the game is superb.
So anyway, I'm just saying that it's valid for a reviewer to say, "It's a really good game, but I don't recommend it."
(EDIT: I really respect a game reviewer when he/she says that a particular game is one of their favorites, but that they don't recommend it. Reviewers should recommend what they like if that's their criteria, but I like it even better when a reviewer can identify and separate "what I like" from "what makes a good game", WHATEVER they define as "good".)
jergarmar on
When I was a child, I had a fever... My BoardGameGeek profile
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AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
My family judges the speed of a game based on the first time they play it, when they have to stop play every few minutes to clarify rules and figure out how it all works
just watched the SU&SD for War of the Ring and I think they did a good job of it. And I very much agree with the gist: it's an amazing, deep and interesting 2 player game (don't try with more, not worth it) but also one which is very long and which is almost certainly going to not go well the first time. Which is a pretty huge ask of people to sit through.
But some of the best games are like that. 1856 for example is just murder the first time you play. And that first game is going to be like 6 hours long. Or Dune. Fuck knows how many playthroughs it takes to really understand Dune (and no, that horrible knockoff Rex doesn't count). And, especially the first time, its just bewildering.
Oh also the incredible Roads & Boats (a Splotter game). Love it to death but the first time you play it is a bit overwhelming and especially the first time you play it really competitively (with the players really going cutthroat aggressive rather than just building in their own corner).
I swear every first game of Dune ever is everyone throwing away all of their spice on the first bidding round and then going “Emperor is OP” no matter how many times I tell them not to.
The instructions are very poorly translated and i do not understand how to play Skull
Everyone puts down one disc.
Players take turns in order playing down an additional disc (staggered so that your number of discs is visible) or starting an escalating bid. Once bidding starts, players must raise or pass.
Players are bidding on how many discs they think they can flip without hitting a skull.
The highest bidder when everyone else passes must first flip all of their discs (so if you win bid with a skull in your stack...) and then flip discs from the top of other players' stacks, one at a time:
If you succeed flipping, you turn over your mat to track one round win (you need 2 successes to win the game).
If you hit a skull, you lose a disc. If it's your own skull, you choose which of your discs you lose. If you hit another player's skull, then they randomly select the disc you lose. Either way it goes in the box face down.
The secret disc loss means other players don't immediately know if you still have a skull or not.
Semi-randomly playing cards and walking through a round can help everyone get the gist real quick. There's some fun bluffing to do playing chicken with someone on who is going to flip the most.
I tend to explain Skull as "you can either play a disk or (if everyone has at least one disk in front of them) you can start the bidding". Then I do a practice round and explain the rules as they come up.
You are bidding for the number of disks you can flip without flipping a skull. Whoever bets the highest amount must attempt to flip that many cards without flipping a skull. You must flip all of your disks before you can flip the other players' disks, but you can flip the other players' disks in any order. If you flip a skull, the player whose skull you flipped takes one of your cards and places it in the centre of the table WITHOUT LOOKING AT IT (this one is often missed by new players). If you flipped your own skull you choose which disk you lose. If you don't flip a skull, you get a point, first to two points wins. The player whose skull was flipped starts a new round, if a player won a bet, they start a new round.
I think that's everything. The rest of the game comes out in the interaction of the players.
The important thing to remember about Skull is that just because you start the bidding doesn't mean you have to actually end the bidding. It's just when someone raises the bid and then everyone has passed that that person has to flip.
So part of the bluffing comes from making a bid to flip when you actually don't want to flip, in order to push people into making larger bids.
Started playing a practice game of Supply Lines of the American Revolution against myself to get the rules squared away in my head.
This is one of those deceptively simple games. 12 page of rules, few components.
But 100% one of those games where the strategic implications of retreading a single sentence in the rulebook can completely change your assessment of the board state and thus your plans.
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WACriminalDying Is Easy, Young ManLiving Is HarderRegistered Userregular
Oh, one last note about escape rooms:
When I worked as an attendant at one, we had a group come in one night from a few states over. This was, like, what they did for fun -- they drove around and tried different escape games. They were very, very good at puzzle-solving, as you'd expect. Organized, knowledgeable about general puzzle/code techniques, good at communication.
The best part of watching them, though, was that they had a special code phrase they used to get each other's attention. If any of the 8 of them had an important question, discovery, or observation, they shouted the code phrase and the other 7 would immediately go silent and orient themselves to the speaker.
Day one of Wellycon was full of new games for me. Concordia, Tzolkin, Notre Dame, Dimension, Sagrada and Compounded.
Concordia ands Tzolkin have gone on the “to buy” list. I’d play Notre Dame and Sagrada again, but don’t need to own them. Dimensions was ok, but my wife and I are too evenly matched, better as a puzzle than a game. Compounded was a miss for me.
As feared we walked away owning Fog of Love, and the Hogwarts expansion. Oh well.
yeah if people insist on sticking to games that someone can legitimately fully understand on a first playthrough its going to be a bunch of party games and hidden-role shit. That sounds horrible.
I think you’re massively skimming past a huge middle ground here. Catan, Carcassone, Ticket to Ride, Waterdeep, Ethnos etc. All quite simple and easy to grasp rules mechanisms. And not coincidentally, often perpetually popular and commercially successful.
Started playing a practice game of Supply Lines of the American Revolution against myself to get the rules squared away in my head.
This is one of those deceptively simple games. 12 page of rules, few components.
But 100% one of those games where the strategic implications of retreading a single sentence in the rulebook can completely change your assessment of the board state and thus your plans.
are you playing the first one or the new southern theater one? i keep almost buying that game because i think it looks awesome, even though realistically i would be buying to play solo as both sides (not having a dedicated partner for that type of game).
Currently teaching myself the first one, though I had my friends pick me up the 2nd Southern one using dealer dollars a week ago, just haven’t had a chance to see them yet.
It’s alright solitaire. But I see it being really fun against another person and will hopefully get to test that tomorrow.
I always forget this threads bizarrely intense hatred of Catan until it comes up.
But then I remember that half of the people here have groups that refuse to engage in the game’s core mechanic for whatever reason.
The trading game where no one trades.
I will say the last time I played Catan I did more trades than I probably had in every game prior. And it did make it a much better experience. We also were playing Seafarers, which I also think improves upon it as well. My only complaint in that game was that playing with 4 leads to someone getting trapped, though they did attempt a last minute side of the map sea route that almost paid off, but it still kept them in last place. 3 is probably the ideal number, and 4 should probably play on the 5-6 player map.
Yeah, the idea of not trading in Catan always blows my mind because it directly correlates with winning.
Some groups can't get over that trading can help someone else win. And they can build everything by themselves anyways once they get enough cards and then they throw half of their hand away because of the robber and the game goes on forever. Also this should have come in the box.
no hidden information made it look at least doable solo, though obviously it would be better with a partner to do a deep dive on it with.
It’s definitely doable solo.
But just front my messing around it seems like a key part of the game is going to be stuff like getting someone to commit supplies to the wrong front and then severing their lines which is hard to do playing solo.
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ArcticLancerBest served chilled.Registered Userregular
Oh right - I played Decrypto last night. Honestly, loved it~ But didn't pick it up because we just never have the people around to play it. Still, it's a great café game for me, and if anyone else has a decent 4-8 person group that would enjoy a codenames-like deduction game, I definitely recommend you check it out~
Oh right - I played Decrypto last night. Honestly, loved it~ But didn't pick it up because we just never have the people around to play it. Still, it's a great café game for me, and if anyone else has a decent 4-8 person group that would enjoy a codenames-like deduction game, I definitely recommend you check it out~
Yeah that was a neat twist on the Codenames style of play. Only played it once, 2 on 2, but it was fun.
Ever since my 3rd or so game of Gaia Project I average ~150 points a game basically no matter what. I gotta level up my game! It's typically enough for second, which isn't the worst, but still.
WearingglassesOf the friendly neighborhood varietyRegistered Userregular
Never actually got the hang of good haggling in Catan. The group I get to play with rarely wants to trade unless it's significantly in their favor, moreso if I'm ahead of them.
What are some concrete examples of trading that gets people to bite?
Never actually got the hang of good haggling in Catan. The group I get to play with rarely wants to trade unless it's significantly in their favor, moreso if I'm ahead of them.
What are some concrete examples of trading that gets people to bite?
1:1 trades are like the bread and butter of that game. 1 sheep for 1 wood, things like that.
1:1 trades are great. You get stronger. One other person gets stronger in equal measure to you. The rest of the table stays the same. Huge win for you.
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Mojo_JojoWe are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourseRegistered Userregular
The issue there is that two people both having a card the other needs is pretty rare. So most attempted trading boils down to multiple useless cards in exchange for the only bricks on the table. Which the hand limit and ports disincentivise.
Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
A few new games and a few repeats today. The new was Stuffed Fables, The Grimm Forrest, Bunny Kingdom and Pillars of the Earth.
Of those the only one I’d be interested in playing against would be Stuffed Fables. It’s better than Mice and Mystics in almost every way.
Grimm Forrest is ridiculously over produced, the game isn’t great, but it is super pretty.
Bunny Kingdom was OK, not my sort of game in general I think.
The way turn order works in Pillars was interesting, but I don’t think I’ll be hunting it out.
Replayed Tzolkin and Sagrada. Tzolkin is definitely on the to buy list. Sagrada is a fine shorter game, but in the same time I could play Azul, and I like Roll Player better for a dice placement game.
Never actually got the hang of good haggling in Catan. The group I get to play with rarely wants to trade unless it's significantly in their favor, moreso if I'm ahead of them.
What are some concrete examples of trading that gets people to bite?
1:1 trades are like the bread and butter of that game. 1 sheep for 1 wood, things like that.
1:1 trades are great. You get stronger. One other person gets stronger in equal measure to you. The rest of the table stays the same. Huge win for you.
I don't know about your table, but trading with the guy in the lead is not a 'huge win for you'.
And then you're left trading with the people with few resources on account of them not being in the lead.
Posts
They have a fairly clear vision about what games they recommend, and honestly I'm pretty surprised that it made their "recommended" list, even if they personally liked the game. They are really picky about those longer games, just think of their review of Terraforming Mars! Certainly makes me want to play War of the Ring, even once.
And speaking of their "vision", I really appreciate SU&SD for also highlighting and recommending "pseudo-games", like The Mind, Escape From the Aliens in Outer Space, Decrypto, and Tales of Arabian Nights. You could make arguments that these games are, for one reason or another, not in the same category as regular board games, or even perhaps that they don't meet a strict definition of "game". I'm glad that they include this highly-social edge of the hobby, where sometime you just want to have a good time with friends.
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Battle.net: TheGerm#1430 (Hearthstone, Destiny 2)
I care if I feel like it had interesting ideas and mechanics and depths that I want to explore.
I'm exaggerating your position a bit here (I know you were responding more specifically), but we should separate "I understand how to play/progress the game" from "I understand how to win". I enjoy playing Puerto Rico, but I'm pretty terrible at it. I have friends who are WAY better than me, but as long as they are okay with me playing with them, I enjoy playing it too, because I understand what I can do on my turn, my options are inherently interesting, and the games aren't very long.
But certain games, like Dominant Species perhaps, can be very frustrating and bewildering for new players in a gaming group, as the rule set drags them over a cobblestone street paved with mechanisms and errata, or because the endgame crushes them and makes them feel like they played the whole game wrong. Or perhaps the game runs way long because the new players don't know how to push the game to completion.
I think that for many gaming groups, the more successful longer games are the ones that can be played at multiple levels, and so even if the game isn't top-tier everybody still has an okay time. Regardless of what one's opinion is about Terraforming Mars specifically, Arctic's "jerk opinion" is probably true about a lot of games, that the ones that "show off well" do better in most gaming groups. And that's probably as it should be? For a reviewer to a general audience, the amount of time spent not mastering but simply grasping the basic ideas of the game should be a valid point, even if after that point the game is superb.
So anyway, I'm just saying that it's valid for a reviewer to say, "It's a really good game, but I don't recommend it."
(EDIT: I really respect a game reviewer when he/she says that a particular game is one of their favorites, but that they don't recommend it. Reviewers should recommend what they like if that's their criteria, but I like it even better when a reviewer can identify and separate "what I like" from "what makes a good game", WHATEVER they define as "good".)
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It’s terrible
But some of the best games are like that. 1856 for example is just murder the first time you play. And that first game is going to be like 6 hours long. Or Dune. Fuck knows how many playthroughs it takes to really understand Dune (and no, that horrible knockoff Rex doesn't count). And, especially the first time, its just bewildering.
Oh also the incredible Roads & Boats (a Splotter game). Love it to death but the first time you play it is a bit overwhelming and especially the first time you play it really competitively (with the players really going cutthroat aggressive rather than just building in their own corner).
The instructions are very poorly translated and i do not understand how to play Skull
Everyone puts down one disc.
Players take turns in order playing down an additional disc (staggered so that your number of discs is visible) or starting an escalating bid. Once bidding starts, players must raise or pass.
Players are bidding on how many discs they think they can flip without hitting a skull.
The highest bidder when everyone else passes must first flip all of their discs (so if you win bid with a skull in your stack...) and then flip discs from the top of other players' stacks, one at a time:
If you succeed flipping, you turn over your mat to track one round win (you need 2 successes to win the game).
If you hit a skull, you lose a disc. If it's your own skull, you choose which of your discs you lose. If you hit another player's skull, then they randomly select the disc you lose. Either way it goes in the box face down.
The secret disc loss means other players don't immediately know if you still have a skull or not.
Semi-randomly playing cards and walking through a round can help everyone get the gist real quick. There's some fun bluffing to do playing chicken with someone on who is going to flip the most.
You are bidding for the number of disks you can flip without flipping a skull. Whoever bets the highest amount must attempt to flip that many cards without flipping a skull. You must flip all of your disks before you can flip the other players' disks, but you can flip the other players' disks in any order. If you flip a skull, the player whose skull you flipped takes one of your cards and places it in the centre of the table WITHOUT LOOKING AT IT (this one is often missed by new players). If you flipped your own skull you choose which disk you lose. If you don't flip a skull, you get a point, first to two points wins. The player whose skull was flipped starts a new round, if a player won a bet, they start a new round.
I think that's everything. The rest of the game comes out in the interaction of the players.
So part of the bluffing comes from making a bid to flip when you actually don't want to flip, in order to push people into making larger bids.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
We just immediately put down our entire stacks and start bluffing.
Which is not balanced for turn order but it was still great
This is one of those deceptively simple games. 12 page of rules, few components.
But 100% one of those games where the strategic implications of retreading a single sentence in the rulebook can completely change your assessment of the board state and thus your plans.
When I worked as an attendant at one, we had a group come in one night from a few states over. This was, like, what they did for fun -- they drove around and tried different escape games. They were very, very good at puzzle-solving, as you'd expect. Organized, knowledgeable about general puzzle/code techniques, good at communication.
The best part of watching them, though, was that they had a special code phrase they used to get each other's attention. If any of the 8 of them had an important question, discovery, or observation, they shouted the code phrase and the other 7 would immediately go silent and orient themselves to the speaker.
That code phrase?
Concordia ands Tzolkin have gone on the “to buy” list. I’d play Notre Dame and Sagrada again, but don’t need to own them. Dimensions was ok, but my wife and I are too evenly matched, better as a puzzle than a game. Compounded was a miss for me.
As feared we walked away owning Fog of Love, and the Hogwarts expansion. Oh well.
Looking forward to day 2.
I think you’re massively skimming past a huge middle ground here. Catan, Carcassone, Ticket to Ride, Waterdeep, Ethnos etc. All quite simple and easy to grasp rules mechanisms. And not coincidentally, often perpetually popular and commercially successful.
I'm entirely serious saying that game is worse than Monopoly.
I don't like Catan a lot either, but like, come on man. Hyperbole much?
Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
Everyone's entitled to a game they irrationally dislike.
Mine's Sheriff of Nottingham, for example.
Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
But then I remember that half of the people here have groups that refuse to engage in the game’s core mechanic for whatever reason.
are you playing the first one or the new southern theater one? i keep almost buying that game because i think it looks awesome, even though realistically i would be buying to play solo as both sides (not having a dedicated partner for that type of game).
It’s alright solitaire. But I see it being really fun against another person and will hopefully get to test that tomorrow.
The trading game where no one trades.
I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.
Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.
I will say the last time I played Catan I did more trades than I probably had in every game prior. And it did make it a much better experience. We also were playing Seafarers, which I also think improves upon it as well. My only complaint in that game was that playing with 4 leads to someone getting trapped, though they did attempt a last minute side of the map sea route that almost paid off, but it still kept them in last place. 3 is probably the ideal number, and 4 should probably play on the 5-6 player map.
Wow, I bet you can get some great slashfic out of that.
Some groups can't get over that trading can help someone else win. And they can build everything by themselves anyways once they get enough cards and then they throw half of their hand away because of the robber and the game goes on forever. Also this should have come in the box.
It’s definitely doable solo.
But just front my messing around it seems like a key part of the game is going to be stuff like getting someone to commit supplies to the wrong front and then severing their lines which is hard to do playing solo.
Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
Yeah that was a neat twist on the Codenames style of play. Only played it once, 2 on 2, but it was fun.
What are some concrete examples of trading that gets people to bite?
1:1 trades are like the bread and butter of that game. 1 sheep for 1 wood, things like that.
1:1 trades are great. You get stronger. One other person gets stronger in equal measure to you. The rest of the table stays the same. Huge win for you.
A few new games and a few repeats today. The new was Stuffed Fables, The Grimm Forrest, Bunny Kingdom and Pillars of the Earth.
Of those the only one I’d be interested in playing against would be Stuffed Fables. It’s better than Mice and Mystics in almost every way.
Grimm Forrest is ridiculously over produced, the game isn’t great, but it is super pretty.
Bunny Kingdom was OK, not my sort of game in general I think.
The way turn order works in Pillars was interesting, but I don’t think I’ll be hunting it out.
Replayed Tzolkin and Sagrada. Tzolkin is definitely on the to buy list. Sagrada is a fine shorter game, but in the same time I could play Azul, and I like Roll Player better for a dice placement game.
I don't know about your table, but trading with the guy in the lead is not a 'huge win for you'.
And then you're left trading with the people with few resources on account of them not being in the lead.