The wife and I had date night yesterday and tried out KeyForge at our FLGS. Interesting game for sure. Weird playing a game without mana costs for cards and having no face to hit.
I lost the game, but we realized at the end that we screwed up the first turn rule as the wife dumped 4 creatures on turn 1. Kind of put me behind all game.
Great game, but I’m not sure I’d want to go down the random deck rabbit hole. Sounds super expensive, even though I appreciate the lack of deck building.
Need a voice actor? Hire me at bengrayVO.com
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051 Steam ID Twitch Page
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AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
The wife and I had date night yesterday and tried out KeyForge at our FLGS. Interesting game for sure. Weird playing a game without mana costs for cards and having no face to hit.
I lost the game, but we realized at the end that we screwed up the first turn rule as the wife dumped 4 creatures on turn 1. Kind of put me behind all game.
Great game, but I’m not sure I’d want to go down the random deck rabbit hole. Sounds super expensive, even though I appreciate the lack of deck building.
I bought like 7 decks for the original release, and then just the starter for the second set (as it was essentially 2 decks + better tokens). If you have self control, it's not that bad.
Though I don't have any decks that I feel warrant the premium deck box - which is a shame, because it is pretty.
The wife and I had date night yesterday and tried out KeyForge at our FLGS. Interesting game for sure. Weird playing a game without mana costs for cards and having no face to hit.
I lost the game, but we realized at the end that we screwed up the first turn rule as the wife dumped 4 creatures on turn 1. Kind of put me behind all game.
Great game, but I’m not sure I’d want to go down the random deck rabbit hole. Sounds super expensive, even though I appreciate the lack of deck building.
I bought like 7 decks for the original release, and then just the starter for the second set (as it was essentially 2 decks + better tokens). If you have self control, it's not that bad.
Though I don't have any decks that I feel warrant the premium deck box - which is a shame, because it is pretty.
I bought a bunch of random decks, and they all had the damn Alien faction in them. I'm scared to by any more for fear my luck will fuck me again.
Xbox Live, PSN & Origin: Vacorsis 3DS: 2638-0037-166
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AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
The wife and I had date night yesterday and tried out KeyForge at our FLGS. Interesting game for sure. Weird playing a game without mana costs for cards and having no face to hit.
I lost the game, but we realized at the end that we screwed up the first turn rule as the wife dumped 4 creatures on turn 1. Kind of put me behind all game.
Great game, but I’m not sure I’d want to go down the random deck rabbit hole. Sounds super expensive, even though I appreciate the lack of deck building.
I bought like 7 decks for the original release, and then just the starter for the second set (as it was essentially 2 decks + better tokens). If you have self control, it's not that bad.
Though I don't have any decks that I feel warrant the premium deck box - which is a shame, because it is pretty.
I bought a bunch of random decks, and they all had the damn Alien faction in them. I'm scared to by any more for fear my luck will fuck me again.
If it helps, they won't have the Mars faction in the next set...
So I just tried my first game of Volfyirion that I ks backed and it seems neat, adding the slight territory aspects and building a tableau of permanents with your 3 cities to the basic deckbuilder
Otoh our first game ended when I rushed knowledge points to move the dragon to my opponents cities 3 times when they were unable to move it back (which is just auto destroy their city and cards on that city if they can't move it back) so I'm unclear on how balanced it is or if that was just a glass cannon strategy I only got away with because neither of us knew what was happening.
I know im pretty late to the party, but I finally opened my Rising Sun Kickstarter last week. (I've had a bunch for my group to play, its been sitting on my table for 6 months). I'm super impressed with the quality of the kickstarter upgrades. Played our first game this weekend. Even with learning factored in, its a much longer game than expected, but we had a pretty good time with it. The decision process when betting is more complex than I expected.
One of our players was super overanalyzing what was being done, and it was funny how much he thought he was getting the dropo on someone who had a much more simpler plan in mind.
Stercus, Stercus, Stercus, Morituri Sum
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KetarCome on upstairswe're having a partyRegistered Userregular
Reason #4 to run away from a game demo at a convention: "This game is so new we don't even have a rulebook for it yet" regarding a super overdeveloped board with hundreds of pieces on or around it.
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admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
Reason #4 to run away from a game demo at a convention: "This game is so new we don't even have a rulebook for it yet" regarding a super overdeveloped board with hundreds of pieces on or around it.
Also a good reason to run away from a Kickstarter game.
Reason #4 to run away from a game demo at a convention: "This game is so new we don't even have a rulebook for it yet" regarding a super overdeveloped board with hundreds of pieces on or around it.
I just sprung for the promo packs stuff from scythe's old Kickstarter because my broken token organizer has been taunting me with using the individual faction dials as each faction lid and my money tray had slots for the $2 and $50 and the rest of my coins are cool metal
Reason #4 to run away from a game demo at a convention: "This game is so new we don't even have a rulebook for it yet" regarding a super overdeveloped board with hundreds of pieces on or around it.
The wife and I had date night yesterday and tried out KeyForge at our FLGS. Interesting game for sure. Weird playing a game without mana costs for cards and having no face to hit.
I lost the game, but we realized at the end that we screwed up the first turn rule as the wife dumped 4 creatures on turn 1. Kind of put me behind all game.
Great game, but I’m not sure I’d want to go down the random deck rabbit hole. Sounds super expensive, even though I appreciate the lack of deck building.
My experience has been that the first set was a bit problematic in regards to deck hunting. Certain factions (Mars) hadn't really been properly playtested when the game launched - Certain other factions had cards that were broken. My suspicion is that the initial success was unexpected.
One of the most interesting ideas built in to Keyforge is the deck power feedback loop; decks that win a lot in competitive play incur handicaps. So in theory, randomized deck power level shouldn't matter quite so much.
For the first set, this didn't quite work out until some errata got published.
The second set is lightyears ahead of the first in terms of deck balance, but it seems like the torch has passed.
The concept is sound, the execution is sound, and I hope to see further iterations succeed.
Out of nowhere, Prospero Hall is becoming a lowkey favorite developer of mine. It's like they're a more family-friendly, approachable version of yesteryear's FFG, making beautifully illustrated, mechanically interesting games out of kind of off-beat properties. The wife and I stopped at Target to pick up the new Villainous expansion and ended up impulse buying Horrified, a game neither of us realized was by the same people until we brought it home.
Horrified is a Universal Monsters licensed game where the players team up to fend off a gang of classic movie monsters. Our first game we went up against the Creature from the Black Lagoon, Dracula, and the Invisible Man. It plays out a bit like a better, more thematic Witch of Salem (itself a streamlined Arkham Horror with no storytelling), with a bit of Pandemic dashed in. You run around a town filled with various locations reminiscent of different places in the various classic Universal horror movies, trying to grab items to defend yourself, and trying to guide villagers out of danger by moving them around the board, trying to shuffle them to safety. Each Monster has its own mat containing a bit of a mini game that you need to complete in order to open them up to being fought directly, each using the various kinds of items you can find in different ways. One player may be trying to find different specific scientific instruments necessary to concoct a cure to Lycanthropy to turn the Wolfman human, while another player is hunting down religious artifacts which allow them to play a sliding-tile game in order to decipher the Mummy's curse, and at the same time, a third player may need both of those kinds of items to teach Frankenstein's Monster and the Bride how to be human, so that when they meet each other, they walk off into the sunset to live together peacefully, instead of being driven into a rage when the appearance of their would-be spouse reminds them of their monstrous nature.
It's fun, pretty light, plays smoothly and is filled with simple but flavorful rules and events that make you go "hey that's neat, it's just like this thing from the movies." Abbot and Costello even show up in a few cards, which made my wife very happy. Like Villainous and Jaws, Horrified is great at remaining approachable enough for beginners, while still providing an experience like the more complicated games that it takes inspiration from (and, importantly, being different enough from those games that it doesn't feel like its simply aping them)
Also, while the minis for the monsters are merely serviceable, the illustrated artwork is gorgeous (even if noticeably missing the likenesses of Lugosi, Karloff, Chaney, and Lanchester):
I'm really surprised GenCon doesn't offer some kind of locker rentals. It's the perfect venue for people to be dropping off heavy items throughout the day, and some kind of storage solution would surely turn a profit.
GNU Terry Pratchett
PSN: Wstfgl | GamerTag: An Evil Plan | Battle.net: FallenIdle#1970
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I'm really surprised GenCon doesn't offer some kind of locker rentals. It's the perfect venue for people to be dropping off heavy items throughout the day, and some kind of storage solution would surely turn a profit.
If memory serves the ICC actually used to have lockers like that. They seemed to have disappeared when they did their big remodeling and renovations years ago.
Honestly I was thinking about taking advantage of the ShipNaked company’s deal to just ship things to myself.
COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
I just received my Kickstarters of Trogdor, Throw Throw Burrito, and Bargain Quest. I also got the Game of Thrones play mat, and threw the game and Mother of Dragons expansion into an MDF box insert...
But I don't know which one to play first. Clearly Game of Thrones will be more of a production to both organize and actually play, so I'll probably get the others to the table first. Anyone have opinions if they've played them before?
Thought you all might appreciate this. My friend makes drawings of nerd culture stained glass window. Stuff like StarCraft, Dr. Who, My Little Pony, and so forth.
Her latest was KeyForge. Check it out:
She sells prints in her Etsy store which are meant to be displayed on windows with the light popping the colors.
MNC Dover on
Need a voice actor? Hire me at bengrayVO.com
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051 Steam ID Twitch Page
Currently her store is down since she's working in Japan (as an Art Director at Universal Studios?!), but she mentioned that if she can get Kinkos in the US to use a specific paper type, she'll open up her store again. So yeah, it's a possibility! Save her store link and I'll keep y'all in the loop when she opens it again. As a bonus, here's a few more examples of the other stuff she's done:
Need a voice actor? Hire me at bengrayVO.com
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051 Steam ID Twitch Page
I had more booth time than browsing time, but the hits for me were:
Letter Jam: This year's party game from CGE. It is a spelling-style word game (as opposed to a clue-style word game like Codenames) and is a cooperative deduction exercise. More complex to grasp than Codenames or Decrypto, but excellent for an audience that's willing to tackle that level of game.
Time Chase: A trick-taking card game with time travel. You can travel to a past trick to play more cards to it and change its winner. Best at higher player counts.
Mental Blocks: A cooperative communication game. Players try to build a structure using different pieces of information (2D side views, or isometric but colorless views) and other restrictions. Hilarious. Optional hidden traitor mode once you get good at it.
Hats: A "cards with numbers" game that feels something like Lost Cities or Parade. Fairly simple rules but non-obvious strategy. Gorgeous production for the price.
Cat Café: A dice-drafting roll and write. Short and simple, but hard choices.
Push: Despite a production that looks like Uno or Phase 10, it is very solid. Push your luck card play, with some "take that" and the option to be conservative or aggressive. Will be great with more casual gamers.
Nine Tiles Panic: A new Oink release, and much better than their old Nine Tiles. The production is predictably great, and there is a lot of variety and replayability in a tiny box. If you like real-time puzzles be sure to check this one out.
Penny Lane: From the designer of Mint Works, and much the same gameplay but beefed up with a large deck of buildings with neat combos, and a spatial puzzle aspect on top.
Sushi Roll: The dice version of Sushi Go. It is more innovative than Sushi Go, and a great production, but I won't be purchasing it because I just don't see it hitting the table as often as Sushi Go; it's a little more complicated, restricted to 5 players unlike Sushi Go Party, and turn-based rather than simultaneous. Still, I would not turn down a game if offered by someone else who owns it.
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KetarCome on upstairswe're having a partyRegistered Userregular
Given... everything else going on this week/weekend, I haven't been paying a ton of attention.
I became the first person in the history of the Legendary Drunk Ass Party over at the Ram Brewery to win the main tournament both nights - Friday and Saturday - somehow demonstrating a dominance in the realm of drinking games that I don't believe remotely reflects reality.
But I guess that makes me a winner of GenCon :P Also someone who needs to step back and examine the choices in their life that brought them to this point.
Ketar on
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jergarmarhollow man crewgoes pew pew pewRegistered Userregular
The recent talk about Keyforge made me play some more over the weekend.
It's a quirky game, but it grows on you. The core resource game is clever, and a good base for combos. I've amassed like 6 or 7 decks, several bought at 50 - 75% price on eBay. Good amount of variety. The discovery of the "right" way to play a deck is pretty fun, and then it's fun to see certain people magically pulling better results out of certain kinds of decks. And very importantly, the games usually end in a clear, decisive way.
I play a lot with my 7-year-old, and every time he draws cards his little mind is just blown. "Dad, my cards are amazing." I think that kind of captures the kind of giddy fun it is to learn a deck on it's own, then learn it against another unfamiliar deck, then against your well-known decks.
However, one unexpected barrier to playing more: how do you guys keep track of your different decks? Sometimes I want to play a certain kind of game, or pit two decks against each other, but I'll be blowed if I can figure out how to find the deck I'm looking for. Sometimes I just go, "eh", and play something where I know how the game will go.
On an unrelated note except I also played it this weekend, got some Baseball Highlights 2045. I had not heard a lot about this game, but it gets quite good reviews on BGG. It's fun, and I'm learning it, but I'm puzzled why the average rating is so high, and yet the apparent popularity is so low. I guess a niche market? People who really like baseball and board games? The sub-4000-vote category of BGG has always been a bit wacky, I guess.
When I was a child, I had a fever... My BoardGameGeek profile
Battle.net: TheGerm#1430 (Hearthstone, Destiny 2)
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ChaosHatHop, hop, hop, HA!Trick of the lightRegistered Userregular
So! I got some early birthday presents. My FLGS was running it's celebration of gaming sale where you roll a D20 and get that % off your purchases so I wanted to get in on that.
I got Century: New World and Isle of Skye. Century: New World has been billed to me as the best one in the trilogy and I already own Spice Road so I got that. Also apparently 1 and 3 make the best of the combined games?
Isle of Skye I've only heard good things about and it seemed right up our alley. I played one game of it with the wife and it seems like it loses a lot at two players. Basically one of your tiles will definitely be bought and you can really manipulate that. Also you just see so many fewer tiles and sometimes you just don't get to compete on the scoring this round! I think it will definitely be fun at higher player counts but I do feel a little burned on it.
Medium - Fun, simple party game that's a ton of fun to play. Pick two cards, try to sync with your partner on the best word to connect them. Repeat. Feels like the next Just One.
Sanctum - Incomplete rules and partial demo, but feels like a really good take on Diablo as board game. Felip Neduk's game Adrenaline was a good translation of FPS to a Euro board game, and this feels to me like another hit.
Letter Jam - Really clever, novel word deduction game. That's a really specific niche, but I had a ton of fun with this.
Finger Guns at High Noon - So goofy. So silly. Point your fingers at other players. Throw dynamite. Shout a lot. Don't let the ghosts get you. This shouldn't be as fun as it somehow always is.
City of the Big Shoulders - Heavy Euro that's designed to be a bridge to the 18xx genre, which to date I've never tried. Because it's scary. This seemed like something I'd really enjoy playing though.
Aegean Sea - God this is a weird one. Early beta only, but it's Carl Chudyk doing what Carl Chudyk does with the most insane ruleset, and cards that can be used in about a billion ways. I don't KNOW if this is one I'd want to stick with but for some reason it's the one I keep thinking about.
Era - An evolution of Roll Through the Ages by Matt Leacock. I love the additional spatial puzzle, and the minor interaction feels fun for something that's otherwise fairly roll and write-ish.
Cartographers - Speaking of roll and writes, I've not played Welcome to Dino World yet, but this was a really refreshing, fast spatial puzzle version, with some fun interaction - you get to draw monsters on OTHER PLAYERS' sheets, which could really mess them up, and give them negative points.
Eternal: Chronicles of the Throne - Deck building (not deck construction) card dueler struck me as a really novel idea - the reality is closer to Star Realms than I was anticipating, but the way you set up attacks that can be blocked on your opponent's next turn was pretty neat. And it does have a lot of the MTG-vein card interaction and combo-ing that I like.
God of War: The Card Game - Has no right to not be complete garbage, but is somehow a decent co-op card game with a really clever base system. 10 unconnected scenarios, and five boxes in the box that are quite short and I CAN'T IMAGINE will hold up to repeat play. Felt a little like it was too easy and somewhat playing itself, but I was entertained.
Nine Tiles Panic - The newest Oink (in a somewhat bigger box) is really easy to explain, a game lasts five minutes, but is really fun, chaotic, 3x3 tile laying where you're competing on objectives with identical tiles. Cute and fun.
Losers:
MegaCity: Oceania - Any promise of this being a strategy/dexterity hybrid is perhaps ... undercooked. It's a beautiful looking game of stacking plastic pieces to make buildings and hoping they don't fall over, but the idea got old fairly quickly.
Potemkin Empire - A bluffing/engine game where the bluffing is entirely superfluous. There's no information to call anyone on, so it's more about guessing what buildings people are lying about. And without that, you're left with a very simple, uninspired euro engine game.
Wakanda Forever - Great production, and some really neat ideas, but the game boils down to being good at rolling dice. Some minor press your luck to mitigate, but I didn't see this being fun enough to justify its lavish production.
Silver - Bezier's newest Werewolf themed game, is a overproduced version of the card game Golf, with roles that enter and exit play in a way that seems impossible to strategize around. Maybe it'd be a fun light filler, but it just didn't leave a strong impression.
We played a fair # of games -- and bought some new ones -- but the only new game we got played at Gen Con was Reavers of Midgard. Which has nice production values, but suffered from a rule book that needs more work and was a bit too fiddly in parts for our gang's taste. Thought it had some solid ideas and some depth to explore though.
I'd play again but don't feel a need to own. One of the guys at the table wrote it off 2/3 of the way through, and it was too heavy for another, so likely that'll be my only play.
Did get to play a round of Cthulu Wars in Lucas Oil Saturday night, which was a blast.
We played a fair # of games -- and bought some new ones -- but the only new game we got played at Gen Con was Reavers of Midgard. Which has nice production values, but suffered from a rule book that needs more work and was a bit too fiddly in parts for our gang's taste. Thought it had some solid ideas and some depth to explore though.
I'd play again but don't feel a need to own. One of the guys at the table wrote it off 2/3 of the way through, and it was too heavy for another, so likely that'll be my only play.
Did get to play a round of Cthulu Wars in Lucas Oil Saturday night, which was a blast.
I was pretty excited about this one as someone finally doing a Puerto Rico without the original theme but I hadn't followed up on it since their Kickstarter so that's a little disappointing to hear. I liked champions well enough but it does suffer from fiddly bits a little as well
CaptainPeacockBoard Game HoarderTop o' the LakeRegistered Userregular
There are a lot of good games with troublesome themes that could really do with a good reskin or slight retooling to make them more acceptable. I wish this were a higher priority for some publishers.
Cluck cluck, gibber gibber, my old man's a mushroom, etc.
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ArcticLancerBest served chilled.Registered Userregular
Consider that Manitoba was published ... last year? Lots of publishers are ignorant or worse; forget them being progressive at all.
We played a fair # of games -- and bought
I was pretty excited about this one as someone finally doing a Puerto Rico without the original theme but I hadn't followed up on it since their Kickstarter so that's a little disappointing to hear. I liked champions well enough but it does suffer from fiddly bits a little as well
If you want new improved Puerto Rico go but New Frontiers asap. It is exactly that, and it's great.
We played a fair # of games -- and bought
I was pretty excited about this one as someone finally doing a Puerto Rico without the original theme but I hadn't followed up on it since their Kickstarter so that's a little disappointing to hear. I liked champions well enough but it does suffer from fiddly bits a little as well
If you want new improved Puerto Rico go but New Frontiers asap. It is exactly that, and it's great.
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I lost the game, but we realized at the end that we screwed up the first turn rule as the wife dumped 4 creatures on turn 1. Kind of put me behind all game.
Great game, but I’m not sure I’d want to go down the random deck rabbit hole. Sounds super expensive, even though I appreciate the lack of deck building.
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051
Steam ID
Twitch Page
I bought like 7 decks for the original release, and then just the starter for the second set (as it was essentially 2 decks + better tokens). If you have self control, it's not that bad.
Though I don't have any decks that I feel warrant the premium deck box - which is a shame, because it is pretty.
It's a solid game? It's really fun to play.
I bought a bunch of random decks, and they all had the damn Alien faction in them. I'm scared to by any more for fear my luck will fuck me again.
If it helps, they won't have the Mars faction in the next set...
Otoh our first game ended when I rushed knowledge points to move the dragon to my opponents cities 3 times when they were unable to move it back (which is just auto destroy their city and cards on that city if they can't move it back) so I'm unclear on how balanced it is or if that was just a glass cannon strategy I only got away with because neither of us knew what was happening.
One of our players was super overanalyzing what was being done, and it was funny how much he thought he was getting the dropo on someone who had a much more simpler plan in mind.
Also a good reason to run away from a Kickstarter game.
Let's talk about reasons 1 to 3
We don't talk about those. Not here.
My experience has been that the first set was a bit problematic in regards to deck hunting. Certain factions (Mars) hadn't really been properly playtested when the game launched - Certain other factions had cards that were broken. My suspicion is that the initial success was unexpected.
One of the most interesting ideas built in to Keyforge is the deck power feedback loop; decks that win a lot in competitive play incur handicaps. So in theory, randomized deck power level shouldn't matter quite so much.
For the first set, this didn't quite work out until some errata got published.
The second set is lightyears ahead of the first in terms of deck balance, but it seems like the torch has passed.
The concept is sound, the execution is sound, and I hope to see further iterations succeed.
Horrified is a Universal Monsters licensed game where the players team up to fend off a gang of classic movie monsters. Our first game we went up against the Creature from the Black Lagoon, Dracula, and the Invisible Man. It plays out a bit like a better, more thematic Witch of Salem (itself a streamlined Arkham Horror with no storytelling), with a bit of Pandemic dashed in. You run around a town filled with various locations reminiscent of different places in the various classic Universal horror movies, trying to grab items to defend yourself, and trying to guide villagers out of danger by moving them around the board, trying to shuffle them to safety. Each Monster has its own mat containing a bit of a mini game that you need to complete in order to open them up to being fought directly, each using the various kinds of items you can find in different ways. One player may be trying to find different specific scientific instruments necessary to concoct a cure to Lycanthropy to turn the Wolfman human, while another player is hunting down religious artifacts which allow them to play a sliding-tile game in order to decipher the Mummy's curse, and at the same time, a third player may need both of those kinds of items to teach Frankenstein's Monster and the Bride how to be human, so that when they meet each other, they walk off into the sunset to live together peacefully, instead of being driven into a rage when the appearance of their would-be spouse reminds them of their monstrous nature.
It's fun, pretty light, plays smoothly and is filled with simple but flavorful rules and events that make you go "hey that's neat, it's just like this thing from the movies." Abbot and Costello even show up in a few cards, which made my wife very happy. Like Villainous and Jaws, Horrified is great at remaining approachable enough for beginners, while still providing an experience like the more complicated games that it takes inspiration from (and, importantly, being different enough from those games that it doesn't feel like its simply aping them)
Also, while the minis for the monsters are merely serviceable, the illustrated artwork is gorgeous (even if noticeably missing the likenesses of Lugosi, Karloff, Chaney, and Lanchester):
COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
PSN: Wstfgl | GamerTag: An Evil Plan | Battle.net: FallenIdle#1970
Hit me up on BoardGameArena! User: Loaded D1
And CCGs are an utter salt mine.
If memory serves the ICC actually used to have lockers like that. They seemed to have disappeared when they did their big remodeling and renovations years ago.
Honestly I was thinking about taking advantage of the ShipNaked company’s deal to just ship things to myself.
COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
But I don't know which one to play first. Clearly Game of Thrones will be more of a production to both organize and actually play, so I'll probably get the others to the table first. Anyone have opinions if they've played them before?
Her latest was KeyForge. Check it out:
She sells prints in her Etsy store which are meant to be displayed on windows with the light popping the colors.
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051
Steam ID
Twitch Page
Given... everything else going on this week/weekend, I haven't been paying a ton of attention.
Currently her store is down since she's working in Japan (as an Art Director at Universal Studios?!), but she mentioned that if she can get Kinkos in the US to use a specific paper type, she'll open up her store again. So yeah, it's a possibility! Save her store link and I'll keep y'all in the loop when she opens it again. As a bonus, here's a few more examples of the other stuff she's done:
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051
Steam ID
Twitch Page
Letter Jam: This year's party game from CGE. It is a spelling-style word game (as opposed to a clue-style word game like Codenames) and is a cooperative deduction exercise. More complex to grasp than Codenames or Decrypto, but excellent for an audience that's willing to tackle that level of game.
Time Chase: A trick-taking card game with time travel. You can travel to a past trick to play more cards to it and change its winner. Best at higher player counts.
Mental Blocks: A cooperative communication game. Players try to build a structure using different pieces of information (2D side views, or isometric but colorless views) and other restrictions. Hilarious. Optional hidden traitor mode once you get good at it.
Hats: A "cards with numbers" game that feels something like Lost Cities or Parade. Fairly simple rules but non-obvious strategy. Gorgeous production for the price.
Cat Café: A dice-drafting roll and write. Short and simple, but hard choices.
Push: Despite a production that looks like Uno or Phase 10, it is very solid. Push your luck card play, with some "take that" and the option to be conservative or aggressive. Will be great with more casual gamers.
Nine Tiles Panic: A new Oink release, and much better than their old Nine Tiles. The production is predictably great, and there is a lot of variety and replayability in a tiny box. If you like real-time puzzles be sure to check this one out.
Penny Lane: From the designer of Mint Works, and much the same gameplay but beefed up with a large deck of buildings with neat combos, and a spatial puzzle aspect on top.
Sushi Roll: The dice version of Sushi Go. It is more innovative than Sushi Go, and a great production, but I won't be purchasing it because I just don't see it hitting the table as often as Sushi Go; it's a little more complicated, restricted to 5 players unlike Sushi Go Party, and turn-based rather than simultaneous. Still, I would not turn down a game if offered by someone else who owns it.
I became the first person in the history of the Legendary Drunk Ass Party over at the Ram Brewery to win the main tournament both nights - Friday and Saturday - somehow demonstrating a dominance in the realm of drinking games that I don't believe remotely reflects reality.
But I guess that makes me a winner of GenCon :P Also someone who needs to step back and examine the choices in their life that brought them to this point.
It's a quirky game, but it grows on you. The core resource game is clever, and a good base for combos. I've amassed like 6 or 7 decks, several bought at 50 - 75% price on eBay. Good amount of variety. The discovery of the "right" way to play a deck is pretty fun, and then it's fun to see certain people magically pulling better results out of certain kinds of decks. And very importantly, the games usually end in a clear, decisive way.
I play a lot with my 7-year-old, and every time he draws cards his little mind is just blown. "Dad, my cards are amazing." I think that kind of captures the kind of giddy fun it is to learn a deck on it's own, then learn it against another unfamiliar deck, then against your well-known decks.
However, one unexpected barrier to playing more: how do you guys keep track of your different decks? Sometimes I want to play a certain kind of game, or pit two decks against each other, but I'll be blowed if I can figure out how to find the deck I'm looking for. Sometimes I just go, "eh", and play something where I know how the game will go.
On an unrelated note except I also played it this weekend, got some Baseball Highlights 2045. I had not heard a lot about this game, but it gets quite good reviews on BGG. It's fun, and I'm learning it, but I'm puzzled why the average rating is so high, and yet the apparent popularity is so low. I guess a niche market? People who really like baseball and board games? The sub-4000-vote category of BGG has always been a bit wacky, I guess.
My BoardGameGeek profile
Battle.net: TheGerm#1430 (Hearthstone, Destiny 2)
I got Century: New World and Isle of Skye. Century: New World has been billed to me as the best one in the trilogy and I already own Spice Road so I got that. Also apparently 1 and 3 make the best of the combined games?
Isle of Skye I've only heard good things about and it seemed right up our alley. I played one game of it with the wife and it seems like it loses a lot at two players. Basically one of your tiles will definitely be bought and you can really manipulate that. Also you just see so many fewer tiles and sometimes you just don't get to compete on the scoring this round! I think it will definitely be fun at higher player counts but I do feel a little burned on it.
For me:
Winners:
Medium - Fun, simple party game that's a ton of fun to play. Pick two cards, try to sync with your partner on the best word to connect them. Repeat. Feels like the next Just One.
Sanctum - Incomplete rules and partial demo, but feels like a really good take on Diablo as board game. Felip Neduk's game Adrenaline was a good translation of FPS to a Euro board game, and this feels to me like another hit.
Letter Jam - Really clever, novel word deduction game. That's a really specific niche, but I had a ton of fun with this.
Finger Guns at High Noon - So goofy. So silly. Point your fingers at other players. Throw dynamite. Shout a lot. Don't let the ghosts get you. This shouldn't be as fun as it somehow always is.
City of the Big Shoulders - Heavy Euro that's designed to be a bridge to the 18xx genre, which to date I've never tried. Because it's scary. This seemed like something I'd really enjoy playing though.
Aegean Sea - God this is a weird one. Early beta only, but it's Carl Chudyk doing what Carl Chudyk does with the most insane ruleset, and cards that can be used in about a billion ways. I don't KNOW if this is one I'd want to stick with but for some reason it's the one I keep thinking about.
Era - An evolution of Roll Through the Ages by Matt Leacock. I love the additional spatial puzzle, and the minor interaction feels fun for something that's otherwise fairly roll and write-ish.
Cartographers - Speaking of roll and writes, I've not played Welcome to Dino World yet, but this was a really refreshing, fast spatial puzzle version, with some fun interaction - you get to draw monsters on OTHER PLAYERS' sheets, which could really mess them up, and give them negative points.
Eternal: Chronicles of the Throne - Deck building (not deck construction) card dueler struck me as a really novel idea - the reality is closer to Star Realms than I was anticipating, but the way you set up attacks that can be blocked on your opponent's next turn was pretty neat. And it does have a lot of the MTG-vein card interaction and combo-ing that I like.
God of War: The Card Game - Has no right to not be complete garbage, but is somehow a decent co-op card game with a really clever base system. 10 unconnected scenarios, and five boxes in the box that are quite short and I CAN'T IMAGINE will hold up to repeat play. Felt a little like it was too easy and somewhat playing itself, but I was entertained.
Nine Tiles Panic - The newest Oink (in a somewhat bigger box) is really easy to explain, a game lasts five minutes, but is really fun, chaotic, 3x3 tile laying where you're competing on objectives with identical tiles. Cute and fun.
Losers:
MegaCity: Oceania - Any promise of this being a strategy/dexterity hybrid is perhaps ... undercooked. It's a beautiful looking game of stacking plastic pieces to make buildings and hoping they don't fall over, but the idea got old fairly quickly.
Potemkin Empire - A bluffing/engine game where the bluffing is entirely superfluous. There's no information to call anyone on, so it's more about guessing what buildings people are lying about. And without that, you're left with a very simple, uninspired euro engine game.
Wakanda Forever - Great production, and some really neat ideas, but the game boils down to being good at rolling dice. Some minor press your luck to mitigate, but I didn't see this being fun enough to justify its lavish production.
Silver - Bezier's newest Werewolf themed game, is a overproduced version of the card game Golf, with roles that enter and exit play in a way that seems impossible to strategize around. Maybe it'd be a fun light filler, but it just didn't leave a strong impression.
I got basically nothing I wanted to do done and had 6 hours of driving to show for it
I'd play again but don't feel a need to own. One of the guys at the table wrote it off 2/3 of the way through, and it was too heavy for another, so likely that'll be my only play.
Did get to play a round of Cthulu Wars in Lucas Oil Saturday night, which was a blast.
I was pretty excited about this one as someone finally doing a Puerto Rico without the original theme but I hadn't followed up on it since their Kickstarter so that's a little disappointing to hear. I liked champions well enough but it does suffer from fiddly bits a little as well
Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
If you want new improved Puerto Rico go but New Frontiers asap. It is exactly that, and it's great.
oh interesting. will have to look at that