Reminds me of detective:a crime story (or was it chronicles of crime) ? Where the app does it all but the cards have qr codes and you have to earn them by entering info in the app.
I have no one to play this with for now, but I knew I had to have this game. I'm going to show the original Clank to two of my good friends to see if they get a kick out of it and would be willing to try the legacy concept.
My ex-gf adores Clank but she lives in another state. If anything she might play it with her family, and I'm all for it.
Clank is easily the game I've played the most these past few years. It's just so utterly perfect; the only deckbuilder I'll ever need. And if you're worried about That Player who rushes to the 5-piece, just house rule it out!
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jergarmarhollow man crewgoes pew pew pewRegistered Userregular
I have no one to play this with for now, but I knew I had to have this game. I'm going to show the original Clank to two of my good friends to see if they get a kick out of it and would be willing to try the legacy concept.
My ex-gf adores Clank but she lives in another state. If anything she might play it with her family, and I'm all for it.
Clank is easily the game I've played the most these past few years. It's just so utterly perfect; the only deckbuilder I'll ever need. And if you're worried about That Player who rushes to the 5-piece, just house rule it out!
I feel like it's strange that the game bounced off me. I played Clank: Space at a convention, and it was fun enough, I liked the board well enough, but the card interactions left me cold and I have NO idea why. Maybe not enough interaction between the players, compared to interactions with "the board"? Is that an experience anyone else has had? Anyway, I'm all ears for "try it this way instead".
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I have no one to play this with for now, but I knew I had to have this game. I'm going to show the original Clank to two of my good friends to see if they get a kick out of it and would be willing to try the legacy concept.
My ex-gf adores Clank but she lives in another state. If anything she might play it with her family, and I'm all for it.
Clank is easily the game I've played the most these past few years. It's just so utterly perfect; the only deckbuilder I'll ever need. And if you're worried about That Player who rushes to the 5-piece, just house rule it out!
I feel like it's strange that the game bounced off me. I played Clank: Space at a convention, and it was fun enough, I liked the board well enough, but the card interactions left me cold and I have NO idea why. Maybe not enough interaction between the players, compared to interactions with "the board"? Is that an experience anyone else has had? Anyway, I'm all ears for "try it this way instead".
The In Space game does in fact have a lame theme and more difficult and situational card synergies.
The first Clank's expansion, Sunken Treasures, made the game perfect by adding lots and lots of base cards that have discard effects, giving players more opportunities to turn their Clank/garbage cards into insane combos.
First play of Villainous with the lady went super well (and our first games of just about anything are usually not great). She picked Ursula who I was a little leery of because her win conditions aren't the simplest of the lot but it was never a problem. BGG seems to like to call it multiplayer solitaire but that wasn't our experience, we were both playing lots of fate and condition cards against each other the whole time. Really enjoyed it and looking forward to trying out all of the other characters.
1 on 1 feels ideal for Villanous due to the Fate mechanic. I want to try a multiplayer variant where everyone gets hit by an action but can only be hit once until their next turn; I feel that would help reduce the problems I have with the otherwise enjoyable game.
1 on 1 feels ideal for Villanous due to the Fate mechanic. I want to try a multiplayer variant where everyone gets hit by an action but can only be hit once until their next turn; I feel that would help reduce the problems I have with the otherwise enjoyable game.
I wonder how that would affect player decisions if you were playing with max count. Maybe it affects the players on either side of you vs everyone? That might scale better if you played with more people. I dunno, it's been a while since I've played it though so maybe I'm missing something on it.
1 on 1 feels ideal for Villanous due to the Fate mechanic. I want to try a multiplayer variant where everyone gets hit by an action but can only be hit once until their next turn; I feel that would help reduce the problems I have with the otherwise enjoyable game.
I wonder how that would affect player decisions if you were playing with max count. Maybe it affects the players on either side of you vs everyone? That might scale better if you played with more people. I dunno, it's been a while since I've played it though so maybe I'm missing something on it.
Like... in a 4p game Player 1 Fates everyone. Player 2's shield falls off and if they Fate they only hit P1. Then P3's shield falls and if they Fate 1 and 2 get hit (assuming 2 didn't Fate 1 already). Etc.
It's not that different from the 5+ player "not twice" rule that already exists (to keep one player from getting dogpiled) except it applies to everyone at once.
38thDoelets never be stupid againwait lets always be stupid foreverRegistered Userregular
I donβt think villainous is a multiplayer solitaire itβs more of a take that game. Also multiplayer solitaire is a silly complaint against a lot of great euros.
1 on 1 feels ideal for Villanous due to the Fate mechanic. I want to try a multiplayer variant where everyone gets hit by an action but can only be hit once until their next turn; I feel that would help reduce the problems I have with the otherwise enjoyable game.
I wonder how that would affect player decisions if you were playing with max count. Maybe it affects the players on either side of you vs everyone? That might scale better if you played with more people. I dunno, it's been a while since I've played it though so maybe I'm missing something on it.
Like... in a 4p game Player 1 Fates everyone. Player 2's shield falls off and if they Fate they only hit P1. Then P3's shield falls and if they Fate 1 and 2 get hit (assuming 2 didn't Fate 1 already). Etc.
It's not that different from the 5+ player "not twice" rule that already exists (to keep one player from getting dogpiled) except it applies to everyone at once.
Yeah, I get what you're saying, and I don't entirely think it's bad. But essentially in your scenario player 1's fate action was inherently better than player 2's (assuming they both do it) just due to how many people it would affect. So I just wonder if it would go into peoples decisions on what to do if my fate action will only affect 1 player this time since the person before me just did it. If you only impact the people next to you, it possibly opens that up a little more in that line of thinking, but you could still run into the same issue of course.
Of course as I think more on that, if you only affect the people next to you, and you really need to fate a specific person that isn't next to you to slow them down you'd just be out of luck. So that's probably a no go option anyways.
I donβt think villainous is a multiplayer solitaire itβs more of a take that game. Also multiplayer solitaire is a silly complaint against a lot of great euros.
I think it's also a legitimate complaint against a lot of mediocre euros. ;P
Villainous already has, at higher player counts, a mechanism that prevents someone getting fate'd twice in a row.
Right, and I mentioned that. What it doesn't have is a way to Fate more than one opponent, forcing you to prioritize targets instead of setting everyone back mostly-equally. Or anything for 3-4p.
Holy crap, the FFG Upcoming page just got a massive overhaul to actually be useful. The "boats" are dead, and there's now basically two statuses: "In Production" and "Shipping Now."
More importantly, they have labeled everything with a projected release date. For instance, we now know when the Marvel packs will start coming out.
So Green Goblin in January, Captain America in Feb, Ms. Marvel in March, and Wrecking Crew in April.
COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
I donβt think villainous is a multiplayer solitaire itβs more of a take that game. Also multiplayer solitaire is a silly complaint against a lot of great euros.
I think it's also a legitimate complaint against a lot of mediocre euros. ;P
I agree that Terraforming Mars is mediocre but its apparently the 3rd best game ever made so clearly my opinions are wrong.
ArcticLancerBest served chilled.Registered Userregular
Terraforming Mars is this decade's Catan. It brings people into the hobby and will be wildly popular for a long time. But we'll look back on it in 10 years with a degree of nostalgia and disdain, and people will wonder why there were so many bloody expansions for it. :P
WearingglassesOf the friendly neighborhood varietyRegistered Userregular
Went overboard (as one is wont when on a trip abroad) and got the following stuff:
- Maskmen, the trick game from Oink where the suits are ranked dynamically, with luchadors!
- the 6-7 expansion of the first 5-player version of Bohnanza, featuring... jobs!
- Celestia's expansion "A Little Initiative", where you can split off into your own dinky mini-boat, with blackjack and hookers!
- A shit ton of the new KMC Hyper Mattes for me and my friends (since they're hella cheaper than at home, Spirit Island expansion needs some new clothes)
And I haven't even reached Saturday yet for the Game Market.
I've got a christmas present for my brother who's going to Japan for Christmas Sushi Go Party. I've actually had it on my to-buy list for him for years as he likes sushi. It just so happens that he's also going to Japan. But because I'd been planning this gift for years (usually forgetting to order it in time for christmas and knocking it back for "next year" again and again) i was uncertain if I'd already bought it for him or not. So as back up I got Deep Sea Adventure, a Japanese microgame, as a kind of riff on his own Japan adventure.
While waiting for SGP to turn up I've played a few rounds of DSA and boy it is fun. The aim of the game is to dive and recover treasure. The deeper you go the bigger the reward. But... you all share the same tank of oxygen. First time we all died. Second time we all died. Last time only one made it back. Its brutal fun because you're constantly pushing your own luck to screw everyone else. Usually you end up picking up trash just to make the oxygen go down faster, but too much and you can be stuck one square from home, unable to roll high enough to overcome the pile of treasure you're dragging back to the sub.
Luckilly my brother has confirmed that I have not given him SGP so i get to keep DSA. I'm not sure what i would have done if i had needed to part with it.
Ive only played two player games so far. I have no clue how higher numbers of players change the game. Is it easier? Harder? I am excited to find out.
Also, same company that publishes SGP also published Rat a Tat Cat, a favourite of my childhood. No clue how it was meant to be played but i loved the artwork as a kid. So it was neat to be reminded of it as i flipped through the little booklet that came with SGP.
Terraforming Mars is this decade's Catan. It brings people into the hobby and will be wildly popular for a long time. But we'll look back on it in 10 years with a degree of nostalgia and disdain, and people will wonder why there were so many bloody expansions for it. :P
Has it really? I still see neophytes playing Catan at meetups. I never see anyone but the usual card/euro game players breaking out TM.
Either way, I'm confidant calling it the most overrated game of the decade.
Which is not to say either is bad but that the theme of TM and the art of Scythe carried people's imaginations further than the gameplay. And sometimes thats all you need.
I know that i totally bought into TM because of the theme. I was playing cards that were essentially +1 green or +2 blue. But in my mind i was bombarding the planet with comets and forresting the wasteland. Thats fairly unusual for me, usually the game quickly turns into numbers but the hook of terraforming mars stuck in my imagination and didnt let go.
Edit- whatever game is the most overrated of the decade, it has gotta be a kickstarter.
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ArcticLancerBest served chilled.Registered Userregular
It definitely does not. Lots of Kickstarter projects are well funded and hyped, but get critically panned on delivery. Wingspan, by comparison, drove people to pay two to three times the retail price for an entirely average, largely solitaire (see, Doe, here we are again ) engine builder because of pretty art and theme. It's not a bad game, but it was far more overrated than any Kickstarter I can currently think of ...
38thDoelets never be stupid againwait lets always be stupid foreverRegistered Userregular
I know this wasn't the aim but I'm going to go through the 2019 games I played this year.
Glen More II: Chronicles (2019) - This is really fun and after two plays I put one on order. Longer post on it Tuki (2019) - This is a block stacking game and it is really fun. I generally hate this genre and am terrible at it, but this one lets you make mistakes and knock your structure down without losing. Its also kind of a puzzle to figure out how to make the shape. I wouldn't mind picking this one up. SHΕBU (2019) - This is a very abstract little 2 player strategy game. Pretty fun but you feel any differences in skill level. Felt chess-like to me. I was able to get in two games of this during the rules explanation for Feast for Odin one day. I was going to make this myself and then I learned of the existence of Acorn Weevils. Wife was not pleased with lots of little grubs in the house. OOPS! Wingspan (2019) - Yeah this isn't a bad game, but it is a bit too random for me to really want to play it. Very beautiful game though. Village Pillage (2019) - This is kind of a Rock Paper Scissors card game where you can upgrade your rock paper scissors. Its fine. At larger player counts it suffers from being unable to affect players farther away from you. It has simultaneous play which is nice. Watergate (2019) - This is another fun little two player game. Card Driven Game like Twilight Struggle (or so I'm told) but it only takes about a half hour. This is pretty fun. Second Chance (2019) - This is a tetris game where you are trying to fit as many shapes as possible into a grid. The scoring is very odd though. Not bad but not my favorite of the Uwe Tetris games. Unmatched: Battle of Legends, Volume One (2019) - This is another 2 player game where you move minis around and play cards at each other to try and reduce the other person's life to zero. Lots of maneuvering and hoping you have the right cards. There are a ton of these. The one I played Sinbad vs King Arthur was obnoxious because King Arthur and Merlin can just run and ranged attack for ever. Sinbad's thing is drawing and discarding cards to power up other cards, but suffers from the fact that you just take a ton of damage on every card draw when your deck is empty. Call to Adventure (2019) - The dice in this game have only two sides! This is a very simple D&D based tableau builder. Probably good for people new to the hobby?
I think the only two 2019 games I've played were Tiny Towns (pretty fun, think my wife would like it) and Tussie Mussie (small I split you choose card game, fun little 2p filter, pretty art). My interest in new release games is at an all time low.
ArcticLancerBest served chilled.Registered Userregular
edited November 2019
Oh man, things like this always make me need to figure out when games actually released instead of when it seemed like they did ...
If Tiny Towns was indeed a 2019 release, it's pretty good. We've still only played it using the cards instead of 'master builder picks', but it's been generally delightful (minus one game where I made #TheMistake and was out of the game on like turn 20 - that sucked, but it was very much my fault). I still don't want to own it, but that game is excellent for spending a little time where - despite actually being solitaire, you all get to share in the misery and joy of what resource you're forced to play next, and the slowly closing noose on your towns.
I've been vocal about Parks. Just play it. GOTY.
I've been recently vocal about Pipeline. It's fine.
The experience we had with Horrified was incredibly underwhelming, but it has seemed to be a very divisive game. Love it or hate it affair.
I'm pretty keen on getting more, as previously posted I've already got Deep Sea Adventure and I've also got Tomatomato, which is a silly tongue twister game. I don't even care if the games are good at this point, I just want all of the cute boxes. But DSA has definitely put my expectations up.
Pax Pamir and horrified, forgot about those. PP is real real good if you have the group for it. Horrified is fine.
I got to try Horrified while I was out in Seattle for Flying Frog Productions' "Dice Fest" event, and had a blast. We were on limited time, so we only fought 2 monsters instead of 3, and it was an absolute blast. Fairly simple/straightforward, and something that I'm pondering bringing to my usual group at some point.
The conversation earlier about Clank! reminded me that I've been pondering that one as well. I'd heard that Clank! in space was an ideal form of the game from some, but this 'original plus an expansion' is valuable information as well. The Acquisitions Incorporated edition caught my eye, but my usual crew continues to struggle to even get together for games, let alone adding too many new ones into the mix.
I'm super excited to add a pile of pics to this thread in a week and a half, as I'm going to be running a massive game of Shadows of Brimstone with my friends. They've been playing these characters for dozens of adventures across the last 4-5 years, though occasionally with massive gaps, so we're going to retire them after one last delve; a Mega Man style 'boss rush', with them having to defeat, well, basically a dozen bosses in a row. I've finally got them all painted, and plan to enhance the map tiles with my Dwarven Forge terrain tiles, as I have in the past, but it has been a while since I dedicated an evening to setting up a full fledged pre-built 3D map like this.
The plan after that (win or lose) is to set up a new group of adventurers, and start off with the Forbidden Fortress/feudal Japan themed setting and enemies (though the players won't be restricted to those specific classes, there's like 30 of them in the game and maybe half a dozen have seen use so far, so I'm excited to see new ones hit the table, of any sort). Building the figures for that setting has gone pretty smoothly, but that's always the case; a few days of off and on building. Priming a pile in one go isn't a huge deal. Painting them up will take months, if not years.
Hopefully I can convince the crew to come by with offers of beer and pizza to help me put a dent in the backlog over a few nights. Especially since the content from the original Kickstarter/ensuing content are only about 60% painted, and this new wave adds about 180 more figures to the mix (though I'm not worried about every hero being painted if only a few are being used, that shaves a good 15-20 figures off that, err, figure).
And then sometime next year the third Kickstarter is supposed to deliver...
At this point, I kind of might be sort of happy if that one sees a delay of a quarter or two. It's not like we're lacking for content or stuff to do here. (I'm fully aware that this is a Magic Pink'ian nightmare of my own creation)
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
Which is not to say either is bad but that the theme of TM and the art of Scythe carried people's imaginations further than the gameplay. And sometimes thats all you need.
I know that i totally bought into TM because of the theme. I was playing cards that were essentially +1 green or +2 blue. But in my mind i was bombarding the planet with comets and forresting the wasteland. Thats fairly unusual for me, usually the game quickly turns into numbers but the hook of terraforming mars stuck in my imagination and didnt let go.
Edit- whatever game is the most overrated of the decade, it has gotta be a kickstarter.
At least Gloomhaven was ambitious in bringing something new, and VAST to the table. While it's been rated #1 for a while, I never see people play it outside of homes. Unlike TM, which I see constantly everywhere.
And unlike Gloomhaven, the only thing TM brought to the table was "What if we came up with a coherent theme to Race for the Galaxy, but then stripped out most of the strategy and interactivity then made the whole thing take 4 times as long with a billion fiddly looses components?"
Which is not to say either is bad but that the theme of TM and the art of Scythe carried people's imaginations further than the gameplay. And sometimes thats all you need.
I know that i totally bought into TM because of the theme. I was playing cards that were essentially +1 green or +2 blue. But in my mind i was bombarding the planet with comets and forresting the wasteland. Thats fairly unusual for me, usually the game quickly turns into numbers but the hook of terraforming mars stuck in my imagination and didnt let go.
Edit- whatever game is the most overrated of the decade, it has gotta be a kickstarter.
At least Gloomhaven was ambitious in bringing something new, and VAST to the table. While it's been rated #1 for a while, I never see people play it outside of homes. Unlike TM, which I see constantly everywhere.
TBF playing GH outside of a private home runs the risk of spoiling things for potential future players.
I'm pretty keen on getting more, as previously posted I've already got Deep Sea Adventure and I've also got Tomatomato, which is a silly tongue twister game. I don't even care if the games are good at this point, I just want all of the cute boxes. But DSA has definitely put my expectations up.
DSA is very good! Everyone I've shown it to loved it and several have also purchased it. They had it at target last time I checked. I'm confused that SUSD apparently bounced off it so hard. Its a great quick push your luck and they seem to enjoy other push your luck games. Very fun at high player counts because its hard to wrap your mind around just how fast that 25 oxygen becomes 3 and you are too deep too deep. Finally you miss your role by one and you'll never make it back but you are in the perfect place for a friend to step on your face to survive.
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I have no one to play this with for now, but I knew I had to have this game. I'm going to show the original Clank to two of my good friends to see if they get a kick out of it and would be willing to try the legacy concept.
My ex-gf adores Clank but she lives in another state. If anything she might play it with her family, and I'm all for it.
Clank is easily the game I've played the most these past few years. It's just so utterly perfect; the only deckbuilder I'll ever need. And if you're worried about That Player who rushes to the 5-piece, just house rule it out!
I feel like it's strange that the game bounced off me. I played Clank: Space at a convention, and it was fun enough, I liked the board well enough, but the card interactions left me cold and I have NO idea why. Maybe not enough interaction between the players, compared to interactions with "the board"? Is that an experience anyone else has had? Anyway, I'm all ears for "try it this way instead".
My BoardGameGeek profile
Battle.net: TheGerm#1430 (Hearthstone, Destiny 2)
The In Space game does in fact have a lame theme and more difficult and situational card synergies.
The first Clank's expansion, Sunken Treasures, made the game perfect by adding lots and lots of base cards that have discard effects, giving players more opportunities to turn their Clank/garbage cards into insane combos.
The entire sector was talking about that jump.
Insert your favorite frustration meme here.
I wonder how that would affect player decisions if you were playing with max count. Maybe it affects the players on either side of you vs everyone? That might scale better if you played with more people. I dunno, it's been a while since I've played it though so maybe I'm missing something on it.
Steam ID
Like... in a 4p game Player 1 Fates everyone. Player 2's shield falls off and if they Fate they only hit P1. Then P3's shield falls and if they Fate 1 and 2 get hit (assuming 2 didn't Fate 1 already). Etc.
It's not that different from the 5+ player "not twice" rule that already exists (to keep one player from getting dogpiled) except it applies to everyone at once.
Yeah, I get what you're saying, and I don't entirely think it's bad. But essentially in your scenario player 1's fate action was inherently better than player 2's (assuming they both do it) just due to how many people it would affect. So I just wonder if it would go into peoples decisions on what to do if my fate action will only affect 1 player this time since the person before me just did it. If you only impact the people next to you, it possibly opens that up a little more in that line of thinking, but you could still run into the same issue of course.
Of course as I think more on that, if you only affect the people next to you, and you really need to fate a specific person that isn't next to you to slow them down you'd just be out of luck. So that's probably a no go option anyways.
Steam ID
Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
Right, and I mentioned that. What it doesn't have is a way to Fate more than one opponent, forcing you to prioritize targets instead of setting everyone back mostly-equally. Or anything for 3-4p.
More importantly, they have labeled everything with a projected release date. For instance, we now know when the Marvel packs will start coming out.
So Green Goblin in January, Captain America in Feb, Ms. Marvel in March, and Wrecking Crew in April.
COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
Selling Board Games for Medical Bills
So did mine! Along with suddenly 7 other huge games MY HOUSE MY POOR HOUSE
Also Dreamscape finally shipped. I am excited like blazes for that.
Still no Street Masters tho.
I agree that Terraforming Mars is mediocre but its apparently the 3rd best game ever made so clearly my opinions are wrong.
Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
- Maskmen, the trick game from Oink where the suits are ranked dynamically, with luchadors!
- the 6-7 expansion of the first 5-player version of Bohnanza, featuring... jobs!
- Celestia's expansion "A Little Initiative", where you can split off into your own dinky mini-boat, with blackjack and hookers!
- A shit ton of the new KMC Hyper Mattes for me and my friends (since they're hella cheaper than at home, Spirit Island expansion needs some new clothes)
And I haven't even reached Saturday yet for the Game Market.
While waiting for SGP to turn up I've played a few rounds of DSA and boy it is fun. The aim of the game is to dive and recover treasure. The deeper you go the bigger the reward. But... you all share the same tank of oxygen. First time we all died. Second time we all died. Last time only one made it back. Its brutal fun because you're constantly pushing your own luck to screw everyone else. Usually you end up picking up trash just to make the oxygen go down faster, but too much and you can be stuck one square from home, unable to roll high enough to overcome the pile of treasure you're dragging back to the sub.
Luckilly my brother has confirmed that I have not given him SGP so i get to keep DSA. I'm not sure what i would have done if i had needed to part with it.
Ive only played two player games so far. I have no clue how higher numbers of players change the game. Is it easier? Harder? I am excited to find out.
Also, same company that publishes SGP also published Rat a Tat Cat, a favourite of my childhood. No clue how it was meant to be played but i loved the artwork as a kid. So it was neat to be reminded of it as i flipped through the little booklet that came with SGP.
Has it really? I still see neophytes playing Catan at meetups. I never see anyone but the usual card/euro game players breaking out TM.
Either way, I'm confidant calling it the most overrated game of the decade.
Which is not to say either is bad but that the theme of TM and the art of Scythe carried people's imaginations further than the gameplay. And sometimes thats all you need.
I know that i totally bought into TM because of the theme. I was playing cards that were essentially +1 green or +2 blue. But in my mind i was bombarding the planet with comets and forresting the wasteland. Thats fairly unusual for me, usually the game quickly turns into numbers but the hook of terraforming mars stuck in my imagination and didnt let go.
Edit- whatever game is the most overrated of the decade, it has gotta be a kickstarter.
Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
don't at me
Seriously, enjoy the games you enjoy, people. Subjectivity is what it is.
Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
Glen More II: Chronicles (2019) - This is really fun and after two plays I put one on order. Longer post on it
Tuki (2019) - This is a block stacking game and it is really fun. I generally hate this genre and am terrible at it, but this one lets you make mistakes and knock your structure down without losing. Its also kind of a puzzle to figure out how to make the shape. I wouldn't mind picking this one up.
SHΕBU (2019) - This is a very abstract little 2 player strategy game. Pretty fun but you feel any differences in skill level. Felt chess-like to me. I was able to get in two games of this during the rules explanation for Feast for Odin one day. I was going to make this myself and then I learned of the existence of Acorn Weevils. Wife was not pleased with lots of little grubs in the house. OOPS!
Wingspan (2019) - Yeah this isn't a bad game, but it is a bit too random for me to really want to play it. Very beautiful game though.
Village Pillage (2019) - This is kind of a Rock Paper Scissors card game where you can upgrade your rock paper scissors. Its fine. At larger player counts it suffers from being unable to affect players farther away from you. It has simultaneous play which is nice.
Watergate (2019) - This is another fun little two player game. Card Driven Game like Twilight Struggle (or so I'm told) but it only takes about a half hour. This is pretty fun.
Second Chance (2019) - This is a tetris game where you are trying to fit as many shapes as possible into a grid. The scoring is very odd though. Not bad but not my favorite of the Uwe Tetris games.
Unmatched: Battle of Legends, Volume One (2019) - This is another 2 player game where you move minis around and play cards at each other to try and reduce the other person's life to zero. Lots of maneuvering and hoping you have the right cards. There are a ton of these. The one I played Sinbad vs King Arthur was obnoxious because King Arthur and Merlin can just run and ranged attack for ever. Sinbad's thing is drawing and discarding cards to power up other cards, but suffers from the fact that you just take a ton of damage on every card draw when your deck is empty.
Call to Adventure (2019) - The dice in this game have only two sides! This is a very simple D&D based tableau builder. Probably good for people new to the hobby?
If Tiny Towns was indeed a 2019 release, it's pretty good. We've still only played it using the cards instead of 'master builder picks', but it's been generally delightful (minus one game where I made #TheMistake and was out of the game on like turn 20 - that sucked, but it was very much my fault). I still don't want to own it, but that game is excellent for spending a little time where - despite actually being solitaire, you all get to share in the misery and joy of what resource you're forced to play next, and the slowly closing noose on your towns.
I've been vocal about Parks. Just play it. GOTY.
I've been recently vocal about Pipeline. It's fine.
The experience we had with Horrified was incredibly underwhelming, but it has seemed to be a very divisive game. Love it or hate it affair.
What other big games came out this year?
Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
I'm pretty keen on getting more, as previously posted I've already got Deep Sea Adventure and I've also got Tomatomato, which is a silly tongue twister game. I don't even care if the games are good at this point, I just want all of the cute boxes. But DSA has definitely put my expectations up.
I got to try Horrified while I was out in Seattle for Flying Frog Productions' "Dice Fest" event, and had a blast. We were on limited time, so we only fought 2 monsters instead of 3, and it was an absolute blast. Fairly simple/straightforward, and something that I'm pondering bringing to my usual group at some point.
The conversation earlier about Clank! reminded me that I've been pondering that one as well. I'd heard that Clank! in space was an ideal form of the game from some, but this 'original plus an expansion' is valuable information as well. The Acquisitions Incorporated edition caught my eye, but my usual crew continues to struggle to even get together for games, let alone adding too many new ones into the mix.
I'm super excited to add a pile of pics to this thread in a week and a half, as I'm going to be running a massive game of Shadows of Brimstone with my friends. They've been playing these characters for dozens of adventures across the last 4-5 years, though occasionally with massive gaps, so we're going to retire them after one last delve; a Mega Man style 'boss rush', with them having to defeat, well, basically a dozen bosses in a row. I've finally got them all painted, and plan to enhance the map tiles with my Dwarven Forge terrain tiles, as I have in the past, but it has been a while since I dedicated an evening to setting up a full fledged pre-built 3D map like this.
The plan after that (win or lose) is to set up a new group of adventurers, and start off with the Forbidden Fortress/feudal Japan themed setting and enemies (though the players won't be restricted to those specific classes, there's like 30 of them in the game and maybe half a dozen have seen use so far, so I'm excited to see new ones hit the table, of any sort). Building the figures for that setting has gone pretty smoothly, but that's always the case; a few days of off and on building. Priming a pile in one go isn't a huge deal. Painting them up will take months, if not years.
Hopefully I can convince the crew to come by with offers of beer and pizza to help me put a dent in the backlog over a few nights. Especially since the content from the original Kickstarter/ensuing content are only about 60% painted, and this new wave adds about 180 more figures to the mix (though I'm not worried about every hero being painted if only a few are being used, that shaves a good 15-20 figures off that, err, figure).
And then sometime next year the third Kickstarter is supposed to deliver...
At this point, I kind of might be sort of happy if that one sees a delay of a quarter or two. It's not like we're lacking for content or stuff to do here. (I'm fully aware that this is a Magic Pink'ian nightmare of my own creation)
At least Gloomhaven was ambitious in bringing something new, and VAST to the table. While it's been rated #1 for a while, I never see people play it outside of homes. Unlike TM, which I see constantly everywhere.
And unlike Gloomhaven, the only thing TM brought to the table was "What if we came up with a coherent theme to Race for the Galaxy, but then stripped out most of the strategy and interactivity then made the whole thing take 4 times as long with a billion fiddly looses components?"
TBF playing GH outside of a private home runs the risk of spoiling things for potential future players.
DSA is very good! Everyone I've shown it to loved it and several have also purchased it. They had it at target last time I checked. I'm confused that SUSD apparently bounced off it so hard. Its a great quick push your luck and they seem to enjoy other push your luck games. Very fun at high player counts because its hard to wrap your mind around just how fast that 25 oxygen becomes 3 and you are too deep too deep. Finally you miss your role by one and you'll never make it back but you are in the perfect place for a friend to step on your face to survive.