I just discovered Dice Thrones a little after a week since season two's campaign ended. I want to throw money at the screen, but it won't let me!
I've been looking for quick (30 minutes to an hour long) games that can be easily taught and played. The big, evening-destroying games are my jam, but my family may not appreciate them quite so much. And so I'm currently waiting for Quantum, Ethnos, and Santorini to arrive in the mail. I'm open to more suggestions!
How many players?
Typically two players, occasionally three
I do have Unearth and Tokaido. We've played those and they've been pretty big hits. I recently picked up The Fox in the Forest and Love Letter, as well. I'm hoping to get a game of the latter going sometime this weekend. I've only played it with two players thus far, and it's fun, but I can see it being much more enjoyable with at least three people.
My game plan this weekend is Viticulture, Dropmix, Forbidden Island, and Love Letter. Viticulture has drawn a lot of interest from my sister and her husband for the theme. I'm looking forward to sharing it. It's such a fantastic merger of theme and gameplay.
I need to go pick up some more sleeves for Quantum and Santorini before I introduce them to my sister's family. My niece is an existential threat to the components. I swear, sleeving cards is practically half the cost of my collection! I don't even want to think about how many more sleeves I need for Eldritch Horror and Runebound.
Dashui on
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I don't know who is interested in this, but Amazon currently has a deal where they are selling a Silhouette Portrait 2 Starter Bundle (About $140) for less than the price of a Silhouette Portrait 2 (usually around $160 on Amazon, MSRP $199). It's a paper/vinyl cutting tool similar to their Cameo line, but designed for smaller cuts on, say, A4 or letter sized paper. It's great for crafting your own board game components and getting perfect cuts on Print and Play materials.
I've been wanting one for a while, but they were usually 200 bucks+, so this is great news for me.
The wife and I busted out Pandemic Legacy 2 tonight. Just did the prologue game though so no actual story/legacy stuff has happened yet. Game plays similar to PL1, but different enough to be fresh. Crazy small play area though, which I'm sure will change as the game progresses.
We won our first game though, so there's a high point to start at.
Need a voice actor? Hire me at bengrayVO.com
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Custom SpecialI know I am, I'm sure I am,I'm Sounders 'til I die!Registered Userregular
Speaking of GameStop, I had a bunch of trade credit and they had a copy of Civilization: A New Dawn, so now I have that game because of poor impulse control. It looks neat, kinda gives me scythe vices from what I've seen. Looking forward to giving it a shot.
Speaking of GameStop, I had a bunch of trade credit and they had a copy of Civilization: A New Dawn, so now I have that game because of poor impulse control. It looks neat, kinda gives me scythe vices from what I've seen. Looking forward to giving it a shot.
It's a lot fun! You don't really end up with diverse civilizations like in meatier games such as Clash of Cultures, but A New Dawn moves and its card mechanics are really neat.
I've almost given in to poor impulse control over Zombicide: Black Plague. I want a miniature focused game like that where I explore rooms/tiles and fight monsters for experience and loot. It sounds like it may be worth waiting for Zombicide: Invader, however. The new game apparently removes a lot of the tedious elements of previous games and makes it faster to get on the table, too.
Dashui on
Xbox Live, PSN & Origin: Vacorsis 3DS: 2638-0037-166
I went to get some card sleeves and a family struck up a conversation with me about Pandemic. I now own Pandemic.
Naturally, I had to buy sleeves for it, too. But I didn't calculate for the reference cards and I'm one fucking sleeve short of sleeving everything. This is my worst nightmare.
Dashui on
Xbox Live, PSN & Origin: Vacorsis 3DS: 2638-0037-166
I went to get some card sleeves and a family struck up a conversation with me about Pandemic. I now own Pandemic.
Naturally, I had to buy sleeves for it, too. But I didn't calculate for the reference cards and I'm one fucking sleeve short of sleeving everything. This is my worst nightmare.
The good news is that you can leave one Epidemic card unsleeved until you want to hate yourself.
I went to get some card sleeves and a family struck up a conversation with me about Pandemic. I now own Pandemic.
Naturally, I had to buy sleeves for it, too. But I didn't calculate for the reference cards and I'm one fucking sleeve short of sleeving everything. This is my worst nightmare.
The good news is that you can leave one Epidemic card unsleeved until you want to hate yourself.
WearingglassesOf the friendly neighborhood varietyRegistered Userregular
What's the best way to handle mid-game dropouts for your medium/heavy games? Assume that the reason for the person leaving is something unforeseen (company databases caught fire and he has to handle shit, or their SO had an emergency and they need to get to them) and not just the person being shitty.
If you can't visualize it, for example let's pick Lords of Waterdeep, five players (before player five leaves), it's the start of round four, player five owns two buildings, and they're in third place, only a few points behind second place.
Id just have everyone else finish the game as normal. Keep the buildings out and any pawns he has out till the end of the round and then next play as normal but skip their actions. Sure the board would be different if there were only four players to start but from the sound of it its nobodies fault if he left and there's no reason you cant keep playing as long as everyone is having fun.
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CaptainPeacockBoard Game HoarderTop o' the LakeRegistered Userregular
Fog of Love is on its way! Delivery wednesday.
Cluck cluck, gibber gibber, my old man's a mushroom, etc.
What's the best way to handle mid-game dropouts for your medium/heavy games? Assume that the reason for the person leaving is something unforeseen (company databases caught fire and he has to handle shit, or their SO had an emergency and they need to get to them) and not just the person being shitty.
It depends on the game really. For something cooperative like Pandemic, the remaining players can vote on this player's actions or take turns taking that player's actions. In point salad games, you can just ignore their points. In something more competitive that contains resources, you can try drafting the resources with last place going first, but that gets rather messy. In a war or area control type game, you are basically screwed. The players that border the player that left have a distinct advantage.
We usually play with other couples, so when someone walks out, normally the spouse goes too (Damned childcare issues :x ). We have left the games on the table for a few days if they were really going well or just called it if someone was running away with it.
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Custom SpecialI know I am, I'm sure I am,I'm Sounders 'til I die!Registered Userregular
I brought Love Letter over to my sister's house as an appetizer game. We all ended up playing it for something like two and a half hours. Damn, that's a fun game in a small package. I should keep my eyes out for more games like that: small footprint, fast to teach, and addicting.
Dashui on
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CaptainPeacockBoard Game HoarderTop o' the LakeRegistered Userregular
There's a deluxe version of Love Letter that takes it up to like 8 or 10 players by basically doubling the number of roles.
Warning: don't attempt to play that with inexperienced Love Letter players. Some of the new cards are hard to grok for newbies, mostly on the strategy front.
Cluck cluck, gibber gibber, my old man's a mushroom, etc.
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WearingglassesOf the friendly neighborhood varietyRegistered Userregular
There's also Lovecraft Letter, which plays up to six and had an additional layer of going Insane, which gives you more powerful effect from some cards but at the same time makes you more vulnerable to getting KO'd outright due to insanity.
Has anyone played Welcome Back to the Dungeon? That one has caught my eye as another small-box game.
I think I may check out Lovecraft Letter, though. The theme looks great and I'm reading wonderful things about it. Does it work well with two players? I like having the option to play my games with just two players and still have a good time.
Dashui on
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CaptainPeacockBoard Game HoarderTop o' the LakeRegistered Userregular
Welcome to the Dungeon and the expansion Welcome Back are great. Ifnyouve never played, play without the expansion for a while until you are comfortable with the games mechanics.
Cluck cluck, gibber gibber, my old man's a mushroom, etc.
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Custom SpecialI know I am, I'm sure I am,I'm Sounders 'til I die!Registered Userregular
Has anyone played Welcome Back to the Dungeon? That one has caught my eye as another small-box game.
I think I may check out Lovecraft Letter, though. The theme looks great and I'm reading wonderful things about it.
I pretty much avoided Love Letter until Lovecraft Letter. It comes with themed sleeves for every card, poker chip round win counters, and (to me) much more interesting gameplay with the insanity addition. Some of the bonus insanity abilities are really fun.
Has anyone played Welcome Back to the Dungeon? That one has caught my eye as another small-box game.
I think I may check out Lovecraft Letter, though. The theme looks great and I'm reading wonderful things about it. Does it work well with two players? I like having the option to play my games with just two players and still have a good time.
Didn't see any 2-player impressions in the boardgamegeek text reviews for Lovecraft Letter, but I saw someone mention that 4-5 is the game's sweet spot (but they still play it with 2 players). Have not checked the video reviews, though.
I mostly played it with three people (myself included), which is the usual size for family night, but it was still a good time with two. I'm not seeing the same kind of opinions with Lovecraft Letter. As a collector's item, though, Lovecraft looks great. If I get it, I'd probably end up carting around both copies for varying player counts. I'm hoping for at least one other small game for two to three players to bring out during breaks or to serve as openers/closers.
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WearingglassesOf the friendly neighborhood varietyRegistered Userregular
Oh yeah, we got to play Dead of Winter: Warring Colonies last Saturday.
Or to be more accurate, they got to play it. I took one look at the setup, the amount of fiddly bits, and immediately realized I'm gonna need to facilitate it if we want the whole thing to move smooth and quick. My bro-in-law, who owns the game, hasn't figured out yet how to combine the base game and all the expansions in one box.
Seven players meant two teams of three, and a Lone Wolf. What mostly tripped them up was the adjustment to how a player turn went - all movements must happen first before actions could be done. This put a cramper on the Lone Wolf's style, because she was so used to the base game she made several mistakes and getting her people stuck on colonies in danger of getting overrun / conflict with the other players.
Ultimately, with the main victory condition being victorious on combat 4 times, nobody won, since people were too busy not dying and resolving crises. That, and the exposure die seemed a bit bite-y that night - The insta-kill face killed off as many people in that session as all of our previous play-throughs of the base game (one guy died during his first move even!)! Although, all in all, they enjoyed the experience (they like the feel of having an opposing team with the DoW gameplay) and would like to play again. I think I'd need to facilitate another game or two before being sure that we can handle everything smoothly without an arbiter.
Pros - Team based Dead of Winter for people who likes team conflicts and Dead of Winter Cons - a bit overwhelming the first time you play it. Downtime - not as much, I'm assuming, when you're all experienced with it, but on the first few games? Definitely.
Mojo_JojoWe are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourseRegistered Userregular
That sounds like it fixes the issues with Dead of Winter's traitor mechanic, which would be very welcome
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WearingglassesOf the friendly neighborhood varietyRegistered Userregular
It does, in a way - there's no hidden traitor now, as the other team is basically your enemy. There's also an elected colony leader who handles combat per round, and you can elect a new one at the end of each round. The two teams didn't really change leaders much, though, because the other team members of each team elected the same people every round, not wanting the hassle of being team lead.
That sounds like it fixes the issues with Dead of Winter's traitor mechanic, which would be very welcome
I know there's ways to abuse it, but I've had some pretty good game moments with vanilla DoW traitors. And I like the game well enough, but probably not well enough to buy an expansion that makes it more longer, fiddlier, and more complicated. I haven't heard many arguments that it drastically improves the game.
In my experience, vanilla Dead of Winter works best in the first few games. After that, some people want to try to game the mechanics, and/or don't get gripped by the narrative elements as strongly. But those first games are often fondly remembered for a long time. I'm curious if the expansion changes that at all.
When I was a child, I had a fever... My BoardGameGeek profile
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Tried Rising Sun this past weekend. Think Eric Lang has gone back to this well one too many times - the dominant feeling among everyone except the owner at the table was decidedly meh. From my POV, I thought it had too few actions and too few decisions relative to its playing time (a player will get 5-6 mandates (plus the expected amount from allies)) over 3 ages. I just didn't get to do enough to make me feel invested in the game.
Hm, the tightness of the actions (and how it necessitates convincing others to choose the actions you need) is one of the high points for me. You're also making big decisions on 3 of the 5 mandates, regardless of whose turn it is.
ArcticLancerBest served chilled.Registered Userregular
I'm curious what people have against the DoW traitor mechanics that they don't have against every other game in the genre? I actually think it's handled fairly well by comparison ...
I'm curious what people have against the DoW traitor mechanics that they don't have against every other game in the genre? I actually think it's handled fairly well by comparison ...
In my case it's less that there's a problem with the traitor mechanic than it is a problem with the Exile one, which leaves you only technically still playing in more cases than not.
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Oh, and just to echo @Ah_Pook, Knizia games are a really solid choice for this category. Ra might be the one I recommend the highest.
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Typically two players, occasionally three
I do have Unearth and Tokaido. We've played those and they've been pretty big hits. I recently picked up The Fox in the Forest and Love Letter, as well. I'm hoping to get a game of the latter going sometime this weekend. I've only played it with two players thus far, and it's fun, but I can see it being much more enjoyable with at least three people.
My game plan this weekend is Viticulture, Dropmix, Forbidden Island, and Love Letter. Viticulture has drawn a lot of interest from my sister and her husband for the theme. I'm looking forward to sharing it. It's such a fantastic merger of theme and gameplay.
I need to go pick up some more sleeves for Quantum and Santorini before I introduce them to my sister's family. My niece is an existential threat to the components. I swear, sleeving cards is practically half the cost of my collection! I don't even want to think about how many more sleeves I need for Eldritch Horror and Runebound.
I've been wanting one for a while, but they were usually 200 bucks+, so this is great news for me.
We won our first game though, so there's a high point to start at.
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None in my area...but they do have the second set of 3 for 6.99 each on the site!
It's a lot fun! You don't really end up with diverse civilizations like in meatier games such as Clash of Cultures, but A New Dawn moves and its card mechanics are really neat.
I've almost given in to poor impulse control over Zombicide: Black Plague. I want a miniature focused game like that where I explore rooms/tiles and fight monsters for experience and loot. It sounds like it may be worth waiting for Zombicide: Invader, however. The new game apparently removes a lot of the tedious elements of previous games and makes it faster to get on the table, too.
Naturally, I had to buy sleeves for it, too. But I didn't calculate for the reference cards and I'm one fucking sleeve short of sleeving everything. This is my worst nightmare.
The good news is that you can leave one Epidemic card unsleeved until you want to hate yourself.
If you can't visualize it, for example let's pick Lords of Waterdeep, five players (before player five leaves), it's the start of round four, player five owns two buildings, and they're in third place, only a few points behind second place.
It would be hell to have a player drop out in something like TI though. You either need a sub, some kind of robot play or you grumpily disband
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
It depends on the game really. For something cooperative like Pandemic, the remaining players can vote on this player's actions or take turns taking that player's actions. In point salad games, you can just ignore their points. In something more competitive that contains resources, you can try drafting the resources with last place going first, but that gets rather messy. In a war or area control type game, you are basically screwed. The players that border the player that left have a distinct advantage.
We usually play with other couples, so when someone walks out, normally the spouse goes too (Damned childcare issues :x ). We have left the games on the table for a few days if they were really going well or just called it if someone was running away with it.
Come share your thoughts when you get it!
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Just ebay. I think Miniature Market has some sets for sale too.
Warning: don't attempt to play that with inexperienced Love Letter players. Some of the new cards are hard to grok for newbies, mostly on the strategy front.
I think I may check out Lovecraft Letter, though. The theme looks great and I'm reading wonderful things about it. Does it work well with two players? I like having the option to play my games with just two players and still have a good time.
I pretty much avoided Love Letter until Lovecraft Letter. It comes with themed sleeves for every card, poker chip round win counters, and (to me) much more interesting gameplay with the insanity addition. Some of the bonus insanity abilities are really fun.
Didn't see any 2-player impressions in the boardgamegeek text reviews for Lovecraft Letter, but I saw someone mention that 4-5 is the game's sweet spot (but they still play it with 2 players). Have not checked the video reviews, though.
I mostly played it with three people (myself included), which is the usual size for family night, but it was still a good time with two. I'm not seeing the same kind of opinions with Lovecraft Letter. As a collector's item, though, Lovecraft looks great. If I get it, I'd probably end up carting around both copies for varying player counts. I'm hoping for at least one other small game for two to three players to bring out during breaks or to serve as openers/closers.
Or to be more accurate, they got to play it. I took one look at the setup, the amount of fiddly bits, and immediately realized I'm gonna need to facilitate it if we want the whole thing to move smooth and quick. My bro-in-law, who owns the game, hasn't figured out yet how to combine the base game and all the expansions in one box.
Seven players meant two teams of three, and a Lone Wolf. What mostly tripped them up was the adjustment to how a player turn went - all movements must happen first before actions could be done. This put a cramper on the Lone Wolf's style, because she was so used to the base game she made several mistakes and getting her people stuck on colonies in danger of getting overrun / conflict with the other players.
Ultimately, with the main victory condition being victorious on combat 4 times, nobody won, since people were too busy not dying and resolving crises. That, and the exposure die seemed a bit bite-y that night - The insta-kill face killed off as many people in that session as all of our previous play-throughs of the base game (one guy died during his first move even!)! Although, all in all, they enjoyed the experience (they like the feel of having an opposing team with the DoW gameplay) and would like to play again. I think I'd need to facilitate another game or two before being sure that we can handle everything smoothly without an arbiter.
Pros - Team based Dead of Winter for people who likes team conflicts and Dead of Winter
Cons - a bit overwhelming the first time you play it.
Downtime - not as much, I'm assuming, when you're all experienced with it, but on the first few games? Definitely.
I know there's ways to abuse it, but I've had some pretty good game moments with vanilla DoW traitors. And I like the game well enough, but probably not well enough to buy an expansion that makes it more longer, fiddlier, and more complicated. I haven't heard many arguments that it drastically improves the game.
In my experience, vanilla Dead of Winter works best in the first few games. After that, some people want to try to game the mechanics, and/or don't get gripped by the narrative elements as strongly. But those first games are often fondly remembered for a long time. I'm curious if the expansion changes that at all.
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Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
In my case it's less that there's a problem with the traitor mechanic than it is a problem with the Exile one, which leaves you only technically still playing in more cases than not.