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[Board games] I choose poorly.

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Posts

  • BogartBogart Streetwise Hercules Registered User, Moderator mod
    Did Seafall actually get an official recommendation from SUASD? I don't think it did, but could be wrong. I remember the review being one of many that was mainly a long sigh of disappointment, leading to it being available for like £20 a few months later because everyone was scared away by the bad reviews.

  • AuralynxAuralynx Darkness is a perspective Watching the ego workRegistered User regular
    schuss wrote: »
    It's funny people mention pax and board games/crowds. My group decided to skip it and just rent a house for 3 days to get away and play board games. Way cheaper and got way more rounds of games in.

    We've done essentially this with a friend's family's cabin near Lake George. It's cool, but MrBody is right that it's not the same experience.

    kshu0oba7xnr.png

  • VyolynceVyolynce Registered User regular
    Got to play Sagrada last night. That's an evil little dice game right there. We actually played three times: twice with the store's demo copy, and once with the copy my friend purchased immediately following the first two games.

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    AC:NH Chris from Glosta SW-5173-3598-2899 DA-4749-1014-4697 @vyolynce@mastodon.social
  • ChiselphaneChiselphane Registered User regular
    .
    Bogart wrote: »
    Did Seafall actually get an official recommendation from SUASD? I don't think it did, but could be wrong. I remember the review being one of many that was mainly a long sigh of disappointment, leading to it being available for like £20 a few months later because everyone was scared away by the bad reviews.

    At one point Quinns says something along the lines of "Experience Seafall not by playing it, but by reading it; opening all the boxes etc, then put it away, maybe sell it to someone else after"

  • Mojo_JojoMojo_Jojo We are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourse Registered User regular
    I read a spoiler thing for Seafall. The legacy stuff had some really cool moments

    Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
  • JonBobJonBob Registered User regular
    Vyolynce wrote: »
    Got to play Sagrada last night. That's an evil little dice game right there. We actually played three times: twice with the store's demo copy, and once with the copy my friend purchased immediately following the first two games.
    Yeah! It's a bit of a strange specimen, because I see very clear design flaws with it, but I still love it and play it a lot.

    House rules I'd recommend that are easy to implement and patch some bigger holes:
    - If playing with fewer than four, remove four dice of each color per missing player. That way you still go through all the dice in the bag, and don't end up with more of one color than another available, which can significantly bias the scoring against certain players.
    - Halve the scoring on the private goals. The problem here is that they overshadow the public goals since there are just so many points to be had from pips of your color. If the private goals are this important, they incentivize the least interesting thing (gobbling up big dice of your color) and disincentivize the most interesting thing (figuring out how to arrange dice to satisfy the spatial rules from public goals).

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  • InquisitorInquisitor Registered User regular
    Auralynx wrote: »
    schuss wrote: »
    It's funny people mention pax and board games/crowds. My group decided to skip it and just rent a house for 3 days to get away and play board games. Way cheaper and got way more rounds of games in.

    We've done essentially this with a friend's family's cabin near Lake George. It's cool, but MrBody is right that it's not the same experience.

    Yeah, I love gaming retreats with my friends but I go to my local boardgame convention so I can play games I don’t own, and play games that only work at conventions, and learn from experts. They are very different experiences.

  • Ah_PookAh_Pook Registered User regular
    edited April 2018
    Inquisitor wrote: »
    If I remember correctly their take on Scythe was it is a game that embodies the “more stuff!!!” philosophy of Kickstarter and as a result does many things but does not particularly do any of those things well. Which is a perfectly reasonable opinion and similar to how I felt the one time I played Scythe.

    So they recommend games that focus on less things but execute on those things better. And personally if I’m ever in the mood for a group game about politics and area control I am going to bust out Dune before I bust out Scythe every time.

    It's funny that that was their issue with scythe when that really isn't a thing that applies to scythe imo. If memory serves the only gameplay relevant stretch goals were a couple extra encounter cards? It's fine to not like the design, but Kickstarter bloat isn't really the thing with it.

    I think scythes main issue is one of perception. It's just not at all the kind of game it looks like it's going to be. If you go into it wanting a tight efficiency puzzle euro race your probably going to enjoy it. If you go in expecting a dudes on a map area control your going to be sorely disappointed. Personally I like it but don't love it, because it plays out pretty similarly each game from what I've seen. Sometimes I'm in the mood for it, sometimes I'm not.

    Ah_Pook on
  • A Dabble Of TheloniusA Dabble Of Thelonius It has been a doozy of a dayRegistered User regular
    I played Segrada at a con and loved it up until scoring. When it tosses out the theme. Oh your stained glass window we commissioned is missing 3 panes. You still win!

    Boo

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  • VyolynceVyolynce Registered User regular
    I played Segrada at a con and loved it up until scoring. When it tosses out the theme. Oh your stained glass window we commissioned is missing 3 panes. You still win!

    Boo

    Hey you're the chuckleheads who asked that no two adjacent panes share the same shade or color. Be thankful you got a window at all!

    nedhf8b6a4rj.jpgsig.gif
    AC:NH Chris from Glosta SW-5173-3598-2899 DA-4749-1014-4697 @vyolynce@mastodon.social
  • JonBobJonBob Registered User regular
    Oh your stained glass window we commissioned is missing 3 panes. You still win!
    We refer to these as "bullet holes" and just say that church was in a bad neighborhood.

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  • jergarmarjergarmar hollow man crew goes pew pew pewRegistered User regular
    Bogart wrote: »
    Did Seafall actually get an official recommendation from SUASD? I don't think it did, but could be wrong. I remember the review being one of many that was mainly a long sigh of disappointment, leading to it being available for like £20 a few months later because everyone was scared away by the bad reviews.

    Scared away is right. At one time Seafall was absolutely number one on my "must buy" list. Then I heard some negative things about it, but obviously I was staying away from reviews that were too detailed, so I was still excited. For some reason I trusted SU&SD to review it non-spoileringly (which was true), so it was the first extended review of it I saw. Whatever they said at the end of it, there was a lot of negative comments, with "not very good for the first few games" kind of standing out to me. Knocked it right off my wish list.

    When I was a child, I had a fever...
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  • ArcSynArcSyn Registered User regular
    Ever buy a game on name alone?

    I just bought "Poop" for a friend for his birthday.

    Apparently, it's a card game with similarities to Uno where you're trying to get rid of cards in your hand to win. Each card is numbered, and adds to a total that cannot exceed the value on the toilet. If you do, you pick up the pile. However, three cards of the same number can 'flush' them, causing everyone but the flusher to draw a card from the deck.
    Simple filler game, but hilarious sounding and perfect for this friend and his family. Can play up to 5 but has a party pooper expansion to play up to 10.

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  • LykouraghLykouragh Registered User regular
    I think the SUSD review of Seafall was pretty negative, my memory of what Quinns said was "I cannot recommend this game but there is fun to be had in it for the right group".

    Which was my group, by the way- I was probably the most negative guy about Seafall in my group and I still don't regret having played through the full campaign which is probably a good 60 hours of boardgame group time.

    (That said don't buy Seafall even for 20 bucks guys).

  • ArcticLancerArcticLancer Best served chilled. Registered User regular
    I'd kind of like to give Seafall the benefit of the doubt that he knew it had problems, but was likely being pushed hard to get it to market. Maybe this has actually been talked about by him somewhere? Would love to read if it has. But just cannot fathom he put it out and didn't feel like the game was still in an Alpha state. The basic game mechanics stumble, and the pacing stumbles, and the balance stumbles, and none of that is hidden from view. Unquestionably there are fun parts in there, but it needed more time in the oven for any kind of mainstream appeal.

  • LykouraghLykouragh Registered User regular
    I'd kind of like to give Seafall the benefit of the doubt that he knew it had problems, but was likely being pushed hard to get it to market. Maybe this has actually been talked about by him somewhere? Would love to read if it has. But just cannot fathom he put it out and didn't feel like the game was still in an Alpha state. The basic game mechanics stumble, and the pacing stumbles, and the balance stumbles, and none of that is hidden from view. Unquestionably there are fun parts in there, but it needed more time in the oven for any kind of mainstream appeal.

    Didn't he sit on that game for like 8 years? Like he was developing it before he even started on P:L S1?

  • Alistair HuttonAlistair Hutton Dr EdinburghRegistered User regular
    Shut Up and Sit Down are continuing their glowing reviews of Knizia classics with Through the Desert.

    The tonal turnaround they have with Knizia over the years from baffled resentment of his "themeless maths heavy" games to reverential awe of his incredibly tight shared space design ethos has been entertainment in itself.

    I have a thoughtful and infrequently updated blog about games http://whatithinkaboutwhenithinkaboutgames.wordpress.com/

    I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.

    Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.
  • GlaziusGlazius Registered User regular
    If we're sharing WTFSUSD stories, I have no idea what happens at the end of their Voyages of Marco Polo review.

    "Eh, but does it really feel like voyaging with Marco Polo? I mean, really?"

    On my list of topics of concern about the game, the game map's lack of bespoke iconography for individual cities is somewhere out orbiting Neptune, as compared to, say, this is a dice-placement game where you've got superpowers, and one of those powers is that you can put down whatever number you want, and the game has been designed so that one isn't considered to be very strong.

  • JonBobJonBob Registered User regular
    edited April 2018
    "themeless maths heavy" games
    These people are not paying attention to the thematic, rich games Knizia is releasing this year! Such as:
    Sunshine Rescue
    Children rescue pieces of sunshine and the sun rescues the children!
    Children skip through the field or take the rainbow shortcut to try and rescue pieces of sunshine.
    Candy Match
    Players place cards depicting one to three sweets. As soon as a player finds a card combination in which all the candy depicted is in pairs, they call "Candy match" and show their solution.

    JonBob on
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  • MrBodyMrBody Registered User regular
    Bogart wrote: »
    Did Seafall actually get an official recommendation from SUASD? I don't think it did, but could be wrong. I remember the review being one of many that was mainly a long sigh of disappointment, leading to it being available for like £20 a few months later because everyone was scared away by the bad reviews.

    They told people with enough money to buy it even if they didn't want to and never would play it.

  • ArcticLancerArcticLancer Best served chilled. Registered User regular
    Lykouragh wrote: »
    I'd kind of like to give Seafall the benefit of the doubt that he knew it had problems, but was likely being pushed hard to get it to market. Maybe this has actually been talked about by him somewhere? Would love to read if it has. But just cannot fathom he put it out and didn't feel like the game was still in an Alpha state. The basic game mechanics stumble, and the pacing stumbles, and the balance stumbles, and none of that is hidden from view. Unquestionably there are fun parts in there, but it needed more time in the oven for any kind of mainstream appeal.

    Didn't he sit on that game for like 8 years? Like he was developing it before he even started on P:L S1?

    I don't think so. At least by what I've found so far. I believe he started it after the release of or at the tail end of Risk Legacy.
    In looking through all of this, I have no idea what to think of Rob Daviau as a designer. He's so all over the board it's crazy. But he definitely seems like a guy who is better at revising games than making them? He seems to do his best work with existing titles/IPs (and also very much prefers to do so). Guess I'll keep this in mind if another original title comes along. :P

  • psyck0psyck0 Registered User regular
    Glazius wrote: »
    If we're sharing WTFSUSD stories, I have no idea what happens at the end of their Voyages of Marco Polo review.

    "Eh, but does it really feel like voyaging with Marco Polo? I mean, really?"

    On my list of topics of concern about the game, the game map's lack of bespoke iconography for individual cities is somewhere out orbiting Neptune, as compared to, say, this is a dice-placement game where you've got superpowers, and one of those powers is that you can put down whatever number you want, and the game has been designed so that one isn't considered to be very strong.

    In my opinion this is what make the game so great!

    Play Smash Bros 3DS with me! 4399-1034-5444
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  • MrBodyMrBody Registered User regular
    Lykouragh wrote: »
    I think the SUSD review of Seafall was pretty negative, my memory of what Quinns said was "I cannot recommend this game but there is fun to be had in it for the right group".

    That's way more generous than they were to Scythe. They usually stick a "can be enjoyed, still reasons to play it" at the end of every review (even for dry dusty old stuff like Brass). Scythe was their one exception, leaving it at "no reason to play it, here are ten different (mostly unrelated) games you should play before ever touching it".

    You can say Scythe isn't great, or not good, or not even mildly enjoyable, but geez the one "do not touch" game in your entire catalog of dozens of reviews??? And then recommending Rex over it which is not only a totally different genre, but not even in the top 10 for that genre??

    (Scythe was their worst review even in terms of the overview, which they're usually uncontested masters of. You got zero idea of the mechanics or flow of the game unlike the detailed summaries they give other reviews like Captain Sonar.)

  • LeumasWhiteLeumasWhite New ZealandRegistered User regular
    Having just watched it now, he just says that if you're looking for X in a game, there's probably another one that does it better, and that he wouldn't recommend it based on that. It's quite enjoyable, accessible, and does all the stuff it does well enough, but there's no part of it that had him excited. Which is pretty much my experience with the game.

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  • InquisitorInquisitor Registered User regular
    Some of ya’ll really care way too much about what a couple of random bozos on the internet think about a box full of plastic and cardboard.

  • GvzbgulGvzbgul Registered User regular
    No, you see, I am a gamer, and when SUSD criticise games they criticise me personally.

  • CantidoCantido Registered User regular
    edited April 2018
    psyck0 wrote: »
    Glazius wrote: »
    If we're sharing WTFSUSD stories, I have no idea what happens at the end of their Voyages of Marco Polo review.

    "Eh, but does it really feel like voyaging with Marco Polo? I mean, really?"

    On my list of topics of concern about the game, the game map's lack of bespoke iconography for individual cities is somewhere out orbiting Neptune, as compared to, say, this is a dice-placement game where you've got superpowers, and one of those powers is that you can put down whatever number you want, and the game has been designed so that one isn't considered to be very strong.

    In my opinion this is what make the game so great!

    I house rule that character out on pure principle that the game is less fun for the person using him.

    Having dice but not rolling them is a crime against humanity.

    Cantido on
    3DS Friendcode 5413-1311-3767
  • Evil MultifariousEvil Multifarious Registered User regular
    Won a game of Inis tonight. God I love that game. Not needing to plan much from turn to turn, or rather not needing a plan beyond two-turn spans of time, is kind of ideal for me.

    I usually don't like drafting games, but here the game is loose and dynamic enough that the unpredictability is more enjoyable than frustrating (and individual cards aren't crushingly powerful or able to make game-ending combos that can't be allowed during drafting, like in Blood Rage)

  • PowerpuppiesPowerpuppies drinking coffee in the mountain cabinRegistered User regular
    How dare you speak ill of blood rage

    Imma Geis your master craftsman

    sig.gif
  • GvzbgulGvzbgul Registered User regular
    Damn. I think I need to get Innis.

  • Mojo_JojoMojo_Jojo We are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourse Registered User regular
    MrBody wrote: »
    Lykouragh wrote: »
    I think the SUSD review of Seafall was pretty negative, my memory of what Quinns said was "I cannot recommend this game but there is fun to be had in it for the right group".

    That's way more generous than they were to Scythe. They usually stick a "can be enjoyed, still reasons to play it" at the end of every review (even for dry dusty old stuff like Brass). Scythe was their one exception, leaving it at "no reason to play it, here are ten different (mostly unrelated) games you should play before ever touching it".

    You can say Scythe isn't great, or not good, or not even mildly enjoyable, but geez the one "do not touch" game in your entire catalog of dozens of reviews??? And then recommending Rex over it which is not only a totally different genre, but not even in the top 10 for that genre??

    (Scythe was their worst review even in terms of the overview, which they're usually uncontested masters of. You got zero idea of the mechanics or flow of the game unlike the detailed summaries they give other reviews like Captain Sonar.)

    What would you recommend over Rex? Rex is great. I want more Rest

    Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
  • AldoAldo Hippo Hooray Registered User regular
    I played a mystery (7th) of Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective with a group of folks I don't often play with, but they were killing it. We did take super long to get anywhere, but that was mostly because we wanted to discuss everything and not settle for just reading the entries and follow the bread crumbs to the next entry. We shared so many theories and discarded them as soon as we read the next entry.

  • discriderdiscrider Registered User regular
    Watched the SUSD review of Scythe and it doesn't seem to me like they 'got' the game..

    I think they make good points around how the box perhaps contains too much stuff, and how the game might snowball with little chance of a trailing player being able to turn the game around, or perhaps how the game feels slow because you're not encouraged to fight and you only move every other turn.
    And they do mention the art, and I do think the game perhaps plays better if you engage with its fantasy that your dude with a bear is walking around the countryside, helping the villagers. Or being an arse and stealing their farms.

    But overall, aside the art, I think the game has a very tight efficiency loop, where the player who can turn around lower actions the quickest will win, and figuring out how to do that each game is the central changing puzzle.
    And that doesn't really get mentioned in the review.

    Perhaps there are quite a lot of games that do that efficiency loop well. And so it's not worth commenting on.
    But then they compared Scythe to a lot of games based on other comparisons, like hex control, or player negotiations or building stuff.
    And that doesn't seem to be what Scythe is about?

  • ArcticLancerArcticLancer Best served chilled. Registered User regular
    Inquisitor wrote: »
    Some of ya’ll really care way too much about what a couple of random bozos on the internet think about a box full of plastic and cardboard.
    I will wholeheartedly admit that I care more about the BGG games list than I reasonably should. I've internalized that as "I wish all these new people would stop overrating bad games because they're flashy and new!", but also don't hold any illusion that I'm not an old man shouting about "kids these days!" in actuality. :P

    discrider wrote: »
    Watched the SUSD review of Scythe and it doesn't seem to me like they 'got' the game..

    I think they make good points around how the box perhaps contains too much stuff, and how the game might snowball with little chance of a trailing player being able to turn the game around, or perhaps how the game feels slow because you're not encouraged to fight and you only move every other turn.
    And they do mention the art, and I do think the game perhaps plays better if you engage with its fantasy that your dude with a bear is walking around the countryside, helping the villagers. Or being an arse and stealing their farms.

    But overall, aside the art, I think the game has a very tight efficiency loop, where the player who can turn around lower actions the quickest will win, and figuring out how to do that each game is the central changing puzzle.
    And that doesn't really get mentioned in the review.

    Perhaps there are quite a lot of games that do that efficiency loop well. And so it's not worth commenting on.
    But then they compared Scythe to a lot of games based on other comparisons, like hex control, or player negotiations or building stuff.
    And that doesn't seem to be what Scythe is about?
    I'm not sure what's really unfair about this because Scythe doesn't bill itself as that kind of game you're saying it's very good at being? It's pretty lackluster at a lot of the things it more outright appears to be - area control, engine building, dudes on a board, etc ...

  • discriderdiscrider Registered User regular
    edited April 2018
    Maybe.
    I haven't read the box?

    But engine building sounds like optimising an efficiency loop to me, which is what it's good at I guess.

    And I wasn't saying it was unfair criticism, just that it seemed to miss the point.

    discrider on
  • discriderdiscrider Registered User regular
    edited April 2018
    That said, the mechs in the game are definitely misdirecting you: for the most part they are actually more vulnerable and less strong than your workers.

    discrider on
  • InquisitorInquisitor Registered User regular
    Mojo_Jojo wrote: »
    MrBody wrote: »
    Lykouragh wrote: »
    I think the SUSD review of Seafall was pretty negative, my memory of what Quinns said was "I cannot recommend this game but there is fun to be had in it for the right group".

    That's way more generous than they were to Scythe. They usually stick a "can be enjoyed, still reasons to play it" at the end of every review (even for dry dusty old stuff like Brass). Scythe was their one exception, leaving it at "no reason to play it, here are ten different (mostly unrelated) games you should play before ever touching it".

    You can say Scythe isn't great, or not good, or not even mildly enjoyable, but geez the one "do not touch" game in your entire catalog of dozens of reviews??? And then recommending Rex over it which is not only a totally different genre, but not even in the top 10 for that genre??

    (Scythe was their worst review even in terms of the overview, which they're usually uncontested masters of. You got zero idea of the mechanics or flow of the game unlike the detailed summaries they give other reviews like Captain Sonar.)

    What would you recommend over Rex? Rex is great. I want more Rest

    This of course all being subjective and whatnot:

    I personally like Dune more than Rex. They are very similar, but basically every change that FFG made to Dune for Rex I feel like didn't make the game better. Is it different enough and better enough to go through the hassle of getting a PnP copy of Dune like I did? Eh, probably not unless you are a huge Dune fan (which I am).

    Games that are in a similar vein that I personally like more than Rex would be Dominant Species, Inis and stuff like 1775: Rebellion or COIN games. But they are all different in key ways from Rex so they may not scratch the itch depending on what you come to Rex for.
    discrider wrote: »
    That said, the mechs in the game are definitely misdirecting you: for the most part they are actually more vulnerable and less strong than your workers.

    This was why I ultimately lost interest in the game of Scythe that I played. Not because of like, the mechs specifically. But because the game is full of a ton of little components like the mechs, the heroes, the quests, etc that have a bunch of fiddly little rules but ultimately are very boring and do very little on the map. I feel like Scythe is a game where everyone moves a bunch of things around, but ultimately nothing really of interest or excitement happened in the game, and the heart of the game is fiddling with your own tiny solitaire board in front of you, which is one of the most personally boring things imaginable in a boardgame.

  • discriderdiscrider Registered User regular
    edited April 2018
    Eh.
    I quite liked stripping down my engine, which seemed vastly different to building an engine in other games.

    But yeah, I'm not sure how much interaction there is in that, besides making your engine do stuff when your neighbour's engine fires.
    I'm quite happy playing Zachtronic computer games by myself.

    Which is why roleplaying the game seems to make it better.

    discrider on
  • Evil MultifariousEvil Multifarious Registered User regular
    Gvzbgul wrote: »
    Damn. I think I need to get Innis.

    It's my favourite non-Cthulhu Wars board game, I'd recommend it

    Like I said, it's more about short-term board state analysis, drafting to suit your board state, and once everybody is poised within one or two points from victory, coming up with a plan to disrupt other players while maintaining your victory conditions by the skin of your teeth

  • PowerpuppiesPowerpuppies drinking coffee in the mountain cabinRegistered User regular
    Gvzbgul wrote: »
    Damn. I think I need to get Innis.

    It's my favourite non-Cthulhu Wars board game, I'd recommend it

    Like I said, it's more about short-term board state analysis, drafting to suit your board state, and once everybody is poised within one or two points from victory, coming up with a plan to disrupt other players while maintaining your victory conditions by the skin of your teeth

    Alternatively build a hoard of red cards while your neighbors wage endless war without conclusion*

    * Your intervention may be necessary to prevent conclusion of war

    sig.gif
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