Which edition? Just in case we need to warn you of typos that make the case unsolvable.
Thames Murders and Other Cases, not sure who published. Will have to check. I did hear that some editions have terribly placed typos
Consulting Detective pissses me off so much given the shite crappy version I got.
It pisses me off because it is such a brilliant game destroyed by its flaws. When it works it is sublime but it so rarely worked.
Entire cases utterly ruined by enourmas easy to spot botches. Not small subtle typos but completely wrong paragraphs in entries.
In a game that is solely text the lack of care over the text is unforgivable.
It's definetly a game where I had a... Strong disagreement with the SU&SD review of it.
Yeah the game just never took off for my group. You could never tell when the mystery was solved, if you should keep going or go to the questions at the end (which would give stuff away). Often we would waste so much time thinking no way we had enough info to solve it, but then read at the end that our flimsy circumstantial evidence was enough to sentence someone to death for murder!
The Mystified Murderess broke us.
The fact they updated the Murderer for that case but, for the English language version, forgot to update the entries to with new evidence to match is gob smacking.
That someone on BGG spent close to a year and a half defending it, arguing that the old entries made sense with the new murderer drives me into a black rage. It took someone reading the Italian version with the updated entries to shut him up and even then he kept on for a bit.
We do have the slipcased edition so I think we're safe
The gf received it as a gift, and I was so eager to look at it that I took it off the shelf and took the plastic wrap off without asking her first; she will never let me live it down
She let it sit there for three days, unopened, though. Surely there's a statute.
That's unforgivable
It's another item in the list of only child-isms
All games belong, ultimately, to me, even if I have to pretend other people own them because of society
Pax Pamir 2E might also have the distinction of being the first time I have ever liked a bot character in a board game
the Mechanical Marquise in Root sucks (though I think the new version coming out seems like it might be alright), and I don't like it in Scythe or Wingspan either
Game of the Year: Root
Nominees: Teotihuacan: City of Gods; Chronicles of Crime; Underwater Cities; Brass: Birmingham; Western Legends; Rising Sun; Architects of the West Kingdoms; Everdell; The Mind
Best Theming— Detective: A Modern Crime Boardgame
Nominees: Western Legends; Root; Stuffed Fables; Chronicles of Crime
Best Cooperative Game: Chronicles of Crime
Nominees: Just One; The Mind; Detective: A Modern Crime Boardgame; Stuffed Fables
Best Strategy: Teotihuacan: City of Gods
Nominees: Root; Brass: Birmingham; Coimbra; Underwater Cities
Best Production: Rising Sun
Nominees: Fireball Island; Everdell; Brass: Birmingham; Grimm Forest
Best Party Game: Just One
Nominees: Decrypto; The Mind; Drop it; Trapwords
Best Family Game: Fireball Island.
Nominees: Gizmos; Reef; Space Base; My Little Scythe
Best Artwork: Everdell
Nominees: Root; Grimm Forest; Cerebria; Rising Sun
Most Innovative: Chronicles of Crime
Nominees: Nyctophobia; Detective: A Modern Crime Boardgame; KeyForge; The Mind
Best Reprint: Fireball Island
Nominees: Brass Lancashire; Endeavor: Age of Sail; High Society; The Estates
Best Expansion: Scythe: Rise of Fenris
Nominees: Terraforming Mars: Prelude; Roll Player: Monsters and Minions; Great Western Trail: Rails to the North; Root: The Riverfolk
Best Game from a Small Publisher: Root (Leder Games)
Nominees: Chronicle of Crime (Lucky Duck Games); Underwater Cities (Delicious Games); Vindication (Orange Nebula LLC); Obsession (Kayenta Game)
Best Two-Player: Keyforge: Call of the Archons
Nominees: War Chest; Duelosaur Island; Haven; Mythic Battles: Pantheon
Best New Designer: Wolfgang Warsch (Quacks of Quedlinberg, The Mind, & Ganz Schon Clever)
Nominees: David Cicurel (Chronicles of Crime); Catherine Stippell (Nyctophobia); Ivan Lashin (Smartphone Inc.); Tim Eisner (Grimm Forest)
Pax Pamir 2E might also have the distinction of being the first time I have ever liked a bot character in a board game
the Mechanical Marquise in Root sucks (though I think the new version coming out seems like it might be alright), and I don't like it in Scythe or Wingspan either
The bot in RFTG is quite good. I'm looking forward to trying the PP2E Solo but haven't had a chance yet. I've only played once so far, 2 handed to learn the rules. Two handed is not the way .
Game of the Year: Root
Nominees: Teotihuacan: City of Gods; Chronicles of Crime; Underwater Cities; Brass: Birmingham; Western Legends; Rising Sun; Architects of the West Kingdoms; Everdell; The Mind
Best Theming— Detective: A Modern Crime Boardgame
Nominees: Western Legends; Root; Stuffed Fables; Chronicles of Crime
Best Cooperative Game: Chronicles of Crime
Nominees: Just One; The Mind; Detective: A Modern Crime Boardgame; Stuffed Fables
Best Strategy: Teotihuacan: City of Gods
Nominees: Root; Brass: Birmingham; Coimbra; Underwater Cities
Best Production: Rising Sun
Nominees: Fireball Island; Everdell; Brass: Birmingham; Grimm Forest
Best Party Game: Just One
Nominees: Decrypto; The Mind; Drop it; Trapwords
Best Family Game: Fireball Island.
Nominees: Gizmos; Reef; Space Base; My Little Scythe
Best Artwork: Everdell
Nominees: Root; Grimm Forest; Cerebria; Rising Sun
Most Innovative: Chronicles of Crime
Nominees: Nyctophobia; Detective: A Modern Crime Boardgame; KeyForge; The Mind
Best Reprint: Fireball Island
Nominees: Brass Lancashire; Endeavor: Age of Sail; High Society; The Estates
Best Expansion: Scythe: Rise of Fenris
Nominees: Terraforming Mars: Prelude; Roll Player: Monsters and Minions; Great Western Trail: Rails to the North; Root: The Riverfolk
Best Game from a Small Publisher: Root (Leder Games)
Nominees: Chronicle of Crime (Lucky Duck Games); Underwater Cities (Delicious Games); Vindication (Orange Nebula LLC); Obsession (Kayenta Game)
Best Two-Player: Keyforge: Call of the Archons
Nominees: War Chest; Duelosaur Island; Haven; Mythic Battles: Pantheon
Best New Designer: Wolfgang Warsch (Quacks of Quedlinberg, The Mind, & Ganz Schon Clever)
Nominees: David Cicurel (Chronicles of Crime); Catherine Stippell (Nyctophobia); Ivan Lashin (Smartphone Inc.); Tim Eisner (Grimm Forest)
Oh nice. Thanks for posting this.
I might have to check some of these out. Especially the co-op ones (my wife loves co-op games, especially mystery/crime themes).
Game of the Year: Root
Nominees: Teotihuacan: City of Gods; Chronicles of Crime; Underwater Cities; Brass: Birmingham; Western Legends; Rising Sun; Architects of the West Kingdoms; Everdell; The Mind
Best Theming— Detective: A Modern Crime Boardgame
Nominees: Western Legends; Root; Stuffed Fables; Chronicles of Crime
Best Cooperative Game: Chronicles of Crime
Nominees: Just One; The Mind; Detective: A Modern Crime Boardgame; Stuffed Fables
Best Strategy: Teotihuacan: City of Gods
Nominees: Root; Brass: Birmingham; Coimbra; Underwater Cities
Best Production: Rising Sun
Nominees: Fireball Island; Everdell; Brass: Birmingham; Grimm Forest
Best Party Game: Just One
Nominees: Decrypto; The Mind; Drop it; Trapwords
Best Family Game: Fireball Island.
Nominees: Gizmos; Reef; Space Base; My Little Scythe
Best Artwork: Everdell
Nominees: Root; Grimm Forest; Cerebria; Rising Sun
Most Innovative: Chronicles of Crime
Nominees: Nyctophobia; Detective: A Modern Crime Boardgame; KeyForge; The Mind
Best Reprint: Fireball Island
Nominees: Brass Lancashire; Endeavor: Age of Sail; High Society; The Estates
Best Expansion: Scythe: Rise of Fenris
Nominees: Terraforming Mars: Prelude; Roll Player: Monsters and Minions; Great Western Trail: Rails to the North; Root: The Riverfolk
Best Game from a Small Publisher: Root (Leder Games)
Nominees: Chronicle of Crime (Lucky Duck Games); Underwater Cities (Delicious Games); Vindication (Orange Nebula LLC); Obsession (Kayenta Game)
Best Two-Player: Keyforge: Call of the Archons
Nominees: War Chest; Duelosaur Island; Haven; Mythic Battles: Pantheon
Best New Designer: Wolfgang Warsch (Quacks of Quedlinberg, The Mind, & Ganz Schon Clever)
Nominees: David Cicurel (Chronicles of Crime); Catherine Stippell (Nyctophobia); Ivan Lashin (Smartphone Inc.); Tim Eisner (Grimm Forest)
Not a single nomination for a single category for Arkham Horror?
The majority opinions I've read on Chronicles of Crime and Rising Sun are "good idea there somewhere, but major rough patches". Surely Arkham measures up to at least that?
Game of the Year: Root
Nominees: Teotihuacan: City of Gods; Chronicles of Crime; Underwater Cities; Brass: Birmingham; Western Legends; Rising Sun; Architects of the West Kingdoms; Everdell; The Mind
Best Theming— Detective: A Modern Crime Boardgame
Nominees: Western Legends; Root; Stuffed Fables; Chronicles of Crime
Best Cooperative Game: Chronicles of Crime
Nominees: Just One; The Mind; Detective: A Modern Crime Boardgame; Stuffed Fables
Best Strategy: Teotihuacan: City of Gods
Nominees: Root; Brass: Birmingham; Coimbra; Underwater Cities
Best Production: Rising Sun
Nominees: Fireball Island; Everdell; Brass: Birmingham; Grimm Forest
Best Party Game: Just One
Nominees: Decrypto; The Mind; Drop it; Trapwords
Best Family Game: Fireball Island.
Nominees: Gizmos; Reef; Space Base; My Little Scythe
Best Artwork: Everdell
Nominees: Root; Grimm Forest; Cerebria; Rising Sun
Most Innovative: Chronicles of Crime
Nominees: Nyctophobia; Detective: A Modern Crime Boardgame; KeyForge; The Mind
Best Reprint: Fireball Island
Nominees: Brass Lancashire; Endeavor: Age of Sail; High Society; The Estates
Best Expansion: Scythe: Rise of Fenris
Nominees: Terraforming Mars: Prelude; Roll Player: Monsters and Minions; Great Western Trail: Rails to the North; Root: The Riverfolk
Best Game from a Small Publisher: Root (Leder Games)
Nominees: Chronicle of Crime (Lucky Duck Games); Underwater Cities (Delicious Games); Vindication (Orange Nebula LLC); Obsession (Kayenta Game)
Best Two-Player: Keyforge: Call of the Archons
Nominees: War Chest; Duelosaur Island; Haven; Mythic Battles: Pantheon
Best New Designer: Wolfgang Warsch (Quacks of Quedlinberg, The Mind, & Ganz Schon Clever)
Nominees: David Cicurel (Chronicles of Crime); Catherine Stippell (Nyctophobia); Ivan Lashin (Smartphone Inc.); Tim Eisner (Grimm Forest)
Not a single nomination for a single category for Arkham Horror?
The majority opinions I've read on Chronicles of Crime and Rising Sun are "good idea there somewhere, but major rough patches". Surely Arkham measures up to at least that?
It weirdly has also had very little buzz in my local groups. Lots of Arkham LCG, and seen many copies of both Chronicles and Rising Sun being played. Even seen a few games of MoM and Elder Sign, but no Horror.
Game of the Year: Root
Nominees: Teotihuacan: City of Gods; Chronicles of Crime; Underwater Cities; Brass: Birmingham; Western Legends; Rising Sun; Architects of the West Kingdoms; Everdell; The Mind
Best Theming— Detective: A Modern Crime Boardgame
Nominees: Western Legends; Root; Stuffed Fables; Chronicles of Crime
Best Cooperative Game: Chronicles of Crime
Nominees: Just One; The Mind; Detective: A Modern Crime Boardgame; Stuffed Fables
Best Strategy: Teotihuacan: City of Gods
Nominees: Root; Brass: Birmingham; Coimbra; Underwater Cities
Best Production: Rising Sun
Nominees: Fireball Island; Everdell; Brass: Birmingham; Grimm Forest
Best Party Game: Just One
Nominees: Decrypto; The Mind; Drop it; Trapwords
Best Family Game: Fireball Island.
Nominees: Gizmos; Reef; Space Base; My Little Scythe
Best Artwork: Everdell
Nominees: Root; Grimm Forest; Cerebria; Rising Sun
Most Innovative: Chronicles of Crime
Nominees: Nyctophobia; Detective: A Modern Crime Boardgame; KeyForge; The Mind
Best Reprint: Fireball Island
Nominees: Brass Lancashire; Endeavor: Age of Sail; High Society; The Estates
Best Expansion: Scythe: Rise of Fenris
Nominees: Terraforming Mars: Prelude; Roll Player: Monsters and Minions; Great Western Trail: Rails to the North; Root: The Riverfolk
Best Game from a Small Publisher: Root (Leder Games)
Nominees: Chronicle of Crime (Lucky Duck Games); Underwater Cities (Delicious Games); Vindication (Orange Nebula LLC); Obsession (Kayenta Game)
Best Two-Player: Keyforge: Call of the Archons
Nominees: War Chest; Duelosaur Island; Haven; Mythic Battles: Pantheon
Best New Designer: Wolfgang Warsch (Quacks of Quedlinberg, The Mind, & Ganz Schon Clever)
Nominees: David Cicurel (Chronicles of Crime); Catherine Stippell (Nyctophobia); Ivan Lashin (Smartphone Inc.); Tim Eisner (Grimm Forest)
Not a single nomination for a single category for Arkham Horror?
The majority opinions I've read on Chronicles of Crime and Rising Sun are "good idea there somewhere, but major rough patches". Surely Arkham measures up to at least that?
It weirdly has also had very little buzz in my local groups. Lots of Arkham LCG, and seen many copies of both Chronicles and Rising Sun being played. Even seen a few games of MoM and Elder Sign, but no Horror.
What makes it especially weird is that it's essentially the exact same game as the LCG, just without the deck building.
That cooperative category though...
I haven't heard anything positive about Stuffed Fables besides the cute theme. Detective came off as negative to disappointing. I...haven't heard one peep about Just One until now.
MrBody on
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ArcticLancerBest served chilled.Registered Userregular
Then you missed my old post talking about how good it is for an easy-to-pick-up and good-times party game. I'm a big advocate for Just One and have gotten a bunch of mileage out of my copy already.
Game of the Year: Root
Nominees: Teotihuacan: City of Gods; Chronicles of Crime; Underwater Cities; Brass: Birmingham; Western Legends; Rising Sun; Architects of the West Kingdoms; Everdell; The Mind
Best Party Game: Just One
Nominees: Decrypto; The Mind; Drop it; Trapwords
Most Innovative: Chronicles of Crime
Nominees: Nyctophobia; Detective: A Modern Crime Boardgame; KeyForge; The Mind
And here is why I lost any respect I might have had for this (which TBF wasn't all that much to begin with).
I feel like it’s more like a parlor trick than a game. You can also easily game it by setting a tempo to count to internally for all people participating ahead of time (especially if they are musicians). I have no desire to ever play it again.
I feel like it’s more like a parlor trick than a game. You can also easily game it by setting a tempo to count to internally for all people participating ahead of time (especially if they are musicians). I have no desire to ever play it again.
Exactly this. I'd much rather play The Game, which at least has interesting choices.
Game of the Year: Root
Nominees: Teotihuacan: City of Gods; Chronicles of Crime; Underwater Cities; Brass: Birmingham; Western Legends; Rising Sun; Architects of the West Kingdoms; Everdell; The Mind
Best Theming— Detective: A Modern Crime Boardgame
Nominees: Western Legends; Root; Stuffed Fables; Chronicles of Crime
Best Cooperative Game: Chronicles of Crime
Nominees: Just One; The Mind; Detective: A Modern Crime Boardgame; Stuffed Fables
Best Strategy: Teotihuacan: City of Gods
Nominees: Root; Brass: Birmingham; Coimbra; Underwater Cities
Best Production: Rising Sun
Nominees: Fireball Island; Everdell; Brass: Birmingham; Grimm Forest
Best Party Game: Just One
Nominees: Decrypto; The Mind; Drop it; Trapwords
Best Family Game: Fireball Island.
Nominees: Gizmos; Reef; Space Base; My Little Scythe
Best Artwork: Everdell
Nominees: Root; Grimm Forest; Cerebria; Rising Sun
Most Innovative: Chronicles of Crime
Nominees: Nyctophobia; Detective: A Modern Crime Boardgame; KeyForge; The Mind
Best Reprint: Fireball Island
Nominees: Brass Lancashire; Endeavor: Age of Sail; High Society; The Estates
Best Expansion: Scythe: Rise of Fenris
Nominees: Terraforming Mars: Prelude; Roll Player: Monsters and Minions; Great Western Trail: Rails to the North; Root: The Riverfolk
Best Game from a Small Publisher: Root (Leder Games)
Nominees: Chronicle of Crime (Lucky Duck Games); Underwater Cities (Delicious Games); Vindication (Orange Nebula LLC); Obsession (Kayenta Game)
Best Two-Player: Keyforge: Call of the Archons
Nominees: War Chest; Duelosaur Island; Haven; Mythic Battles: Pantheon
Best New Designer: Wolfgang Warsch (Quacks of Quedlinberg, The Mind, & Ganz Schon Clever)
Nominees: David Cicurel (Chronicles of Crime); Catherine Stippell (Nyctophobia); Ivan Lashin (Smartphone Inc.); Tim Eisner (Grimm Forest)
Not a single nomination for a single category for Arkham Horror?
The majority opinions I've read on Chronicles of Crime and Rising Sun are "good idea there somewhere, but major rough patches". Surely Arkham measures up to at least that?
It weirdly has also had very little buzz in my local groups. Lots of Arkham LCG, and seen many copies of both Chronicles and Rising Sun being played. Even seen a few games of MoM and Elder Sign, but no Horror.
What makes it especially weird is that it's essentially the exact same game as the LCG, just without the deck building.
That cooperative category though...
I haven't heard anything positive about Stuffed Fables besides the cute theme. Detective came off as negative to disappointing. I...haven't heard one peep about Just One until now.
I haven't played the new Horror, are the missions linked in a Campaign? I did hear that the mechanics are very much the LCG mechanics.
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AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
Arkham Horror 3rd Ed is a good game, but it’s not like the LCG and it’s not a campaign.
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ArcticLancerBest served chilled.Registered Userregular
I feel like it’s more like a parlor trick than a game. You can also easily game it by setting a tempo to count to internally for all people participating ahead of time (especially if they are musicians). I have no desire to ever play it again.
Yes, I can see how going into a game with the specific notion of attempting to pre-solve it and weasel your way around the rules would make it less fun. <_<
If you would rather turn it into a counting exercise instead of a near stream-of-consiousness session of decoding poker faces while playing chicken and making bold, visceral (and often fatal and entertaining) decisions, I don't know what to tell you other than you're right to want to play something else. shrug
HedgethornAssociate Professor of Historical Hobby HorsesIn the Lions' DenRegistered Userregular
I've probably had more fun with The Mind than with any other $10 game in my collection. For the most part it only gets pulled out once or twice in each group, but it's an entertaining twenty minute filler while everyone sees what the gag is, and then we move on to play something else. I find it works best without even explaining any rules at all until you're in the middle of the second round; instead, just deal out one card to each person and say, "Okay, now we have to lay them down in ascending order without talking. Whoever has the lowest number, lay it down. Go." While you're reshuffling for the second round, you can start talking about lives and shurikens and the rest.
I feel like it’s more like a parlor trick than a game. You can also easily game it by setting a tempo to count to internally for all people participating ahead of time (especially if they are musicians). I have no desire to ever play it again.
Yes, I can see how going into a game with the specific notion of attempting to pre-solve it and weasel your way around the rules would make it less fun. <_<
If you would rather turn it into a counting exercise instead of a near stream-of-consiousness session of decoding poker faces while playing chicken and making bold, visceral (and often fatal and entertaining) decisions, I don't know what to tell you other than you're right to want to play something else. shrug
To be clear, I have never done this. I played it "right" the two times that I played it. It still was more of a parlor trick than a game. *shrugs*
Game of the Year: Root
Nominees: Teotihuacan: City of Gods; Chronicles of Crime; Underwater Cities; Brass: Birmingham; Western Legends; Rising Sun; Architects of the West Kingdoms; Everdell; The Mind
Best Theming— Detective: A Modern Crime Boardgame
Nominees: Western Legends; Root; Stuffed Fables; Chronicles of Crime
Best Cooperative Game: Chronicles of Crime
Nominees: Just One; The Mind; Detective: A Modern Crime Boardgame; Stuffed Fables
Best Strategy: Teotihuacan: City of Gods
Nominees: Root; Brass: Birmingham; Coimbra; Underwater Cities
Best Production: Rising Sun
Nominees: Fireball Island; Everdell; Brass: Birmingham; Grimm Forest
Best Party Game: Just One
Nominees: Decrypto; The Mind; Drop it; Trapwords
Best Family Game: Fireball Island.
Nominees: Gizmos; Reef; Space Base; My Little Scythe
Best Artwork: Everdell
Nominees: Root; Grimm Forest; Cerebria; Rising Sun
Most Innovative: Chronicles of Crime
Nominees: Nyctophobia; Detective: A Modern Crime Boardgame; KeyForge; The Mind
Best Reprint: Fireball Island
Nominees: Brass Lancashire; Endeavor: Age of Sail; High Society; The Estates
Best Expansion: Scythe: Rise of Fenris
Nominees: Terraforming Mars: Prelude; Roll Player: Monsters and Minions; Great Western Trail: Rails to the North; Root: The Riverfolk
Best Game from a Small Publisher: Root (Leder Games)
Nominees: Chronicle of Crime (Lucky Duck Games); Underwater Cities (Delicious Games); Vindication (Orange Nebula LLC); Obsession (Kayenta Game)
Best Two-Player: Keyforge: Call of the Archons
Nominees: War Chest; Duelosaur Island; Haven; Mythic Battles: Pantheon
Best New Designer: Wolfgang Warsch (Quacks of Quedlinberg, The Mind, & Ganz Schon Clever)
Nominees: David Cicurel (Chronicles of Crime); Catherine Stippell (Nyctophobia); Ivan Lashin (Smartphone Inc.); Tim Eisner (Grimm Forest)
Not a single nomination for a single category for Arkham Horror?
The majority opinions I've read on Chronicles of Crime and Rising Sun are "good idea there somewhere, but major rough patches". Surely Arkham measures up to at least that?
It weirdly has also had very little buzz in my local groups. Lots of Arkham LCG, and seen many copies of both Chronicles and Rising Sun being played. Even seen a few games of MoM and Elder Sign, but no Horror.
What makes it especially weird is that it's essentially the exact same game as the LCG, just without the deck building.
That cooperative category though...
I haven't heard anything positive about Stuffed Fables besides the cute theme. Detective came off as negative to disappointing. I...haven't heard one peep about Just One until now.
I haven't played the new Horror, are the missions linked in a Campaign? I did hear that the mechanics are very much the LCG mechanics.
No campaign. (one of the scenarios though is an exact copy of the 2nd scenario from the card game's base campaign)
Besides the cards, the mechanics are almost a 1 for 1 carry over from the card game. You get X actions per turn that can be spent gathering resources, focusing (i.e. drawing a card), moving, evading, or fighting. The combat and evasion mechanics are the exact same.
Doom and clue tokens get placed on the scenario card in a competing progression system of investigators vs the mythos, just that it's merged onto one card instead of the separate act/agenda decks of the card game.
I enjoyed it, but for us it was only good for 2-3 plays of each scenarios, and there are only 4 scenarios. At least with the card game you could replay with different decks. There is an expansion due in September (10 months??!), but that only has 2 scenarios. I think if the game really wants any kind of longevity, it needs to find some way of randomizing objectives.
So, finished the first half of Catacombs of Horror. It's mainly middle of the road as far as the series goes.
But...ugh, one puzzle. I swear it's a misprint that renders it impossible to solve. It tells you to look for something, and that something isn't there. It's worse than the infamous Pharaoh puzzle.
Diamond puzzle. "Find the blue dots on card T and the poster." THERE ARE NO BLUE DOTS. There is only a blue dot on the compass, nothing on the card, the backpack, the flashlight, or the pyramid eye. We stared for 10 minutes knowing we were supposed to see a blue dot and there's just nothing. I can't imagine how anyone solved that. Did only one of five dots make it to printing in the English version??
finally spent the requisite hour and a half at the local Kinko's to get up and running with the new Root expansion
I played the Corvids, which seem extremely neat and do a lot to change up the board state because they just add an element of uncertainty, though it does seem like the guessing game aspect of trying to get rid of their tokens is pretty punishing to the other players since it's never a 100% certainty and the stake is a card out of hand
another player played the Duchy, and they seem really interesting but will probably take some doing to really figure out cause they seem very slow to get going, they build up by having the cards to get ministers on their tableau but they need to be spending cards to build buildings to up their draw and recruiting, so it's a push and pull of when to spend and when to hold back to increase their actions
the new bots seem much much better than the one included in the Riverfolk, to the point where we're probably never gonna actually play the Marquise again and just include the bot in all of our games, cause while the Marquise is none of our favorite faction, we feel their presence on the board is pretty essential, so this just makes everyone happy
I have the new deck too, can't really say anything to it at this point because we were so focused on learning the new factions
but boy I can't wait to get my hands on the final version cause right now I'm using Pandemic cubes as the Duchy and Corvid warriors and they are just too dang small, maybe have to go to a Michael's or somewhere and figure out what a good replacement would be til then
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WearingglassesOf the friendly neighborhood varietyRegistered Userregular
Had my brother-in-law's friends over for a guest appearance in our regular board game session! Three games last Saturday, one of which is new to me:
1) Shakespeare - shame it only does four players, because we had a lot of fun with it! And that's despite getting several rules wrong (not too much to change the whole gameplay, but little bits here and there). It was hilarious extrapolating what was happening to our productions at the end of each day:
A: Damn, wearingglasses's set is almost done
B: Yeah, but his script, uhh...
Me: (Act 3 has progress, first two has none) I'm just working on the climax, okay? And it's gonna be a cool in medias res kinda thing
2) 7 Wonders (+Cities, +Armada) - Our group loves 7 Wonders, but with Armada it's a lot more noisy now, with the commercial track kicking people's treasury and naval wars getting fought. Our winner went heavy on the blue cards (all the nice looking buildings that go straight for points) and ducked out of fights at the right time. Setup is still a bit too long for me, even with my friends' help; I need to streamline my process somehow... Maybe with tuckboxes.
3) Champions of Midgard (+expansions, 6 player mode) - Finally got to use thesetwo as replacement for the regular cubes (cue meat and wood jokes). Lovely game, plenty of Mad Max references to Valhalla etc, but goes on for a bit too long once people start their armies going. The winner won lopsidedly with 152 over the 2nd place (me) at 124, a good early hustle against the giants got him plenty of points and two archers that pulled their weight in meat to fuel his army without taking a break. One dude had terrible luck with the mid-journey cards on his way to fights and sometimes went home losing his entire army in the process. Midgard's secret objective stuff is way too hard to plan for for me, but somehow my opponents always manage to finish theirs.
Also bought Ramen Fury, which is a game with a very cool container, but should've been renamed as "Instant Ramen Fury" instead, because the ramen in the game use flavor packets instead of proper different soup stocks. Then again, the container is already an instant ramen pack, so that's self evident. Haven't played it yet, but it looks like a neat set collection kinda game that's good for half hour breaks, but nothing revolutionary (outside the already stated pack container).
(this is the thunderstone quest base box from kickstarter. i haven't dealt with the 2 extra quests and coop mode from the expansion yet. they definitely won't all fit together and i don't know how to break it up yet plus i just kickstarted the new new kickstarter for more quests next year. help me)
(this is the thunderstone quest base box from kickstarter. i haven't dealt with the 2 extra quests and coop mode from the expansion yet. they definitely won't all fit together and i don't know how to break it up yet plus i just kickstarted the new new kickstarter for more quests next year. help me)
Quest's mechanics are an improvement on older editions and seemed to reduce the number of dead turns significantly the times I got to try it. Let the thread know how it goes!
Yeah I've only ever played standalone games with the randomized options from friends copies before. I'm excited to get into the "curated" quest matches and see what they offer
AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
Birthday games played:
-Anomia, a fun, simple game that is basically Speed Scattergories—players flip over cards featuring symbols and categories (“Lake”, “Bagel Flavor”, “Jazz Musician”, “Emotion”). If their symbol matches another player’s card, the two players try to be the first to blurt out an example of the other player’s category. It’s surprisingly tense and quite enjoyable.
-The Mind. We got to level 8 with three players, then added a fourth player and that threw us all out of sync. It’s a fun, unique game.
-7th Continent, at least for a couple hours. My group wasn’t super engaged but maybe now that they know the rules we’ll do better next time. Really wish you could save more than one game so I could progress solo while keeping our place for a return to the group game.
-Spaceteam, which nicely recreates the chaos of the app in card form, although it’s no longer quite as funny. Everybody has a hand of tools and a deck of malfunctions to use them on, and over a five minute game everybody is shouting because they need somebody else’s tools. Good for parties.
Birthday board games acquired:
-Princess Jing, a two player stealth/detection game that uses mirrors
-Discover: Lands Unknown, the FFG “every box is unique” survival game
-Anomia, a fun, simple game that is basically Speed Scattergories—players flip over cards featuring symbols and categories (“Lake”, “Bagel Flavor”, “Jazz Musician”, “Emotion”). If their symbol matches another player’s card, the two players try to be the first to blurt out an example of the other player’s category. It’s surprisingly tense and quite enjoyable.
-The Mind. We got to level 8 with three players, then added a fourth player and that threw us all out of sync. It’s a fun, unique game.
-7th Continent, at least for a couple hours. My group wasn’t super engaged but maybe now that they know the rules we’ll do better next time. Really wish you could save more than one game so I could progress solo while keeping our place for a return to the group game.
-Spaceteam, which nicely recreates the chaos of the app in card form, although it’s no longer quite as funny. Everybody has a hand of tools and a deck of malfunctions to use them on, and over a five minute game everybody is shouting because they need somebody else’s tools. Good for parties.
Birthday board games acquired:
-Princess Jing, a two player stealth/detection game that uses mirrors
-Discover: Lands Unknown, the FFG “every box is unique” survival game
Overall, not too bad.
Happy Birthday!
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ArcticLancerBest served chilled.Registered Userregular
Can you weigh in more deeply on Princess Jing? I thought it looked really neat early on, but I never really followed it.
Dug out Death Angel on a whim and managed a win through hot dice rolling, not even losing a marine until the final area.
I’ve got the first two expansions but made myself sad looking at the silly prices the last two go for now. And it’ll never ever come into print again Curse you limited time licensing deals!
It was one of our favorites. Our biggest problem was
we missed one of the faces on the inside flap of a box. We didn't have any problem with the Diamond puzzle though.
Ha, so did we. Although at that point, with the 3 other obvious faces, you could narrow it down to the 2 remaining ones and figure it out easily enough.
Did you see all the blue dots for the diamond puzzle? There just weren't any on our copy, except the middle of the compass.
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AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
Discover: Lands Unknown is tough but fun—took two playthroughs for us to win the first scenario, and when I say “us” I mean one survivor and two corpses. The game set up is a little long but so far I really like the mechanics and the way they support exploration—the game has a lot of little nooks and crannies and I feel like even after 1 of the 3 scenarios in that terrain we still have a lot we didn’t find. It’s a strong amount of content for one box, and obviously you could go buy another box and get a lot more variety that way.
Also, FFG is to be commended for figuring out such a robust health and stamina tracker, very solid.
So, finished the first half of Catacombs of Horror. It's mainly middle of the road as far as the series goes.
But...ugh, one puzzle. I swear it's a misprint that renders it impossible to solve. It tells you to look for something, and that something isn't there. It's worse than the infamous Pharaoh puzzle.
Diamond puzzle. "Find the blue dots on card T and the poster." THERE ARE NO BLUE DOTS. There is only a blue dot on the compass, nothing on the card, the backpack, the flashlight, or the pyramid eye. We stared for 10 minutes knowing we were supposed to see a blue dot and there's just nothing. I can't imagine how anyone solved that. Did only one of five dots make it to printing in the English version??
Okay, we finished it, and I'm going to have to downgrade it to to the bottom along with Sinister Mansion. The fact that it's $25 made it hurt just a little more.
You know those puzzles where you figure it out and know what you have to do, but some physical component is so fiddly you can't find the answer? Catacombs had 2 of those. One of them the puzzle AND physical component were both ridiculous! There's like 6 variables to the puzzle portion, and you have no idea whether you have them all right or not with any one of them being incorrect will screw up the physical portion. Did I do all the stuff right and I'm just screwing up the physical component? Am I doing to the physical portion right but I screwed up one of the bits of info? Two of them? Five? Who knows!
There were at least 2 puzzles we were still stumped on even after reading the outright solution.
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Forget it, Alistair. It's BGG.
It's another item in the list of only child-isms
All games belong, ultimately, to me, even if I have to pretend other people own them because of society
the Mechanical Marquise in Root sucks (though I think the new version coming out seems like it might be alright), and I don't like it in Scythe or Wingspan either
Almost made ME want to start punching (him)
I do it the best in my friend group so why not?
The bot in RFTG is quite good. I'm looking forward to trying the PP2E Solo but haven't had a chance yet. I've only played once so far, 2 handed to learn the rules. Two handed is not the way .
I might have to check some of these out. Especially the co-op ones (my wife loves co-op games, especially mystery/crime themes).
Not a single nomination for a single category for Arkham Horror?
The majority opinions I've read on Chronicles of Crime and Rising Sun are "good idea there somewhere, but major rough patches". Surely Arkham measures up to at least that?
It weirdly has also had very little buzz in my local groups. Lots of Arkham LCG, and seen many copies of both Chronicles and Rising Sun being played. Even seen a few games of MoM and Elder Sign, but no Horror.
What makes it especially weird is that it's essentially the exact same game as the LCG, just without the deck building.
That cooperative category though...
I haven't heard anything positive about Stuffed Fables besides the cute theme. Detective came off as negative to disappointing. I...haven't heard one peep about Just One until now.
Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
And here is why I lost any respect I might have had for this (which TBF wasn't all that much to begin with).
Selling Board Games for Medical Bills
Exactly this. I'd much rather play The Game, which at least has interesting choices.
The main thrust seems to be that it relies on a group that doesn't fully understand the word communication from what I gather
I haven't played the new Horror, are the missions linked in a Campaign? I did hear that the mechanics are very much the LCG mechanics.
Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
If you would rather turn it into a counting exercise instead of a near stream-of-consiousness session of decoding poker faces while playing chicken and making bold, visceral (and often fatal and entertaining) decisions, I don't know what to tell you other than you're right to want to play something else. shrug
Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
No campaign. (one of the scenarios though is an exact copy of the 2nd scenario from the card game's base campaign)
Besides the cards, the mechanics are almost a 1 for 1 carry over from the card game. You get X actions per turn that can be spent gathering resources, focusing (i.e. drawing a card), moving, evading, or fighting. The combat and evasion mechanics are the exact same.
Doom and clue tokens get placed on the scenario card in a competing progression system of investigators vs the mythos, just that it's merged onto one card instead of the separate act/agenda decks of the card game.
I enjoyed it, but for us it was only good for 2-3 plays of each scenarios, and there are only 4 scenarios. At least with the card game you could replay with different decks. There is an expansion due in September (10 months??!), but that only has 2 scenarios. I think if the game really wants any kind of longevity, it needs to find some way of randomizing objectives.
So, finished the first half of Catacombs of Horror. It's mainly middle of the road as far as the series goes.
But...ugh, one puzzle. I swear it's a misprint that renders it impossible to solve. It tells you to look for something, and that something isn't there. It's worse than the infamous Pharaoh puzzle.
I played the Corvids, which seem extremely neat and do a lot to change up the board state because they just add an element of uncertainty, though it does seem like the guessing game aspect of trying to get rid of their tokens is pretty punishing to the other players since it's never a 100% certainty and the stake is a card out of hand
another player played the Duchy, and they seem really interesting but will probably take some doing to really figure out cause they seem very slow to get going, they build up by having the cards to get ministers on their tableau but they need to be spending cards to build buildings to up their draw and recruiting, so it's a push and pull of when to spend and when to hold back to increase their actions
the new bots seem much much better than the one included in the Riverfolk, to the point where we're probably never gonna actually play the Marquise again and just include the bot in all of our games, cause while the Marquise is none of our favorite faction, we feel their presence on the board is pretty essential, so this just makes everyone happy
I have the new deck too, can't really say anything to it at this point because we were so focused on learning the new factions
but boy I can't wait to get my hands on the final version cause right now I'm using Pandemic cubes as the Duchy and Corvid warriors and they are just too dang small, maybe have to go to a Michael's or somewhere and figure out what a good replacement would be til then
1) Shakespeare - shame it only does four players, because we had a lot of fun with it! And that's despite getting several rules wrong (not too much to change the whole gameplay, but little bits here and there). It was hilarious extrapolating what was happening to our productions at the end of each day:
A: Damn, wearingglasses's set is almost done
B: Yeah, but his script, uhh...
Me: (Act 3 has progress, first two has none) I'm just working on the climax, okay? And it's gonna be a cool in medias res kinda thing
2) 7 Wonders (+Cities, +Armada) - Our group loves 7 Wonders, but with Armada it's a lot more noisy now, with the commercial track kicking people's treasury and naval wars getting fought. Our winner went heavy on the blue cards (all the nice looking buildings that go straight for points) and ducked out of fights at the right time. Setup is still a bit too long for me, even with my friends' help; I need to streamline my process somehow... Maybe with tuckboxes.
3) Champions of Midgard (+expansions, 6 player mode) - Finally got to use these two as replacement for the regular cubes (cue meat and wood jokes). Lovely game, plenty of Mad Max references to Valhalla etc, but goes on for a bit too long once people start their armies going. The winner won lopsidedly with 152 over the 2nd place (me) at 124, a good early hustle against the giants got him plenty of points and two archers that pulled their weight in meat to fuel his army without taking a break. One dude had terrible luck with the mid-journey cards on his way to fights and sometimes went home losing his entire army in the process. Midgard's secret objective stuff is way too hard to plan for for me, but somehow my opponents always manage to finish theirs.
Also bought Ramen Fury, which is a game with a very cool container, but should've been renamed as "Instant Ramen Fury" instead, because the ramen in the game use flavor packets instead of proper different soup stocks. Then again, the container is already an instant ramen pack, so that's self evident. Haven't played it yet, but it looks like a neat set collection kinda game that's good for half hour breaks, but nothing revolutionary (outside the already stated pack container).
alright... now we can finally play the game!
(this is the thunderstone quest base box from kickstarter. i haven't dealt with the 2 extra quests and coop mode from the expansion yet. they definitely won't all fit together and i don't know how to break it up yet plus i just kickstarted the new new kickstarter for more quests next year. help me)
Quest's mechanics are an improvement on older editions and seemed to reduce the number of dead turns significantly the times I got to try it. Let the thread know how it goes!
-Anomia, a fun, simple game that is basically Speed Scattergories—players flip over cards featuring symbols and categories (“Lake”, “Bagel Flavor”, “Jazz Musician”, “Emotion”). If their symbol matches another player’s card, the two players try to be the first to blurt out an example of the other player’s category. It’s surprisingly tense and quite enjoyable.
-The Mind. We got to level 8 with three players, then added a fourth player and that threw us all out of sync. It’s a fun, unique game.
-7th Continent, at least for a couple hours. My group wasn’t super engaged but maybe now that they know the rules we’ll do better next time. Really wish you could save more than one game so I could progress solo while keeping our place for a return to the group game.
-Spaceteam, which nicely recreates the chaos of the app in card form, although it’s no longer quite as funny. Everybody has a hand of tools and a deck of malfunctions to use them on, and over a five minute game everybody is shouting because they need somebody else’s tools. Good for parties.
Birthday board games acquired:
-Princess Jing, a two player stealth/detection game that uses mirrors
-Discover: Lands Unknown, the FFG “every box is unique” survival game
Overall, not too bad.
Happy Birthday!
Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
I’ve got the first two expansions but made myself sad looking at the silly prices the last two go for now. And it’ll never ever come into print again
I’m certainly not expecting a great game or honestly even a good one, but this is my one spot I’ll take just a blind nostalgia piece for
Did you see all the blue dots for the diamond puzzle? There just weren't any on our copy, except the middle of the compass.
Also, FFG is to be commended for figuring out such a robust health and stamina tracker, very solid.
Okay, we finished it, and I'm going to have to downgrade it to to the bottom along with Sinister Mansion. The fact that it's $25 made it hurt just a little more.
You know those puzzles where you figure it out and know what you have to do, but some physical component is so fiddly you can't find the answer? Catacombs had 2 of those. One of them the puzzle AND physical component were both ridiculous! There's like 6 variables to the puzzle portion, and you have no idea whether you have them all right or not with any one of them being incorrect will screw up the physical portion. Did I do all the stuff right and I'm just screwing up the physical component? Am I doing to the physical portion right but I screwed up one of the bits of info? Two of them? Five? Who knows!
There were at least 2 puzzles we were still stumped on even after reading the outright solution.