#233: Heroscape

Boardgames So Very Wrong About Games
1

2022-10-11T10:00:02Z

We apologize for the poor quality of Mark’s half of the audio this week. We offer two possible explanations. One is that Walker, motivated as he is by spite and malice, engaged in an elaborate act of sabotage so as to undermine Mark in public. The other is that Mark (the editor, mind you) messed up the audio settings. I agree that the latter is too improbable, too conspiratorial, to take seriously–but we include it for the sake of comprehensiveness.

Games Played Last Week:
01:32 -Twilight Inscription (James Kniffen, FFG, 2022)
05:15 -Heaven & Ale (Michael Kiesling & Andreas Schmidt, eggertspiele, 2017)
07:59 -Blood Rage (Eric Lang, CMON, 2015)
09:07 -Fun Facts (Kasper Lapp, Repos Production, 2022)
12:17 -Albedo: Space Pirates! (Kai Herbertz, Herbertz Entertainment UG, 2018)
13:44 -51st State: Master Set (Ignacy Trzewiczek, Portal, 2016)
14:31 -Renegade (Richard Wilkins, Victory Point Games, 2018)
17:31 -Flamecraft (Manny Vega, Cardboard Alchemy, 2022)
19:42 -Massive Darkness 2: Heavenfall (Alex Olteanu & Marco Portugal, CMON, 2021)
22:12 -Oneironauts (Oleksandr Nevskiy, IGAMES, 2022)
26:12 -Now Boarding (Tim Fowers, Fowers Games, 2018)
29:25 -Return to Dark Tower (Tim Burrell-Saward, Isaac Childres, Noah Cohen, Rob Daviau, Justin D. Jacobson, & Brian Neff, Restoration Games, 2022)

News (and why it doesn’t matter):
33:40 Cthulhu: Death May Die Season 3 coming to KS
35:41 Persona 5 co-op card game by Atlus and Pandasaurus in October '23
36:12 Spiel in Essen! For example, Cyclades 2
37:03 SHUX '22 is a wrap! Thank you, everyone! Live show with Quinns incoming
37:39 Roundtable discussion with BGB released on Patreon, note about review copies
38:39 Video review of Space Station Phoenix: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibG5qf1Rwm0
39:14 Daybreak by Matt Leacock on Backerkit
40:18 Arkhipov Day! In recognition of Vasily Arkhipiv saving the entire world on October 27, 1962, we celebrate Arkhipov Day on October 27th.

40:49 Feature Game: Heroscape (Stephen Baker, Rob Daviau, & Craig Van Ness, Hasbro, 2004)

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Mark didn’t seem to love Renegade. I haven’t played it much, but I do very much enjoy it. Multiplayer feels like other coop games: solving puzzles together, I do this and then you can do that.

I do like Mysterium, but… I still like Mysterium. I’d like to try Oneironauts though.

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I always wanted to play Heaven & Ale… now I am not so sure. It sounds like I‘d rather drink a beer than play at brewing it.

Fun Facts sounds a lot like Top 10. Fun Fact: I think Top 10 is more appealing. I‘ve previously described it somewhere in the Recent Games thread. There is also a question that requires a scale. But instead of making up the „scale“ values yourself, you get assigned a value from 1 to 10 and have to describe your number in terms of the question. I personally think that is easier and more fun to do but I may be wrong as I have not played Fun Facts. I love Just One and So Kleever. Both will definitely remain in my collection. And so will Top 10. Though I am unsure that the adult edition was a good addition… those questions „try too hard“. :roll_eyes:

Now with Tom Vasel and the SVWAG recommendation, I am double glad that on my way out of SPIEL I stopped at Lucky Duck games and picked up Flamecraft as a my final Essen loot for the fair. I admit I was only able to decide to buy it because they had finally run out of the deluxe version. I think at almost 80€ It was too expensive for what I think the game does. But I have a hard time passing on deluxe games… so I admit I was happy when I got there on Friday evening and saw the sign „deluxe sold out“ it kind of convinced me to buy the game :slight_smile: sometimes my brain is weird.

And as for games with „dixit“ Cards. I bought one with square dixit cards in Essen, as well: Disc Cover. Looking forward to this musical themed variation :slight_smile:

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I have actually played this, back in 2018. It felt like a lot of other heavy Euros, though to be fair from where I’m standing a lot of them look more similar than they really are. I enjoyed my time with it, but I’ve felt no urge to renew the acquaintance.

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It’s got some cool bits and bobs. It’s one you can find cheap ish because it looks boring but had a buzz for five mins.

Aside from the rondel gimmick there’s this puzzle, a little bit like the newest Azul thinking about it, where you have to choose between currency - which is tight- or ingredients.

The scoring also has that knizia you need a good balance of scoring but with a slight back up you can get away with it if you have a monstrously good single thing. (I think)