Continuing my record of thieving threads from other fora (this one off a UK board games Facebook group)… What games do you like, despite the fact that you ought not to. E.g. it has all of your least favourite mechanics or a theme that normally bores you to death.
For me it’s Sidereal Confluence. I normally hate real-time negotiation, but it has just enough constraints and asymmetries to make it fit nicely into my brain.
I don’t like chesslike games but I like Onitama.
Probably Quacks and Diamant. In both games, there’s hardly any game there. It’s just stick or twist, (with a tiny bit of shopping in Quacks and a tiny bit of second guessing opponents in Diamant). But they’re great laughs.
I’ll second Incan Gold. Also DungeonQuest for a similar reason - you flip tiles, roll dice, engage in rock, paper, scissors combat, and probably die, but it’s funny, fast, and fun, with the right amount of tension.
I really want (to play/own) Sid Con.
It’s looks intimidating and fun but could be a £50-60 paperweight.
Dice Throne - it’s a relatively lightweight PvP game whose primary mechanic is rolling dice and making combos, Yahtzee style. Meanwhile, I’m a big coop fan who’s dubious on dice in general and has specifically bounced off games like Elder Sign for that exact mechanic. Now, did they do a big coop expansion recently? Yes, and it’s even better. But, crucially, I already really loved Dice Throne before that came around. The new coop stuff is just even more specifically my jam. Why does it appeal so? I think it’s the combination of distinct but fairly evenly balanced characters with unique designs and abilities, and the card decks that provide a steady trickle of dice modification, upgrades, and other one-shot abilities. Also, Elder Sign punishes you for failing to meet its exact standard, which you usually need to spend resources to meet and still is purely up to the dice most of the time, while Dice Throne gives you a bunch of options and lets you mitigate randomness to get better results, at a resource cost.
I played some Dice Throne at the last SHUX and actually really enjoyed it even though I normally don’t go for head-to-head games. Sadly the person I’d probably play it with the most bounced off it hard. I’m going to have to look into the co-op expansion, though. That might be something I can actually get to the table.
Werewords: I know it is simple, and silly, but it is a great laugh, both with friends and in my gaming group.
That combination of Werewolf and 20 questions does it for me. And I know it shouldn’t.
re: Diamant, I’d argue there’s just enough game there to make it awesome. You can teach it in 30 seconds, and it plays up to 8.
This has been rumbling in the back of my mind, I really can’t think of anything purely because I’m a bit eclectic in my tastes.
I don’t often enjoy small card games like Wizard, Rage, Uno, Phase 10… one of our gaming friends always proposes one of these and they make me suffer. For some reason 6 nimmt is fine.
Push your luck games are not my thing. Quacks is tolerable and I am still hoping to test out Incan Gold sometime.
Incan Gold is my favourite very light PYL game. Better than the dice rolling ones for sure as have more control over the luck