I was very confused on this during the campaign. I wanted the insert, didn’t need the box, but I didn’t see an option to debundle the two. I’ve been kind of wondering if they’d send just an insert and if I’m getting a legendary box at all?
I haven’t gotten my shipping notice yet, but I guess you’re a lot closer to China than I am.
The original box is beautiful, but it’s always bothered me that there’s no true logo on the sides so it never looks good on the shelf (unless you turn it to view the top or bottom straight on).
A few new games on their way to me in the post, as a treat for myself after a manic summer season. Starting off with two of Pfister’s finest in Maracaibo and Great Western Trail (2nd Edition) mostly bought with solo play in mind. Also on the way in Pandemic: Fall of Rome which has intrigued me for a while, and the Architects of the West Kingdom: Works of Wonder expansion. For introduction to my casual gamers’ group is Scotland Yard: Sherlock Holmes Edition which adds some new touches to the original version (a favourite of mine all the way back in the 1980s) and might be a simpler game for them than Letters from Whitechapel or Whitehall Mystery.
On the consideration block for a future spend are Obsession, Clans of Caledonia and maybe even a dabble into the 18XX genre with 1862: Railway Mania in the Eastern Counties - all for solo play and only if I can find them all at a good second-hand price. Perhaps 6 Nimnt too for the casual group.
OK, got my Oceans upgrade as well and now I understand.
The new box is about 1cm deeper. Probably not necessary at present, but looks like they have future expansions in mind with extra card space in the lower insert? The sides of the new box are much better on the shelf, but it no longer fits in its place.
I love the way they made the top insert, the irregular shapes look like a coral reef and are perfect for the fishies.
Anyway, love this game. Out with the old box, in with the new. Glad they kept the cover art, though the beautiful kraken drawing on the back has gone to the bin.
I have a single Pick-up-at-SPIEL preorder this year: Planta Nubo. Just placed the order when I saw it was available. My gut says this is my Revive/Spirit Island/Beyond the Sun of 2023
Are the Onitama expansions good? I’ve never heard of them before and it feels to me a little bit like releasing an expansion to chess or something? The base game is so elegant I’m surprised that expansions exist
“More of the Same”: Sensei’s Path, and all the promo cards. Basically these give you more movement cards to choose from at the start of the game. So you just shuffle them into the deck.
“Something Different”: Way of the Wind and Light & Shadow. These change the game substantially and you wouldn’t necessarily play with them every time.
Way of the Wind gives you more cards, but also a Wind Spirit piece, which is moved by some of the new cards. When the Wind Spirit lands on a piece, they swap places.
Light & Shadow gives one or both players a ninja piece which they can see and the opponent can’t, and the opponent gets some lanterns to try to reveal them.
I generally play the base game more than the variants, but that’s true even of games where I love the variants, because most of the people I play with play less than I do.
Man, Deal with the Devil should come with a warning: “Some Assembly Required”.
Took me at least 30, probably more like 40 minutes to assemble the chests and Inquisition board (which require included double sided tape), pop out all the various tokens and get everything organized.
Now I just need three other suckers people to sit and listen to me ramble on about how to play, and then 2-3 hours to actually play it in. Really, it seems simple enough to just play, I think the complexity lies in resource management and learning how to make good deals, and also just understanding all the potential negative points that can come your way at the end of the game.
I picked up Tiny Epic Galaxies the other day as a solo game, and played several games of that today. I don’t have any other “Tiny Epic” games, but I’ve enjoyed some of Scott Almes’ work with Button Shy, and this particular entry in the “Tiny Epic” series seemed to be well-regarded for the most part.
I was initially underwhelmed. I started on “medium” difficulty (skipping “beginner” and “easy”), and played a couple of games and won them both very easily; so I tried “hard”… and I won that very easily… which was a bit of a worry. That left only “epic” difficulty, which I feared was not exactly going to live up to its name on first impressions. I was soundly beaten in my first game of that, but I won the next two games (albeit not by large margins).
So on first impressions, this is not a difficult game to win. Although the manual does have an additional suggestion for increasing difficulty (giving the enemy a single re-roll of each unusable die) which I think would be brutal in an “epic” game, but I should try that on “hard” difficulty and see if I like it better that way.
The strategy is very light, and the difficulty levels are largely just reducing some thresholds in order to increase the effects of the dice on the enemy’s turn, which means that a simple run of bad luck with the dice can be absolutely calamitous to your prospects.
The game grew on me a bit more over those three “epic” games, though. The more significant luck factor did force me to think more about how I might counteract those effects, and the specific state of the enemy’s empire did play a greater part in my decision making. The outcome still feels more arbitrary than I was hoping for – I’d like a bit more strategy and a bit less luck – but not as much as it had felt to start with.
Things very much in its favour are that it’s extremely quick to set up / reset / pack away, and the games themselves weigh in at ~30 minutes (I think my longest game was 45 mins) which isn’t outstaying its welcome. I also like that the special effects available to you vary from game to game with the shuffle of the deck of planets, and these have a genuine impact on the game and consequently kept them from feeling too same-y. Current thoughts are that the positives outweigh the negatives, and as a pretty engaging experience in a short time-frame one could do a lot worse. All this being the case, I expect I’ll get lots of games in over the next little while, so here’s hoping I keep seeing the good side.
Maybe that’s why it’s so well regarded. My experience of the Tiny Epic games (Quest, Pirates, and a copy of Dinosaurs that I haven’t felt the desire to read the rules for) is that they’re complicated and fiddly (sometimes unnecessarily so) and it’s made worse by the gimmick of having them be small.
Purchased (huge discount) a brand new (still sealed) game called “OverBattle: The All War” (2020) at a flea market. And I won from a raffle prize, the (still sealed) game called “Erune” (2021). Anyone know anything about them? We shall see what they are like.
Since I don’t think I’ve ever posted here before until today, I might as well mention a Kickstarter game that I did receive awhile back, but interestingly not known or not in the stores yet. Shogun No Katana. A worker placement game in which players are making swords for the clans and ultimately for the Shogun. Their method of “working in the forge” is interesting as well as actions taken when you place your worker placement figures on the game board to take an action. One unique thing was that there are two locations that if you place a worker there; all other players get a benefit from that location as well.
As players are being introduced to the game, they are finding out, “wow” how can I do what I want to do in the limited time I have"! There are only four rounds in a game session! And initially you only start with 4 workers per round. Anyways, an interesting game and I was just wondering if anyone else yet have gotten or played it yet. (I’ve not done a search).
I was involved in a massive cross-Canada math trade this week. Because Canada’s so expansive, shipping costs are often prohibitive to math trades, but Canada Post does a free shipping promotion every October so it’s always a period with lots of movement for Canadian gamers.
Out:
Catan 3D - Even extremely fancy Catan is not my jam
Castles of Burgundy (Alea) - upgraded to the deluxe box
Woodcraft - Heavy games really have to spark joy for me to want to keep them and this didn’t quite make the cut. I really liked the dice manipulation, but the action selection wheel did nothing for me.
Bloc by Bloc 2nd ed. - upgraded to Uprising
A Few Acres of Snow - 2nd copy, haven’t actually played yet
Quantum - 2nd copy, would never trade my OG
Fields of Arle with Tea & Trade - I don’t think I’d ever choose this over AFFO
Yokohama - Pre-ordered the new edition
Light in the Mist - Amazing “escape room” style game. Can’t recommend it enough.
In:
COB Deluxe (KS edition, but sadly lacking the acrylic tiles)
Lisboa - My first Lacerda. Very intimidating.
Bridges of Shangri-La - A grail game for me
Fresh Fish - My grailiest grail game. I finally just ended up getting the Spanish edition.
Santiago (new edition) - Another grail game
Seeland - A throw-in, but the more I read about it the more it sounds interesting…
Vabanque - Looks like silly fun
Last Will - Suchy + a great theme. SU&SD seemed to really like it…
Barenpark with Bad News Bears - This will be going head to head with Isle of Cats and Planet Unknown to see who gets to stay in the collection
Navegador - Chairman of the Board loves this one. It’s extremely beige, but I liked Concordia so I figured it’s worth a punt
Roll for the Galaxy: Rivalry - Love the base game, but this is so expensive and never goes on sale
I’m pretty happy with the results. I managed a pretty extensive collection overhaul without spending a dollar. Now I just need a couple weeks off work to play them all haha
I was going to cancel it for the refund because I’m very doubtful of getting good use out of even the base game (which I’ll likely only play solo for the most part), but… hmmm… some of the BGG comments do suggest that it’s worth having, and that the Boost die feature is all kinds of fun. But those people probably play the base game a ton more than I’ll ever play it.
No new boxes.