Recent Boardgames (Your Last Played Game Volume 2)

[Chewy77]

After a hectic day at work yesterday, had a brief dinner at home and went straight to Monday Night Games. First we were all a bit undecided about what to play, so we had a simple card game, Antidote. After a first simple round to get the way the game played, we had three more rounds. Simple game, that led to a few laughs due to misunderstanding of the rules due to introduction of new gizmos like placebo, clinical trials and the like. I even managed to win one round due to a romance card, as my neighbour to the left found the level 5 antidote, and I added it to my level 2 one…

Then we moved to Station Master. Another simple game, with cards and passengers and a decent amount of take that that was not very nasty (just simple points). I won by a single point, even though I was convinced my last train was going to screw with my score (they trapped me with a level 2 passenger on a negative points train) 297 to a 296, 277 256 and 227. Fun, cheap, I might actually fancy it for the girls to let them exercise their maths quick calculus.

Finally we moved on to a different table, and played The Shining again. Initially we could have had a chance with 4, but in the middle of the teach a fifth player joined in, and I think it is a game that does not work at 5, there is no chance tokens will reach 4 rounds. We sort of figured out who the corrupted was, but on the final shining I fell short by one willpower point , and on my dice roll killed the player that was in my room (double points as no tokens left and he was injured from a trip through the elevator), so we did not get to do our proper accusation. Still, themed so well (love the first player token, a hotel key ring marked 237) that makes the game enjoyable, but I think it is very easy for the secret traitor for the game to wreck itself letting them win, I think there should be more of a challenge for the player with the corruption than sit back and let people run out of tokens by round 3 of 5.

[RogerBW]

I love Antidote, but I’m the only person among the regular face-to-face players who does.

[Guvnor]

We played Utokoa last night from those Critical Role chums. It’s fun, short, chaotic, probably depends a lot on first placement. The meeples are unbalanced, the tiles are too small. The art is good, and the fact that every faction is “owned” by two players makes it more twisty than first appears. Fun 20 minute game, probably best as a warm up or cool down. 5/10

[Guvnor]

We then decided to embrace the zeitgeist and start the Pandemic Legacy Season 1 game Alex @doggetay and I have talked about playing for about 4-5 years.

It’s very very fun, the legacy elements really make it feel like “our story”. It’s as tough and unforgiving as ever!

We’ll see how Nishimoto, Sgt Miracle and Generalist Rozynski get on in later January cos we did not do well in this first game… LDD is now rampant and incurable across Latin America and we have many cities teetering on unrest as we try again to meet our January objectives.

[pillbox]

In a concerted effort to enjoy more of life in this still-not-post-pandemic world we find ourselves in, my former neighbor and pre-pandemic primary-gaming-opponent B got together last night for a “game night”. Though it was only two of us, it’s hard to really call it a game night… despite our “game nights” of the pre-pandemic era were also mostly just the two of us.

He made the 25 minute drive for what used to be a stroll down the sidewalk to meet at my house. My collection has grown quite a bit since we were last getting together to game (and even more so since it was in a presentable state; before we moved, many of the games were tucked away in a hall closet that was difficult to access), so we spent a little time perusing the shelves.

But, without surprise, he had something in mind: Rallyman GT. Back when Rallyman GT was on Kickstarter, both he and I were pledged for the whole thing. But the constant updates and “here’s something new, you need to add €X to your pledge if you want it all” every week rubbed both of us the wrong way and we both ended up dropping our pledges. Back in 2020 when (our) Roger hosted a play-by-post for Rallyman GT on the old SUSD forums, I jumped right in and was very pleased with what I found, so I ended up tracking down someone else’s Kickstarter pledge on the secondary market sometime in the Spring of 2020.

We had discussed Rallyman GT once since then; I made a note of mentioning that I had a copy because I knew he was originally interested in the Kickstarter. I also discovered, just last night, that he does enjoy a variety of motor sports (which was a surprise, as he has a general disdain for athletic sports?).

Before we opened the box, he asked me to characterize Rallyman GT, so he could get a sense of what he was about to experience. I was a bit at a loss; after a moment of thought, I suggested “Craps The Racing Game”. He was impressed initially at the high quality of elegant design of the hexagonal track tiles, and following that, he also appreciated the elegant maneuvering rules for negotiating the track in addition to the straight-forward dice system used (choose either one-at-a-time or all-at-once). He struggled a bit with the minutiae of the gear dice, but that was probably me explaining them wrongly. I also gaffed the turn-order rules when first explaining them, because the bulk of my R:GT experience has been via BGA… and BGA does the turn-order sequencing automagically.

We set up the first course in the book and set off. He won the coin-toss and chose pole position, leaving me to play catch-up. I pushed my luck a bit too hard on the second turn and was not able to reposition dice in order to avoid the LOC into 00, giving him plenty of opportunity to play it safe and grab an easy victory. I don’t think he ever rolled more than 6 dice in an all-at-once turn, and that tempered risk management is surely the reason he won. Because I was woefully behind, I was able to demonstrate some more advanced concepts and strategies that I’ve seen used on BGA.

After we finished the race, he said he was interested in getting a copy. I tried to add a copy to my Rallyman: DIRT pledge, but apparently that pledge manager is locked. So he pledged for the Rallyman cars campaign to grab a copy and some expansions.

Following that, we didn’t have a lot of the evening remaining, so we sat and discussed the various games we would like to play soon. In the course of discussing Reiner Knizia, he mentioned Lost Cities as one of his and his partner’s favorite games to play with each other; I pointed to the copy I had, yet unplayed on my shelf and his face lit up. I grabbed the game, he set it up and explained the rules and off we went. I believe the score was my 21 points to his 9 million. Still, it’s a fantastic hand management game that not only brutalizes you with tough hand-management choices every round, but also further traumatizes you with guessing and double-guessing what your opponent does and doesn’t need. B, with probably dozens or hundreds of sessions under his belt, was able to, likely, win the game in the first few rounds, as I foolishly telegraphed too much about my hand in those first few actions. I was left playing catchup following that, and also trying to figure out how to play a hand with 5 of the white cards (including the 10 and the 8), but no doublers to be seen (don’t worry, they came out of the deck at the very end )

[RogerBW]

Holy Grail Games, the publishers of Rallyman: GT, continue to describe it as a “roll-and-move” game. I’ve tried to convince them that this is at best a misrepresentation and at worst will put people off, but…

[pillbox]

After saying it, I’ve decided that I quite like my assessment of “Craps - The Racing Game”

[VictorViper]

I concur with this assessment, given how often I’m saying “aw, crap!”.

[yashima]

Ever since we let BGA decide our next settings it has been my partner saying Oh Crap before we were going for RL racing tracks but it seems the built in courses are much more fun.

[SteveB_uk]

@pillbox

Lost Cities

I keep mentioning Lost Cities on here, but it’s a remarkable game for putting in front of a non-gamer and having them grasp it completely within about 10 seconds, and then be totally hooked.

And the hook doesn’t reduce with subsequent plays, if anything it gets worse. I really rate it as a simple game that nonetheless has everything it needs to be a classic.

[acharlie1377]

Played a few games of recent Kickstarter delivery Harsh Shadows! The production is fantastically minimalist:

Just 55 cards and a sleek, attractive deck box–what more can you ask? From the production and player count alone, I’m sold on any future Wonderspell game in the forseeable future. The game itself, I would describe as “mostly harmless.” You move around a 3x3 grid, picking up evidence and avoiding the spy until you collect sufficient evidence to corner them. But, you don’t know which evidence is useful, which is a false lead, and which is the fatal red herring, so you also need to collect clues to reveal which is which, and you can encounter bombs which may cause you to instantly lose the game without you knowing it… it’s fine? It’s mildly engaging and very quick, but is also super random without much tension, lacks meaningful decisions, doesn’t feel very replayable, and takes up way too much table space for what it is. If it was the only game in my home I might break it out every so often, but at that point I’d much rather pull out a deck of cards to play solitaire or Regicide.

[raged_norm]

Played some

Incan Gold, still my fave PYL filler. Still not sure which version I like best.

Stak Bots meh.

Faiyum. Great game, lost due to mismanagement of resources. Would play again but given that the 4 endgame cards could be 20% of your total points I’d take some time to explain them.

[bort]

I played some MicroMacro:Crime City last night at a family gathering. I was playing the demo case online, and explained how the game worked to my sister and her friend. They sounded interested, so I casually mentioned I had a copy with me (as you do). So they spent the next hour or so working through the first few cases, and had a great time. My sister is a teacher, and thought her students would love the game. We tried to buy it online, but unfortunately not available anywhere. Even before the SdJ win, it was hard to get hold of.

[yashima]

I didn’t get to play any physical games recently because I caught a bad cold. But I continue playing stuff on BGA. Recently, we tried the newish implementation of Iwari and I am pleased to report that the implementation is good. We only tried the one map and in two player mode but it went very smoothly or well as smooth as can be because if you don’t read the rules for this game you have no idea how totems score. So the game ended with a bad mismatch in scores. I won, I have played before after all so even when I didn’t remember all the details initially I had the better grasp of the rules and in a first game that is definitely enough to win.

If anyone wants to give a whirl, I’d be willing to play but with at least 3. The 2 player mode while interesting surely is a rather different game. I can probably teach it again now but I may miss a few details.

[lalunaverde]

@yashima

If anyone wants to give a whirl

I’d be up for a game

[yashima]

Why am I not surprised?

It plays up to 5. It is not a long game but it plays well in async.
If anyone else is interested drop me a pm. I’ll send an invite later today.

[lalunaverde]

Played Fleet with Fleet: Arctic Bounty - it’s a 30min filler game about Big Fishing. The boat cards work as ships themselves (e.g. a Tuna fishing ship card will be a Tuna fishing ship), or as payment for the auction (think Race for the Galaxy), or as captains for the ships.

It seems that Fleet is purely focused on the hand management, which is the most interesting part of the game. The auction wasn’t spectacular. Choosing which bonus you wanna get is nice, which you gain based on the fishing licenses you gain during the auction - they both give you a nice stacking bonus and allow you to launch ships of those types.

But it all felt lacking and dull, especially when contrasting with Race for the Galaxy which also runs for that same duration.

[Lordof1]

My own thoughts on the games @RogerBW and I played. Obviously, the ones I won were the best.

Gaslands: Refueled: The ‘use whatever you have lying around the house’ idea greatly appeals to me, particularly as I have young children and it makes me feel better about the amount of crap in the house. I like the game very much although I agree it’s a little imprecise for intense competition. Roger won (with two corpses) so I still feel I claimed the living victory.

Riftforce: agreed, nice quick two player game. I suppose I may get bored after a lot of play but I’m definitely not there yet.

Ominoes: I think I won this in a surprise last-minute move/ opportunity - the fact I can’t quite remember speaks to the random nature of it. Like it, don’t love it.

Dice Miner: I was paralysed between playing with a Scottish dwarfish accent or a Yorkshire one. Ultimately, as I was playing with a Scot, I panicked and didn’t do either. This reduced my enjoyment of the game (but increased everyone else’s). Pretty and pleasant to play.

The Big Book of Madness: I liked but was over quite quickly before I felt I’d really got to grips with it. Bright and pretty enough, the theme didn’t really grab me (I’d probably love it if it was Arkham Horror-themed, which would be very easy to do, because I’m shallow and a terrible human being).

Nemesis: A great story generator, but it went on a long time on a very hot day… I think 5 players on the hottest day of the year with any medium to long game may be a litle much, so I’ll forgive it for slightly outstaying its welcome. As a player, however, especially when I’m teaching a game, I’m very sensitive to how everyone else feels at the table; if I sense even slight irritation or impatience I get rather stressed and sad - this is a part of myself I need to work on, but it made me enjoy the game less than I might. Mechanically, the cracks started to show towards the end - constant monster attacks became annoying rather than atmospheric and started to get in the way of wrapping up the game.
I’m still very fond of the game, but maybe I’d prefer it solo, or at least with fewer players on a cooler day who wer every ready for a game to take quite a few hours.

Star Realms: Frontiers: what can I say? I’m just great.

Letter Jam: I honestly couldn’t work out how to play from the manual. Now I know, and I like it a lot, even though it was so hot our brains melted and we failed dismally. Works pretty well 2P, as @RogerBW said.

Castellan: upsets me in the same way that Carcasonne does… you get pointy pointless walls to nowhere, a sprawling mess of castle, and I can’t deal with it. This may be my own personal problem.

Illimat: pretentious but plays very smoothly, feels like a traditional card game with strange uncessary but very pretty symbolism

Whitehall Mystery: I managed to pick opening position from which it is impossible to escape so the first game was over within… 3 round? However, Roger kindly let me try again for a much more enjoyable second round. I would have made it if it wasn’t for those meddling detectives!

Air, Land & Sea: I’m very fond of this one, quick and painless when you’re losing, satisfying when you win.

Rhino Hero: there’s a joy in construction and even more joy when someone that isn’t you knocks the tower down.

[RogerBW]

@Lordof1

Whitehall Mystery : I managed to pick opening position from which it is impossible to escape so the first game was over within… 3 round?

Basically, if you use no special powers at all, it’s possible for the three investigators to camp on the three bridges and simply arrest 97-112-185 each turn, unless Jack realises this in advance, starts in the SE corner, and gets out quickly before the investigators can set up. Or chooses one of the north-of-the-river SE corner sites.

(And even if they trap him on the wrong side, they’ll run out the 15-turn limit.)

[RogerBW]

@Lordof1

Dice Miner : I was paralysed between playing with a Scottish dwarfish accent or a Yorkshire one.

You having staked a claim to those two, I was going to go for German, but after an initial “Ach” I completely forgot to do it. Probably for the best.