Recent Boardgames (Your Last Played Game Volume 2)

Boardgames
4010

2 player day yesterday which started with Unicornus Knights. This coop is good fun but it’s a shame about the bit of art which get euphemised as ‘fan service’. There’s only one, they were so close… I’m still enjoying this but it may get stale sooner rather than later as there’s plenty of variability but maybe not so much variety to the core puzzle. At present I’m still finding something in it’s uniqueness and the play with the pacing and sequencing.

Lastly was more against Scotland level 6, to prove it’s not a fluke… So we lost with Ocean’s Hungry Grasp and Serpent Slumbers. I feel like we’d have been ok without the event that removed an invader card from the game as I was a turn from getting my spirit online, but 12 blight in 1 turn is hideous.

So we re wracked and Thunder Speaker teamed up with Serpent to this time thwart Scotland’s invasion. Wahoo!!! Although I still feel like Thunder Speaker is easy mode. Right up there with River Surges for effectiveness.

4 Likes
4011

She is. I like her though. She teams well.

Have you ever tried the new aspects of the basic spirits? I got my expansion yesterday a year ago (my mini diary informs me) and haven’t had a chance to try those.

1 Like
4012

Sadly no. So far I’d been exploring newer spirits entirely and yesterday was my first play of non jagged earth spirits since that turned up. Thanks for the question as this reminds me to try the aspects out. Hopefully they’ll tone down the power of river surges and provide some fresh twists on the others.

2 Likes
4013

Yesterday, my wife and I played Ethnos. While not at it’s best with just two players, it is still fun. I lost (natch) due to a sudden and vicious betrayal at the end of the game. Of course, since this is not co-op, by betrayal I mean she played a band of four Trolls, getting the corresponding token, which outdid my value 3 token, this breaking ties in her favor. On her next turn she drew the third dragon card, ending the game. The turnabout in tie breaking meant 21 points meant for me went to her instead. So she won, 117 - 91.

7 Likes
4014

Last week, my former-neighbor but still-current-friend came over after the kids were in bed and we stormed the castle, so to speak, on the seemingly-insurmountable Anachrony: Infinity Box. In an endless effort to determine what aspects of this box are infinite, we have determined that neither “setup time” nor “rule explanation time” is, in fact, infinite in length – just very close. A combination of setup and The Teach took about 2 hours. We decided to play with Fractures of Time expansion out of the gate. And that made me really wish there was a unified setup guide included in this box.

So, you may be thinking, “Why would you play with Factures of Time if you’re both new to the game?” Because this game didn’t catch my attention until Fractures of Time, and I’m not sure I want to play just the base-game.

We got through most of the game, stopping just short of The Impact. I was, as usual, trying to play “the long game” but my opponent was focused on maximizing points throughout the game. So even though we did final scoring (on an incomplete game, just to see how it all played out), I lost by a lot even though I think I had the better action-efficiencies that could have made a difference by the end of a full game.

Neither of us regretted adding in Fractures, and we both agreed that we probably would have found the game rather boring if we had gone for just a stock-standard base-game with no modules. The Blinking mechanism in Fractures was by far my favorite aspect of the game.

Due to a bad luck-of-the-draw, I got boxed out of building the good power plants, so I never really did much space-time-borrowing because the resulting paradoxes I would receive would just not be justified.

I’m looking forward to playing it again.

6 Likes
4015

Got some catching up to do here. I’ll start with Viscounts of the West Kingdom solos.

The game offers your four opponents, each specializing in one of the four main ways to score points. I played four times to get the full experience.

First off, the bots are NOT created equal. I fared roughly 50/50 against 2, while destroying one and likewise getting destroyed by the castle-focused bot.

Came away a little unsure about the game? I like what I see and I love the idea, but none of the four plays really rose to the level I was hoping for. I’m unsure if it is a game problem or a bot problem though… which gets me philosophical about solo versions in general.

I’ve enjoyed most the games that have fixed rounds - Gaia Project, Paladins otWK, Nations. The best solo versions find ways to mimic decision making or interaction, but I’m realizing that too many of them are sloppy. Some, like Pax Pamir, have the bot just chaotically spamming the board like a button masher. They do a ton with no focus, losing a lot on the lack of synergy. It feels like flailing in front of a waterhose.

In games with an indefinite end condition, the designers seem to too often fall back on a rush strategy as a way to simulate pressure on the human. Great Western Trail, Architects, Viscounts come immediately to mind. It’s an easy way to ratchet up difficulty with no leaps of insight during the design process, but it detracts from the game.

In the Viscounts solo, the end game triggers always seemed to come 3-4 rounds early, so the game was unsatisfying and tilted me more toward scrabbling for cheap, quick points than building something interesting with my deck and bonuses.

All to say:
a) Ever huger respect for the Race for the Galaxy solo mode, that does everything so well including creating an opponent with an indefinite end condition
b) Really want to try Viscounts against humans and see if the game is lurking in there, or if the thing is just a miss at a more fundamental level. And I want to play Great Western Trail against humans again.
c) Yeah. I miss humans.

I had one game night (online, synchronous) planned an then the 1yo vomited for five straight minutes right at start time. Took a raincheck.

9 Likes
4016

I set up a little competition with a local friend of mine running hot laps in Rallyman GT (not face-to-face, but not online). I figured it would give us some excuse to pull out our physical copies. I just ran a few laps of Track 1 from the base game, using all three car classes. Logged the following times:

GT4: 2m6s
GT5: 1m59s
GT6: 1m20s (this was a personal record, felt good!)

3 Likes
4017

Forgot to report two more nights of games on the batch break. Saturday night was a couple of games of True or False: I won the first catching everybody by surprise, and the second one was gone in a breeze.

The mood was up for quizz games, so we played Trivial Pursuit: Bet you know it between 6. So far I had played it only between 4, and it took nearly as long as a traditional TP game. In the end, all the people that were buying wedges did really struggle to get the final answer right. I thought I would sneak in getting to the end with enough coins to buy my choices of card and category, but it was too late, the guy to my left won it with a really simple question that we thought it would be trickier…

Then Sunday night (It was Labour day here Monday) we played a couple of rounds of Blurt it out with the kids. I won the first amazingly, and a friend won the second one by a mile (all of the other players didn’t even reach half way). After that, we set up Citadels between 5.

After a short teach/refresher of the rules, we got going. I managed a couple of unique cards early on, and dodge a few assassination attempts by going for less obvious character cards. When I thought I had a winning combination in my hand, a Magician swapped me, but one card I received
received proved key to win the game by one point. Even though I could not built one building of each kind and only was second to finish my city, I managed a unique card that gave me extra points on the last round, so I went Architect on the final round. The extra cards gave me the win 33 to 32, that was so satisfying. Normally those tactics do not tend to pay off.

2 Likes
4018

A quick game of The Lost Ruins of Arnak with my partner tonight, and a rare blowout. She’s starting to sense that I’m pulling away in our tight races but I’m guessing it’s been a lucky couple of games. I ended big on the temple with an extra 11 points from a tablet, and a pretty nice value of cards in my deck. We both took on a TON of fear cards but I was able to land the sole fear-burning tool card that came about, and our tokens were no help in that regard. She ended at 52. That bonus tablet really let me take off.

2 Likes
4019

Based on the comments on here, I boosted Bullet♥ to the top of my solo list. I’ve been excited about this one, both due to a strong track records with Level99 and a fondness for both the Dr. Mario and Gun.Smoke genres.

At least solo, this was another disappointment. The plain solo mode, score attack, felt pretty on rails. Since every bullet you clear essentially goes straight back into the bag, there’s a pretty fixed progression until your board fills up. It seems like once the intensity track reaches 8 or 9, there are enough bullets that your board will fill even after all the mid-round clears. It just felt pointless.

Bosses were a little more interesting. That Which Points, the triangle one, was similarly frustrating due to the way she penalizes you for taking almost any action. I beat* it (I also took lethal on the last round, but if that bullet had been literally any other color or number, I would have won. Ah, the freedom of solo play) but took no joy in it. The Mecha-boss was more fun, as was the Fanged Sun. So I enjoyed these but not at the level that makes me itch to get it back on the table.

Still, everyone else seems to have a grand time with it. I AM itching to play the main, multiplayer mode, which I think is what the game was really designed to be. I can see with the timer running and actual satisfaction of sending cleared bullets at someone else, those final pieces would click into place. The next time I want to pull discs from a bag will likely go to Quacks, but maybe the time after that Bullet will get the full test drive.

2 Likes
4020

Mini solo session during lunch break (I take wfh seriously):

  • D-Day Dice second edition – yeah yeah I jumped on the KS and waited and waited and then, when it arrived in March last year, didn’t play it… I like the basic gameplay but I don’t really see the thematic connection in adding to your unit as you go along. Interesting though, and with All the Content™ there’s clearly a lot to discover.
  • Baseball Highlights 2045 – something of an old favourite, but I’m still learning more about it.
3 Likes
4021

D-Day Dice always makes me think of that early, early SUSD episode where Formula D beat out D-Day Dice for “Best use of the letter D in a game title” after which their entire game collections mobbed them and beat them to death.

Sometimes it’s the worst skits which are the best.
Introducing... SU&SD's Rapid Reviews - Shut Up & Sit Down (timestamp 15:49)

4 Likes
4022

The “political joke” in the Shadow Hunters review is excellent.

1 Like
4023

Returning to Memoir 44 for the first time in a few months, my partner gave me an absolute schooling on the Hellfire Pass - holding firm as the German/Italians, then busting through as the Tommies. I can’t even blame the dice rolls.

We also played Codenames Duet and won for the first time in a while. It’s a tough game but it’s so good. There’s so much less downtime than the original Codenames, missing on clues still gives you info, and there’s no incentive to play safe. Love it.

5 Likes
4024

My wife and I finished the second heist in Burgle Bros 2 (with the Ocean’s 11 soundtrack on). It took forever to find the safe, so the first floor bouncer was hunting me before we cracked it.

Once we got the car and read the rules, we found out that the ability to drive the car through walls (which I had remembered from an old SUSD podcast) was not used in a 2-player game. Too bad! We did it anyway. My wife revved up, smashed a wall, parked the car on the Monorail, and I adrenalinized myself to put my heat at 5, get three extra actions, and book it to the car and we smashed outta there baby yeah!!!

We’re having a great time with this box. The changed gear system and bouncer movement make it a lot more satisfying to figure out the risks and rewards of various possibilities on your turn. The biggest negative so far has been having turns where you just do… nothing. Which was a problem in the first, too, but then it also gave you an event.

1 Like
4025

One of my favourite scenarios! If you play online, I’d happily give you a game sometime.

2 Likes
4026

We decided not to buy any new games this month, which I interpreted to mean only buy expansions. One of the ones I was most looking forward to trying was the Tuscany expansion for Viticulture. Wow, what a difference it makes! It takes a good game makes it in to a great, and the difference it makes for a 2 player game is huge. We’ve found with 2 plays so far that we produce far more wine, have lots more options as to how to get points and the structure cards provide so many new ways to combine the options available. We through in the Moors expansion cards too, and we’ve found the games have been so much closer too.

We also have the Hall of Heroes expansion for Raiders of the North Sea, but haven’t quite fit a game in. Hopefully in the next few days, but I can see Viticulture being difficult to take off the table!

3 Likes
4027

Played some games with my wife and a buddy this evening, (no photos unfortunately, as I forgot):

We played a game of Battleline before my wife joined us. It’s really quite good! I’d been meaning to try it for ages - I think I prefer it to Lost Cities as a 2 player head to head card game. May need to add it to the ‘to buy’ list.

Then we played a couple of rounds of Incan Gold which my wife won both of. I mused on wanting the new edition with the little crates and better art. If I see it for a reasonable price I’ll have to grab it, but doesn’t seem to be in stock at my preferred retailers.

And finally we played a couple of games of Ohanami. I won the first by a decent chunk focusing on pink cards. In the second game my wife decided to try for that strategy, I did poorly but she nearly won with a full 15 pink cards (which is the max). Our friend took the win with a 2 point difference - he cleaned up on green and gray cards and nabbed the highest score so far of 193.

A nice evening and thrilled to catch up with our friend finally now that lockdown has lifted.

3 Likes
4028

Orleans with the Trade & Intrigue expansion - I like how this game allows a wide range of freedom on how to play the game. But the lack of player interaction lets in dull moments between turns.

P’achakuna or “Pack of Tuna” (pakachuna) as we accidentally called it before we realised that we are saying it wrong is a 2 player abstract game. One player can only move their alpacas on mountain terrain and another player on the field terrain. You can rotate a hex to manipulate both terrains - which can benefit or hinder the other player. Then you go on and deliver cubes on different villages. It’s a very cool design, but I don’t see this having legs upon repeated plays.

We played a scenario with Conflict of Heroes. I’m glad I get to play it. Because I realised that I don’t actually want to get into hex and counter war games now. Selling it. I’m fine with the more arcade-y style of Memoir '44 or the Command and Colours series

5 Likes
4029

Yesterday my wife and I played a couple of four-player games of old-school Pandemic (no expansions), winning both, although things were NOT going well.

We also played two games of Space Base. I got WRECKED in the first one, losing 48-15. I did better the second time, making it to 28. Hurray, progress!

Love both of those games. :grin:

6 Likes