Recent Boardgames (Your Last Played Game Volume 2)

RogerBW · 1 October 2022 09:20

If you think you know a game, moderate a PBF and you will quickly learn you are wrong.

Supplies and jobs:

look through the discard
choose N (0 to 3) to consider
draw 3-N cards from the face-down deck
take (buy) up to 2 of the 3 cards you now have
place any cards you didn’t take on the discard

The original GF9 design team weren’t great technical writers, and while I normally try for a literal reading of rules I find with their games what makes thematic sense is usually what’s intended. There’s one Misbehave where you have to give up Goods to get the pass, and if you don’t have any goods you can’t do it; but in this case I’d say you’re right.

I recommend the Big Damn Rulebook on BGG - it doesn’t delve into that level of detail on individual cards, though.

EnterTheWyvern · 1 October 2022 09:43

Played 2 more games of Spirit Island against Russia level 6. First up a loss for Stones Unyielding Defiance and Lure of the Deep Wilderness. It was the first time the other player had used Unyielding and mistakes were made so we got to a point where the weight of blight took it’s toll on a board full of invaders. We usually play randomly selected spirits each time but here our second game we sued the same combo to really get to grips with these ones. Fortunately we won the second. There was one really hairy turn but the familiarity with the spirits developing saw us turn the corner. With lure in the second game I managed some really spectacular turns of wiping out invaders. 8 explorers plus a town and city in a single use of an innate was particularly snazzy.

Games night with @lalunaverde saw 2 hands of Quarriors. I still like this nonsense but this saw a bit on imbalance of cards out where one was so powerful that it stopped other paths completely. That being said as dumb, silly fun goes this is fast and variable.

Next we did 2 rounds of Paris Connection. Still really impressed, there’s a bit of faff in the set up but at least it’s straight forward and everyone can contribute. The game it self is subtle, opaque and player driven. Both games played out really differently which I’m not quite sure of how set up drives that vs reaction to other players/previous games. Second game myself and @lalunaverde seriously inhibited the third player by selling strong shares in the same round. When it got to their turn they then couldn’t sell those same strong shares as it would just give LLV a ludicrously easy share swap. They could have switched the third type of strong share but it was the strongest, although only had value 1 higher. One thing I really like is that negative play is useful in the game but it’s not the most useful. You need a balance between slowing route value for others, increasing route value for yourself and improving your shares position. I would not enjoy it if negative attacking play was the sole best move. Instead it’s a great game of timing and tempo. Currently my top cube rails game.

Phil · 1 October 2022 10:02

I haven’t played the game, but my literal interpretation of that text is that “any” includes the possibility of “zero” – and as that is also the sane thematic interpretation, I could only side with you. I can see it being slightly open to interpretation, but it sounds like they were making a mountain out of a molehill? I have no insight into how important it might have been to the game, though. As you mentioned that they won, perhaps they got upset because they knew they were in a good position and thought it was going to jeopardise their chance at winning?

Brattyjedi · 1 October 2022 12:25

I own the game but have only played it a handful of times so am not the best authority.
I’d read that as a reward not a condition. It’s a thing you get to do and if you can’t, oh well.

yashima · 1 October 2022 13:39

I have so far played one 2-handed game of Everdell with just the basegame and two solos with Pearlcrest (on the table, more games on the app previously) and I am glad I got the game now. I wish that box monster was smaller (for all the many games I have this is just one of a few of Really Big Boxes™ (Gloomhaven and Dwellings of Eldervale being the other two hugely oversized ones). Next up: learning and playing with Spirecrest. My colleague—when I announced I had to go AFK to get my package for Everdell—sent me a picture of their last game that included Spirecrest and it looked awesome

But before continuing with Everdell, I wanted to check out my also newly arrived Tindaya. It took me about 2 hours to set up the game and studying the rules enough to be think I might begin playing. It was 11pm by that time and I decided to post-pone until the morning:

Setup is almost finished, after reading more rules, I changed around the islands a bit more since I assumed that I would have arranged them away from the chasms more if I had known what chasms meant (Tsunamis come from there and the conquistadores)

Opinions inside.

So after some breakfast and brownie baking and going for a run, I sat down to play the game. I had to spend another half hour verifying various rules before I could start.

I took one look at this and sighed. This here has too many images and hard to read examples with tons of numbers for reference in it that make the text hard to read.
(I really like the consolidated Everdell rulebook)

The game has a coop mode (on which the solo is based) and a versus mode. I was playing a solo so coop mode it was. There are two gods in the archipelago who unleash their wrath on the islands if not appeased by throwing humans (and other offerings) into the vulcanos which are conveniently placed on every island. But even if maximally appeased they still have a little bit of wrath. They also send tsunamis and vulcanic eruptions that become larger when they are angry. Note: they start out angry. On top of that there are up to 3 ships of conquistadores who come out of the same chasms that produce the tsunamis and that attack your villages.

Players are one of many tribes inhabiting the islands and for the most part they just want to stay alive—thriving is not the theme of this game. It says „survival“ somewhere in the description. You start out knowing 2 of the 4 crafts (fishing, fig-tree tending aka farming, pig herding or goat herding). You have two warriors and 3 little tribes people who inhabit your two starting villages.

So during the action phase of each of the 3 ages, you get to use your cubes (single actions) and cylinders (use-once double-actions) to do either some production, invention, exploring or cave building. After exploring you can do a bunch of secondary actions that include throwing offerings (from your crafts or humans) into volcanoes to appease the gods, gathering resources, building more villages or attacking forts with invaders.

After the action phase comes a long list of phases that you have no influence over: reproduction of people, animal and invaders „Rosenberg“ style. Feeding your people (dead people anger the gods), throwing out the garbage (the gods hate waste) and so on. At some points the gods look at the meager offerings and get more angry. The god gauge starts at mildly angry and goes up to „you lose the game“—just 5 steps which you could easily trigger in the first round if you fucked up.

Then come the disasters of which there are always many and which—thankfully in the first age you get to know about without having to pay in flammable resources (seers need fires). The disasters are randomly distributed across the board and maybe the angry god just cannot find any goats to eat—that is fine. The problem is though that the range of each disaster increases with the anger of the gods. (There are a couple more phases after the disasters but they are largely inconsequential to the tale I want to tell)

Ah, ways to lose the game:

you no longer have at least 1 warrior/noble and 1 tribes person
there are too many Conquistadores compared to your people and they now control the islands.
a god gauge hits maximum godpower

So I had happily played my first age, thinking I would somehow make it to the next age. I focussed a lot on learning the two additional crafts I was missing, as I was the only tribe around and I could already see in the first round I was going to need a variety of goods as offerings that my current crafts could not provide.

I got a bit unlucky that the invader ship came out between 3 isles that were equidistant and no matter what they would attack one of my villages or the neutral village teaching pig herding if I didn‘t do things „right“.

I quickly realized I could not appease the gods this round with offerings because 2 of the required items were locked in a craft I did not know. And I overlooked that attacking invaders and capturing some to throw into the vulcano would have done the deed.

With a second tribe in the game it would have been very likely that the other player might have provided those goods.

I also have issues with the reproduction phase. And how you get your people on the board. It seems to be very easy to get „stuck“ with no more way to regrow your presence or get more resources. It is probably all a very tight balance that works if you optimize it just right. I don‘t know, I cannot see it. I just see something very finicky and easily broken.

And the same number of goods needs to be provided as sacrifices no matter the number of players, that also seems wrong. Same for the materials for the fires. Why is this not adjusted to number of players?

So what happened in my „game“ was that the gods got not appeased, and their range of wrath remained at 2 hexes from origin and the tsunami that seemed at a safe distance when I started the game, ate up my one village with 3 people (after reproduction) and there is no way to appease a tsunami unless you got lucky with an idol (reward for throwing offerings into the vulcano). If I were a smarter me I would simply have migrated my people to a new village—at least fig trees are abundant. But I didn‘t even see the Tsunami coming.

And then because the one village that had enough people to defend itself no longer existed, the invaders came for the other one and destroyed that, too and so after the first age I was wiped off the board.

Two hours to learn the game, half an hour to lose it. I packed it up and right now am not keen to try again. I can see some of my mistakes. Not attacking the invaders to use as offerings. Not migrating my people.

There used to be a nice island somewhere in the center of the board.

I have rarely lost a game as badly and as perplexedly as this. But in other games when I lose, I just want to try again. I see interesting things to do and try. Here it just feels like… work? My brain and this puzzle are not on the same wavelength I am sorry to report.

I think I have played enough games to know if there is something in a game for me. I had a feeling like this after watching the preview on Radho‘s channel but I backed the game anyway. And I may give it another try at 2 players. But not right now. Right now I want to play Everdell.

lalunaverde · 1 October 2022 15:38

PARIS CONNECTION!!!

Sanscouci - Better than Azul. It’s still bad, in my standards

Square on Sale - hot auction game

Rococo fun Euro!! This older edition is better than the EGG deluxe edition.

And there’s a Knizia trading game. I forgot the name. It was that forgettable. Bohnanza is much better

raged_norm · 1 October 2022 17:24

It’s a great game let down by the dumb box size. Therefore I don’t want to own it.

mistercrayon · 1 October 2022 20:06

We played our first game of Sentient. There’s something nice about its tactical puzzle game thing where every turn feels like it’s own little quest to do the best you can with the rubbish out there but you also are generally allowed to feel cool about doing a clever thing.

Simfers · 1 October 2022 20:39

Two games of Honey Buzz in the books, I lost both, the first was close, the second… wasn’t. But this is a fantastic game. There’s economics, worker placement and tile-laying in equal measure with zero randomness outside of set-up. And it’s one of the best-looking games out there.

Definitely recommended. Will it beat out Everdell for the best game we’ve played this year? Doubtful. Everdell has a longevity that’s hard to beat. But I think it’s beat out Rococo Deluxe for the second spot.

SteveB_uk · 1 October 2022 22:13

Argh, I so want to buy Honey Buzz. Top of the list for Christmas.

I was feeling slightly poorly in a hotel room in Prague (there’s a first line for a song) and played a second game of solo Sunset over Water pocket edition. I really like it. It starts off lovely and relaxing and before long you’re cursing the decks and weeping about the high scoring commissions you had to ditch.

DEFINITELY a good move to have a pocket size box, the only drawback is that the (well written) manual is in tiiiiny print (but they give you a URL for a full size pdf).

Much better than Herbaceous, and a really satisfying solo game. I scored medium on points, just missing the next category up because I didn’t finish on the “home” square for a small bonus.

bengeile · 2 October 2022 02:50

Played a round of A Day in the Castle which is a resource management game that my 11YO made after finishing her math test early in school yesterday. (Note: it was not a spelling test. We’re working on that.)

All-in-all a pretty good experience. It is cooperative, but the dice were definitely favoring the designer, which makes sense, since she also created her own custom die out of college-ruled paper.

Phil · 2 October 2022 04:11

When the opening phrase is “pothead cook” you know you’re in for something interesting.

Chewy77 · 2 October 2022 07:00

Second day of our local Con at Hawke’s Bay (which it is still going on as I type) but yours truly had to leave at 6 pm today. After an early morning start (8.45 am we had the first few in) of catching up with fellow “Guildren” I had not seen for a while, we played a game of Overboss, which actually was quite some fun. It gave me vibes of Cascadia by how it was scored, but placing tiles within a grid instead of hexes freely. We played it between four, and the game ended in 9 points between 1st and 4th, with me third.

Then we taught a game of Everdell to a newbie and a person that had played it once the night before. I did terribly (I kept getting critters cards, and no decent buildings) finishing 3rd at 34 points, with the winner running away at 50.

After that, I played a quick game of Bananagrams that I ended up winning accidentally, as the person that beat me to getting all the tiles allocated had a misspell, while I didn’t (even though they were trying to challenge my Frig and Mirk words, which were completely legal)

The afternoon was spent playing D&D in a game that needed one more to be 4 PCs in which I used a half elf druid (lvl 2) I had built from a couple months ago on a one shot event. We managed to get the treasure and escape the horde of zombies just in time, so all in all, a positive day.

Thanks to all of you that responded to my questions about Firefly, it gives me some peace of mind I was not terribly wrong.

Bondy034 · 2 October 2022 09:58

It’s been a furious flurry of boardgames over the last week (I’m already at 21 logged plays for October!):

Point Salad x5, lots of this one played - it’s such a winner as a card game, especially with 2 or 3 players. Learn to love the hate-draft and it shines at a lower playercount.

Archaeology x2, this one was new to Mum but she really enjoyed our 2 player games of it, as did I.

Sushi Go Party, a close 2 player game of this - I only just ducked ahead in the final round!

Barenpark, this was a weird game - we ended up with some objectives that really messed us up trying to hit all three. I recovered the best, but yeah, it was weird.

Jaipur

Cascadia, still excellent and scales pretty well for playercount.

Ohanami x2, managed to win both games with a heavy cherry-blossom strategy. I suspect if the other players don’t do their best to stop you, it’s very hard to beat going for the pinks. Even managed a 200+ score one of the rounds (we tend to hover around 180-190 mostly)!

Super Big Boggle x5, impossible to just play once and a stand-by for my wife and I.

Roll Player, introduced this to a RPG loving friend. They loved the theme, but didn’t quite grasp the strategic implications till the end. It’s a bit more complex for newbies than I’d like, and seems to cater more to the ‘numbers and stuff’ RPG’ers than the ‘yay let me tell you about my character’ crowd.

Photosynthesis won this one by a narrow margin, but gosh I wasted the last few rounds - probably harvested a bit pre-emptively and was stuck with too small an income to nab another score token…

Villagers won this one with a final turn play of an apprentice, a monk and a jeweller. It was awesome

bort · 2 October 2022 10:16

Cat in the Box, first play. I’ve been looking forward to this game, love trick taking games. This one is certainly different, but still very easy to pickup. The gimmick is that none of the cards have a suit, you play a card and say what suit it will be. But, the card and suit must not have been played already, and if you don’t follow suit, then you can’t play any cards of the led colour for the rest of the round. So, someone leads with blue, if I play a yellow, then I’m saying I’m out of blue and can’t play it in the future. Similar to other trick takers, you have to predict how many tricks you will win. if you get it right, you get a bonus equal to your largest contiguous group of your tokens on the board (you add a token for each card you play). If you don’t have a valid play, then you’ve caused a paradox, and you get negative points. We only had three paradoxes in our game. A paradox gave me the win on the last round – my only valid play was to play a higher trump, but then I would have missed my bonus. Good fun, if a little chaotic.

Ad Astra, first play. This is a competitive space game. Each player has their own deck of action cards, covering production, building, movement, trading, and scoring. In a four player game, there are 12 slots for cards, so three per player. You can play on any space, but the cards are resolved in order. Everyone usually gets to perform the action. You start with your one starship in deep space, with one factory in the Sol system. There are seven resources, which you can get from factories on a planet, or from trading with other players. We don’t really play any trading games in our group, I’ve tried them and they have fallen flat. Luckily, if you don’t want to trade with people, you can trade two for one with the bank. Still, it was a fun game, not sure if I’ll keep it.

Next Station: London, first play. A flip and write game that has you marking out four different lines in the city of London. Each line has it’s own coloured pencil to use. A card is flipped over, and that shows a shape, which you must connect to on your player sheet. There’s a few things you can score for, but the basic calcuation for each round is the number of districts you have connected, and the most stations in a single district. You can’t cross over another line, or double back on your current line. Was good fun, although I got smashed.

Project: ELITE, this game is always great fun. We chosen a medium difficulty game, which was certainly harder (and even easy is a fair challenge). And I’ve painted the basic aliens (not the bosses or players), so that was cool. I thought we were gone for all money, but somehow we pulled out the win in the last round. It’s a shame you actually miss a lot of the action because you are so intent on your own play (the action phase has everyone rolling in real time). This is a great game.

I was a little disappointed we didn’t get a game of Village Rails in, was looking forward to that.

bruitist · 2 October 2022 13:16

A new board game cafe opened up this week, so I went to check it out with a couple of friends yesterday. Nice place with a good selection of games.

Azul - I won both games, though we realised halfway through the second game that my friends had been scoring wrong, so maybe I didn’t?

Mysterium - Haven’t played this in ages, forgot how silly it can get. Highlight: Handing over a card with a lion on, hoping it would point towards the room with a bear rug, failing to notice the lion was on a boat and there was a boat-themed room

Blokus - Interesting puzzle, don’t think I really got the hang of it.

Kluster - Lots of fun for how simple it is. Feels like a magic trick when you pull off a risky placement.

Concept - Damn young people today! I managed to get them to “comic about a boy and his stuffed tiger”, but neither of them knew Calvin and Hobbes!

Phil · 2 October 2022 14:39

As unthinkable as that is, the bright side is this – you can forever be the person who introduced that magic into their lives!

Whistle_Pig · 2 October 2022 15:48

Back to our regular Saturday gaming yesterday:

Oceans: a very chaotic game involving a lot of Deep cards. If you’ve played any of the Evolution series, the Deep cards are like the regular trait cards turned up to 11. To my right was an invisible kraken, and to my left a swarm of giant flying sharks

Fjords: I was accused of being “very annoying for very little gain”, but I think the resulting draw proves otherwise (although I’ll admit that my move was annoying)

Lanterns: more laying tiles and collecting sets.

Castles of Mad King Ludwig: the super deluxe version which our friend admits is pointlessly overdone, but he has no regrets

raged_norm · 2 October 2022 16:01

Then it’s fine. I feel the same way about Big City: 20th Anniversary

Chewy77 · 2 October 2022 21:12

Gosh, I love Oceans for things like these