We played loads on holiday, but I thought a couple of guys who were there would really dig it.
I thought we’d play for 45 minutes as a filler, but we had to force ourselves to stop after nearly 2 hours!
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Will give more thoughts on Cosmic Frog later.
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Thanks 
“Mental” sounds like the most British recommendation btw–to me anyway!
I only had a look at how to play Carrom and some gameplay on YT, but it seems more difficult than Crokinole. If anyone thinks they want something more from Crok, Carrom looks cool
It’s much harder than Crokinole imo. I love them both and am lucky enough to have both (Carrom is much, much cheaper). My Carrom board is cheap enough that I’m prepared to put it in the car to take it away for the weekend. If there was interest I’d bring it to tekeli con
Your bad shots stay with you in Carrom, whereas Crokinole you’re on to the next end quickly because you only get 8 shots regardless.
Carrom YouTube videos are amazing (check out Carrom king)
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My impressions of Cosmic Frog. It’s defintely in the same vein as Cosmic Encounter. I don’t think its designed to be fair, or balanced or strategic - I think it exists because it can.
The theme is madness, the art is amazing and the components are cool. The rulebook isn’t good and it was a much longer teach than Cosmic Encounter or I’m The Boss (another mad game where you shout at each other).
There is a lot of dice rolling of a slightly modified D6 - your power may give you access to a better die. Mostly it is 1 die v 1 die, although you can add a second die or boost your roll (which you choose to do before). Defenders win ties but more interesting things happen if the attacker wins. Personally I prefer the card combat in CE because it’s still got the opportunity for craziness but it is more deterministic than just chucking a single D6. But as I said earlier, it’s not fair or balanced.
Someone called it ‘Prog Rock: The Board Game’ and I think thats pretty close.
If it sounds in any way appealing then I’d definitely recommend playing it, I’m glad I did but I wouldn’t rush back to it. As for owning it - Cosmic Frog is not going to get played on Christmas Day with your parents. It’s not a game like Pax Pamir or Root where you will learn it’s subleties over time. But if your group want to play as a 2 mile high frog that eats bits of a planet before vomiting it out again (into a Castles of Burgundy style puzzle) whilst punching another 2 mile tall frog (and if your punch is successful you reach into their throat and steal planetary shards out of their stomach) then go for it!
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Not a phrase I ever thought I’d read… Did you manage to find one of the good pubs somewhere amongst the student dives and 4 Wetherspoons?
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We stayed put, cooked our food and brought our own drinks so no need to venture into awful pubs
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My rule is to follow the Reading Boardgames Social (meetup group, and apparently fb too) who seem to game basically everywhere that serves anything worth drinking.
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Between that and calling it “mental” I just really want to own it. It’s like Inis, when SUSD said there were gameplay bits as totally bonkers as the art is. Just makes me want it more.
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It’s like the 70s Dune boardgame that I was talking to a friend about at the weekend:
“No, you don’t understand, it’s not balanced, it doesn’t have any interest in being balanced, because then it wouldn’t be so totally whacky”. (Also let me tell you about the Bene Gesserit win condition, which is my favourite thing in all of boardgaming…)
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I played 2 games of Spirit Island this week against Russia level 6. First was solo using 2 spirits as a double hander. I won this one, I played slowly and did a bit more calculation than I usually do and as a result I got the win. I think the genesis of this was around my regular spirit compatriot always dismissing our losses as luck. While I’m ok that there is some variance always to dismiss bad stuff as luck won’t see improvement and I want to improve on the 50% win rate against Russia 6. So I took this information to them and we played as a 2 and got another win. I’m hoping we can be a little more deliberate and not just rest on general heuristics that see a win/loss condition determined only by card draw. Let’s see if this can continue.
Then on Sunday met @lalunaverde and we started out with 1882: Assiniboia. Super interesting game and also done in 3.5 hours. I was so close to the win but Mr Verde held on. I tried to do things differently to usual and succeeded in breaking my patterns so happy with that. Trying to move beyond my beginners game level of 18XX.
Next we got out Noria out. Was great, the spinny wheel is all brain burn, and the switch point from engine build to investments is so knife edge. It’s so based on what others are doing as well that no 2 games are the same. To keep up the theme of the week I did something quite different to previous plays so that was also progressive. Still really glad I took the gamble on this, excellent game.
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Managed to try out a couple of new games this weekend.
First up was Long Shot: the dice game. What a great game, Quinns was spot on. The turns are so simple yet interesting, even with just two players. The game allows you to influence the race a little, but never too significantly so it still retains the feel of a race. It’s also refreshing for a roll and write to be so heads up and full of laughs…
And on that subject, next up was Welcome to the Moon. A much more “heads down and shut up” sort of fame. We managed to play the first 3 puzzles/missions (whatever they’re called!) and each provided a different puzzle. The first was very simple but combo focused, with the ability to interfere with your opponents’ sheets. It’s the least like the original Welcome To so far, with the next two sharing some similarities but offering new and interesting puzzles. I can’t wait to see how the others play or how the campaign pans out.
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Sticheln - Defo one of my Top 3 trick taking card games
a session of Gloomhaven
1882: Assiniboia - I manage to win for less than 100 Canadian Dollars lol. There was a big move where I stole a company with no money from @EnterTheWyvern , but it has 3 trains and I gauge that it’ll be getting a lot of money. In hindsight, the outcome wasn’t as awesome as I thought. I have to withhold a few times, and that energy and money would be better off going to another new shiny company with a lot of money.
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So it was a tie?
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For me it was a moral victory, I did a mistake of not picking up a share card so thought i had wrong cash so a green share transferred which shouldn’t have. However as LLV has played tons more than me I’m very happy with a close second. Especially as I played aggressively to attack positions which isn’t my usual style necessarily. I also didn’t get stuck train shuffling poorly. That’s the biggest win for me
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Yeah. I did some big misplays. Taking over the CNR might be more of a mistake, than a benefit. But the game being opaque, we’ll never know until we get more experience.
Buying into the Quapple was terrible as it was a potential company to be dumped on me.
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Oh gods, this. A thousand, glorious times, this.
Customers frequently ask about “Is the Dune game any good?” at which point I have to have the “There are actually 8 Dune games… which one are you talking about? The Dune war game, the small Dune war game, the Dune traitor game, the Dune detective game, the Dune card game with worker placement, the Dune game all about Fremen, the Dune Kickstarter game based on War of the Ring, or the Dune RPG?”
Usually they mean the original Dune war game or Dune Imperium: if they’re asking about Dune Imperium, I get to say the line “Sure, I think Lost Ruins of Arnak is actually a slightly better game, but every time anyone says the words ‘Bene Gesserit’ around me all the hairs on my arm stand on end…” (for the record, that’s actually true… I always show my arm, the hairs are always standing on end whenever I talk about them).
If they’re asking about the Dune war game I get to talk about perfect balance through perfect imbalance, and that allows me to talk about the Bene Gesserit win condition. Gods, so frickin’ smart.
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“No, you don’t understand, they don’t field a normal army, they insert Spiritual Advisors into yours and you can’t say no!”
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Hodge Podge:
Thurn & Taxis on BGA. The art and theme is very reminiscent of Hansa Teutonica, but the gameplay is more Ethnosy. We all commented on how there was just more and more and MORE going on as the game developed. Amazing how much came out of so few rules. This was a delight.
Just One: This is shifting toward meh. It has some fun, and it pulls its weight, but it isn’t as good as Codenames or Decrypto. I think in the end it’s a bit like Sheriff of Nottingham in that you don’t have any actual information to make your guesses on so eventually you are just flailing. And then some really good moments sometimes arise.
Istanbul: This is a game I thought I’d solved, then I lost horribly to more experienced players and realized there was a lot going on that I had not yet grokked. At this point I still love it, but it has become a game that is hard to play between players of different skill levels. I finished the game and doodled around for three moves before finally closing out (as long as I could without anyone realizing I was stalling), and the rest of the table still had a few turns to go for second. I’m looking forward to finally playing with coffee one of these days, once this group gets a bit deeper in.
Planet Unknown: First solo play was meh. So was Barenpark, which I later loved. I think this NEEDS the special planets and corporations to make the puzzle crunch. Trying again. I also did lose to the target score, so maybe I just haven’t taken ahold of it yet?
Pax Pamir: We are closing in on the final dominance check, asynch. I’ve only played solo before, which I didn’t care for. Now I’m playing with people… and… So I initially got this game because people who love the games I love also love it. I’m really struggling to see what makes it work.
I’m building a hypothesis with Wehrle games that they seem to require a table of similarly skilled players who all know the game well before they “work.” This can be construed as a strength or a weakness, depending on what you are trying to get out of it. One symptom though is that these games, whether it is Oath, Root, or Pamir, can really misfire for a session or for a player. You have to accept that going in.
I’ve just deleted a bunch of text trying to articulate what isn’t working. I can’t. Needless to say, I’m learning as I go. Some of it is making sense, but it isn’t a game you can catch up in. And being in last place (where I am, 0 VP FTW) is a place where you need to be bartering and negotiating, but playing online makes that hard to actually do.
There’s no agility. You can see what you need to do, or what needs to happen, but it takes several turns to do anything - if the cards you need are even available. Which, I suppose, then requires seeing what needs to happen even further in advance, or seeing what others will be unable to respond to and moving yourself into that space. But when the game pivots on you, you often don’t have the tools to react. So I feel like I’m driving a zamboni rather than the performance car that is Tigris or El Grande.
I’m not averse to games that require several plays to learn - I actually like it that way. But some games (Nations, Polis) grabbed me in my lostness and compelled me to keep playing to figure it out. Pamir has yet to grab me.
Last thought, it seems like a game like Twilight Struggle or some such that you need to learn as a group. Find opponents who are all making the same mistakes and having the same epiphanies at the same time. The consequences of mistakes are pretty dire, especially when others aren’t making them or know how to capitalize on them. I do think I’m playing a better second half than first half, but there’s no point as I remain several steps behind the other tribes.
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