Recent Boardgames (Your Last Played Game Volume 2)

[Bondy034]

Some games over the last week and a bit:

Motor City, got this to the table with some actual humans - it’s not bad, we ended up tied for first position so it was tight. It did run a little long with 3 (or maybe I’m just biased after how quick solo games can be). I wouldn’t recommend it above Fleet:TDG or Three Sisters, but if those don’t sate your need for crunchy roll and writes, it’s good and has it’s own ideas, the engine building is interesting for sure.

Click Clack Lumberjack x3, folks weren’t feeling like anything too involved after MC so we had a few quick games of this. It’s great. It’s silly but it’s fun. I’m a little sad not to have the new version with the different coloured bark and sturdier box, mine is kind of falling apart

Concordia, two player game of this with a buddy. We played the Balearica map (no fish market though) Interesting map and a very tight game, I lost it by not buying one of the cards (which I had opportunity too but thought I could squeeze out one more turn) - the swing would’ve led to a win! Great fun though, and a very good map for two!

The Quest for El Dorado, great game of this - we all took very different approaches - I was out in front and just kept churning through cards to maintain a lead, but we had a map with water before El Dorado… And guess who didn’t buy enough water traversal cards so player two managed to surge ahead and get there before me. Our third player was questing for the perfect deck, but he was a couple of rounds too slow to catch up with us.

Ride the Rails, friend brought his copy over. I did poorly. I mean I was in contention until the last few turns but I think I made a number of mistakes throughout that led to my loss. Our two leaders were very close though. It’s a weird game - kind of pick up and deliver with route building? Like a lighter Age of Steam in some ways. I do appreciate that you’re not deliberately running very inefficient trains like in that one - this one one works with the theme of rich people travelling by train cause they can - without really caring where they end up (it’s all about the journey kind of thing )

Air, Land and Sea, this one was close as it tends to be. Such a great little short 2 player game. I have the Critters version, which is the same but just with more appealing art.

Hanamikoji, I won this one in the second round thanks to a secret card swing, which is always fun

The Fox in the Forest, played this one with my wife. I think she slightly regrets teaching me how to play it better, as I built up a significant lead this game. I still suck at playing humble but am now okay at normal victories most of the time. Still was fun

[bort]

Bit of a mix of games today…

First up, our first game of Frosthaven. Our group is a Banner Spear, Drifter, Deathwalker (me), and Geminate. After even more sorting of pieces, we finally tackled the first bit, which is a bit of a tutorial – we didn’t have all our cards, and enemies didn’t use their attack modifier decks. It’s been a while since we played Gloomhaven, so we thought the tutorial would be useful. We got through it without any major problems, except we forgot to put the door to the next room in. Loot is a bit different, you have a loot deck.

Next up was something completely different: Alice is Missing, billed as a silent role playing game. Well, we haven’t played any role playing games before. So, the story is – a teen is missing from a small town in California, and we play as her friends, who are trying to find out what happened to her. We select a character out of five, One player (which was me in this play) is the facilitator, sort of like a GM, but they are actively playing as well. You choose a character, give them a background, and a Secret (which should be told during the game), and you get a random Drive card, with motivation for your character, as well as two relationships (one positive, one negative) which are applied to other characters. There’s a lot of room to be creative here, the cards just nudge you in a direction. So, after introducing our characters, we start the game. All conversation is done via text messages. We used discord, because it was easier to change your name to be the proper character name. And there is a discord configuration on the website, which configures all the channels for you.

As the game progresses (it’s timed to 90 minutes), players will select clue cards according to the time, which then instructs them to play location and suspects. There are three different clue cards for each time, so you can get a different experience if you replay it.

I wasn’t sure how well this game was going to be received (although I had warned them in advance that it was a game using just text messages. I thought I would get some pushback, but they tackled it all brilliantly. Even the voice messages at the start of the game (where you leave a message for Alice). I have to say, the game was pretty cool. It had a few moments that dragged, but we tried to keep it moving. I forgot half of my motivations (and those of other players). The 90 minutes seemed to fly by. And there were certainly some interesting developments (no spoilers). So cool to have these things come up in chat. Probably not for everyone, and I’m not sure if we’d replay it (even the rules say you shouldn’t replay with the same group).

So, worn out after experiencing Alice is Missing, we went with something quick and fun. Yes, it was time for some Loopin Louie. So much fun. Why did I sell my copy?

And finally, a quick game of Akropolis, a great little filler.

[Phil]

More Wildlands: The Ancients this evening, and finally a success. I would have considered a game in which I simply felt competitive to be a success, but this one turned out to be a resounding victory.

@Phil

It sounds like I randomly picked one of the hardest scenarios in game 1, and one of the most difficult player factions to win with in game 2. It seems that I should try playing against the Tyrant next time…

So I chose The Tyrant, and perused the four standard player factions carefully, and selected The Gnomads for their solid ranged attacks (last time I played as The Guild who barely have ranged attacks at all (area attacks to adjacent spaces being the limit), and that seemed really tough). Why the game doesn’t recommend this opponent for an easier game, I can’t fathom – it has the weakest minions, and an Ancient who is unable to move from the space it spawns on (although it likes to spawn new minions frequently).

My team pretty much smashed it. For about half the game I was able to keep the minions almost entirely absent; playing whack-a-mole whenever one appeared, and quickly spreading out across the map to uncover the hidden items. Before long I had three of the five crystals I needed for victory and a couple of treasures besides, but eventually the traps turned up.

The stasis traps are the worst – they pin a character to a location and they don’t release anyone until either you’ve found them all, or your entire (surviving) team are trapped in them. In this scenario there are 4 stasis traps, so once I had three trapped characters it was a mad dash for the still-mobile pair to locate the final trap. That could have gone poorly, but luck was on my side. With two players in co-op you would have twice as many characters to find only the same number of traps as in solo play (you face two sets of ancient+minions, but only one set of hidden items), so this particular element seems more difficult for solo.

With that danger out of the way and the minions still mostly at bay, the odds were in my favour. The fifth and final crystal was item 18 out of 19, so it still took a while to confirm a victory, but I did so with all five of my team still standing. That was the game to me, but I kept playing to see if I could take down The Tyrant as well (which is the other way to win).

After a while I’d done enough damage to be certain of succeeding, but I didn’t know whether I’d keep my whole team alive, and the end-game turned out to be pretty funny. The Tyrant was down to 3 health and it had a minion in its space and another in the adjacent space that two of my badly-damaged characters (Ginauld and the Automate) were in. I was very low on attack cards, but Ginauld had a single heavy melee attack if I moved him into the Tyrant’s space, and the Tyrant only had a 20% chance of defending. I made the play and… it failed. I ended my turn and drew the next card for the minion activity, and found that both of my characters were each going to suffer two area attacks! I could defend only two area attacks in total and Ginault and the Automate were on 1 and 2 health respectively, so I was losing one of them at minimum… except I had an Interrupt card. I played it. The Automate firstly activated a one-time-use treasure it had been carrying to inflict 2 damage on the Tyrant – there had been a benefit to not using it earlier, but now was clearly the time! Next, the minion in the Automate’s space was on 1 health and Elsie had line of sight from a more distant space. She attacked successfully, and it went down before it could make either of its area attacks. That was all I could do for the moment, but now I could survive the remaining area attacks… and they were happening in the same space as the Tyrant! Ginauld defended. The Tyrant did not. Defeated by its own minion!

Definitely more enjoyable when I’m not getting hopelessly obliterated. Still dubious that I’d pick it over The Dark Judges. Will keep playing…

[RogerBW]

I probably shouldn’t have sold Pitch Car, though it was huge. But if I hadn’t I wouldn’t have bought Crokinole.

[BertFill]

I’m very excited! Just had our first ever win at Spirit Island (I picked it up second hand at Airecon)!
Okay, we’re playing almost the absolute easiest version of the game it’s possible to play, but still - we won!
I loved the game even losing every time - turns out it’s even more fun when you win!

[EnterTheWyvern]

Which Spirit(s) saw you over the line?

[BertFill]

We were River Surges in Sunlight (me) and Shadows Flicker like Flame. First time with those spirits for each of us.

[raged_norm]

Just played a learning game of Ahoy with the six year old.

I won. It was fun but I think it’s really a 3-4 player game.

It might be in the same space as 7 Wonders Architects, light fun

[Captbnut]

I could spend an afternoon just reading the spirit names and the card names.

[lalunaverde]

#SpiritIslandGang

[gmwhite999]

Set-up earlier today for another solo trial playthrough of my T20 cricket game project Bat on Ball, after some extra tweaks to the card backs and counters in recent weeks.

[Assussanni]

I haven’t managed to play much recently, but I did get a game Spirit Island in today with my wife.

Thunderspeaker and Shadows Flicker Like Flame took down Sweden level 2. It was the closest we’ve come to flipping the Blight card, but we just about held on long enough to stabilise then turn the tide, with a wall of Dahan sweeping across the island and clearing out all the invaders in their wake.

[Phil]

@Phil

With two players in co-op you would have twice as many characters to find only the same number of traps as in solo play (you face two sets of ancient+minions, but only one set of hidden items), so this particular element seems more difficult for solo.

Thinking more on this, that also means that in co-op you have twice as many characters with which to locate the same number of crystals for one of the standard win conditions. Moving costs cards, so having a character close to an unrevealed item is a significant advantage for finding all the items, and so doubling the number of (randomly-distributed) characters seeking the (randomly-distributed) items is going to be a huge help. There is one notable concession to balancing here, which is that it costs a card to reveal an item in your current location in co-op mode, whereas this is a free action in solo play; however I believe the additional movement costs in solo mode are going to significantly outweigh the “reveal” cost in co-op.

The scenarios do have a solo side and a co-op side (and I realise now that I accidentally used the co-op side in the last game, which had reduced the overall minion count by 3, so maybe I shouldn’t have won with no casualties after all), but I’ve just gone through all of the scenario cards and none of them vary any of the item counts between the two sides. I’m really surprised that the number of stasis traps are not reduced for solo players.

With all that in mind, I can’t help but think that this game mode is primarily tuned for co-op play. I may make my next game a two-hander.

[COMaestro]

Saw our usual gaming couple today for the first time since December! After some pizza, we broke out Betrayal Legacy and played chapter 11. Getting really close to the end. It had a very interesting Haunt, though a little boring for some as you had to be in certain bits of the map to do anything for it. Heroes ultimately won. I died, which seems par for the course at this rate.

We rounded out the day with Tsuro, which has not been on the table in years. Still a wonderfully streamlined game, plays quick, and beautiful in its simplicity. Our friends tied for the win, as all tiles were played and they were both facing the last open square.

Good to see them, and hopefully it won’t be months before we get together again.

[Griffster77]

We played Tsuro yesterday for the forst time with my daughter - the evil cackle she gave as she forced my wife off the board was a thing to behold!

[KIR2]

Fun game day!

Summoner Wars 2nd ed (goblins vs steampunk) - liking this game more and more every time. Goblins swarmed the punk’s as expected. Goblins were cleared fairly easily, but the 0 cost meant nearly any cards were discarded and they kept coming. Maybe I (punks) shouldn’t have discarded so much either and relied more on the easy kills for magic.

Spirit Island (basic set up w/Lure, Shadows, Many Minds) - interesting hero combo. We mainly spammed fear and moved the invaders around, while Lure deconstructed the settlements. Won the turn after we got to fear lvl3. This was just an intro game for my friends. Been a while since I played it, so took a few turns before we really got rolling, but it was fairly painless. Definitely want to play this more often

Ummatched (Dracula vs Sun Wukong. Big Foot vs Achilles) - First time playing this. The game is perfunctory - functional, but isn’t fun. It’s too “i play a card, you play a card, lose 2 health” for me. The abilities don’t shake it up enough (do some damage and move. Do some damage and gain some health). The second game was a lot more fun than the first though. Sun Wukong mainly runs away and let’s the clones do the fighting for him, which doesn’t feel very engaging. I can see there’s more depth once you’ve learnt what each hero can do to play around that (if only to know how much damage to expect from each combat instead of it being a random number generator), but I don’t think I would ever enjoy it enough to get to that point.

[yashima]

First multiplayer (well 2 is more than 1) of Akropolis: nice quick game, that is easy to teach and over before you know it.

First multiplayer (see above) of Distilled. Went back to Scenario A. Turns out you can make a lot of money if you sell your very alcoholic Moonshine in tasteful mason jars… however putting rum in a cask for aging almost broke me. And if you don‘t sell your spirits in fancy bottles be prepared to lose. I went for plant-based sugars (eg potatoes, sugar cane and agave) and my partner went for fruit based ones. He won with 123 to 107. There are cards in the game that reward you for a less concentrated approach. But so far I can barely pull off making stuff other than Moonshine and Vodka. I have yet to distill a „gold“ recipe while my partner made Brandy during his first game.

I like it a lot with 2. Seeing how it went, it seems this is a bit more complicated than it felt to me in the solo. My partner struggled with counting money and points when selling spirits. And I also find this a little on the messy-fiddly side as towards the end you may have something like 20 cards in a spirit and each of these may be worth points or money or both. And don‘t forget the extra VP for Aroma Cards…

[VictorViper]

I managed to get Frostpunk played again and I am surprised and delighted to report a win (by the smallest of margins). I remain amazed by this as a piece of hybrid design; I don’t think I can cite another game that feels so thematically rich without compromising the integrity of the gameplay.

Having lost the previous attempt prior to the finale, I wasn’t able to determine how the game might offer a satisfying conclusion. It was a question I had early on since there’s a continuous escalation of peril and no (immediately) obvious definition of success. Winning a game with a doomed colony (i.e. “success” by surviving up to a determined round, even if it would collapse the next turn) would feel somewhat hollow, and I wasn’t able to see how one might get real satisfaction from their hard work. This is a city builder, after all, and there’s more to a win than doing a victory check at round X.

Thankfully, I played quite well this game and can confirm there’s a rough state of equilibrium to be found in a well managed city. Without spoiling anything about the scenario, I can confirm that I had been enjoying a round or two of sustainable life before the finale hit. It was tenuous (any number of past decisions could come back to bite me each round and tip the scales), but I had my core resources in check and would have been looking toward stockpiling had I been afforded more time.

I’ll mention again that the Morning/Dusk (Event) system is utterly brilliant. Luck is very carefully implemented in several elements of the game, but having an event deck stocked entirely with the consequences of your decisions is genius. I’ve come to really loathe the rote inclusion of “event phases” in co-operative games. Whether they’re well implemented or not, they rarely feel like much more than a RNG button to spice up a turn. Here we get each round bookended with events (morning and dusk), with choices to be made in the morning, and performance based consequences at dusk. The really insidious part is that you’ll usually be stocking the dusk deck faster than you can resolve it, so the weight of your past decisions swell into this nebulous cloud of consequences that could come crashing down, one by one, at any moment. The escalation is palpable and I haven’t even talked about the big grey anxiety generator in the middle of the table.

I’ve got so much hyperbole to add here, it’s unreal.

The narrowest of victories

[Whistle_Pig]

Yesterday we played Dominant Species. I was expecting something a lot more complicated based on my prior experience with GMT Games I enjoyed it a lot - I had a good lead for most of the game by scoring a lot of high-value tiles. Unfortunately (and predictably) my opponents decided this wasn’t on and nobbled most of my species just before the end of the game. In the final round of scoring I got a meager 6 points to everyone else’s 45. Maybe I’ll remember not to stick my neck out too early next time!

[lalunaverde]

I hope you guys were alright with the confusing technical terms between “dominance” and having a majority on a hex. People confuses those two that I came up with my own technical term “adaptability” for most (food x adaption tokens) and call controlling a hex as “dominance” or “control”.