I thought duckuna.
1 Like
Iāll put this into a spoiler in case the mystery of why some guy has a 120 tiny ducks is more fun than the answer. (It is and isnāt)
I saw on twitter that some person had bought a these kinds of ducks, and hid them around her parents house for them to find randomly. I thought that would be a fun game to play with my partner
you can get them on Amazon amongst other animals including I think frogs and hippo,
I got the set that had ten or so colours but you can buy just yellow ones if you want to remain classical
I donāt know how to spoiler text it seems.
6 Likes
I think you need a space between āclassicalā and the closing spoiler tag.
2 Likes
You need to escape the blank lines. Like so:
[spoiler]This text
\
will be
\
blurred[/spoiler]
becomes
This text
will be
blurred
2 Likes
It worked!
I think though the horse has sailed at this point.
1 Like
@Lordof1 do you still have those babies?
1 Like
Oh yes. A cupboard full of Jesus.
3 Likes
Played 1860: Isle of Wight with some friends at 3 player. One played 18xx before and one have never played 18xx before (but she plays boatloads of Power Grid, so she knows her maths and have transferrable skills). IOW is easily about buying low and selling high. Thereās no obligation to keep your companies, so you can sell 100% of your shares (and also own a company 100%). Stock value fluctuates in a way that I like.
But it can be opaque with the train shuffling shenanigans, so itās not so straight forward on which company will do well.
My excuse on me losing this game is that I have to teach and pay attention to the whole game with 1860 first-timers. I made some mistakes on which company to start and buy. The winner bought the BHI&R at a low Ā£40 per share and zoomed up to Ā£128 per share by the end of the game.
This remains my favourite among the 1825-branch (1825 and 1862: East Anglia). Hopefully, Mike Huttonās new stuff would be in this branch too.
I enjoyed our session and we ended in 5 hours. Albeit with me managing the pace of the game.
6 Likes
Nokusu Dice - 9/10. Loved it.
Great dice drafting/trick taking game that hits the blend of public and private information perfectly. So many nice touchs, like trapping people into using the dice they want to save to ruin their round. Stand out new game of the weekend. Thanks for bringing it out Roger!
Chaos in the Old World - 7/10
A game Iāve always wanted to try so glad I finally got the chance. Definitely showing itās age with itās very simple attack Vs defence interactions. Can see it would show some depth with replays. The magic god in particular seems difficult to pick up first time. Would play it again but probably not any time soon. Just didnāt grab me.
Furnace - 7/10
Playing this at the end of the night was probably a mistake. More thinkier than I expected. 4 rounds is always really tight, I prefer my engine building games to last a lot longer. But interesting how it does a lot without many components or rounds. I appreciate what it does but donāt think it would be up there for engine builders due to the tightness feeling very claustrophobic.
Xia - 6/10
A dice chucker story generator of a game, which isnāt usually my thinf. It was fun, but went on too long. Probably a lot of it was because we played 5 player (5p boardgames donāt exist), and our inexperience probably meant a few of us were missing early synergies to aim for. Was ready for it to end at 10VP rather than 15VP. On the positives, some very funny moments (me assisting @Lordof1 with free movement points to watch him yeet his brand new spaceship into the sun was hilarious), and a lot of the dice chucking was really fun. If this could be 90minutes I think Iād be content.
Ark Nova - Ark/10
Okay, maybe I forgot how long it takes to teach. Had a weird situation where people were kinda rushing through turns but because of that little interactions were being missed. Think people werenāt appreciating the necessity for a methodical approach when there are so many cards, and to follow everyoneās turn rather than hurry them on. But on the whole it went well and everyone enjoyed it. New expansion adds some nice touches. The new universities allowing you to force the animal combos a lot harder without fear of deck variance is great (a lot easier to hit for x5 if thatās what youāre aiming for), the sea animals with the coral interactions is a new feel, and the waves clearing the markets is something that maybe needs to be on more cards. We had a few rounds where the market clogged with sponsorship but on the whole it wasnāt too bad. Oh, and the deck size is ridiculous now. Putting cards āto the bottom of the deckā is comical. We had the deck split into 4 sizeable decks!
Turing Machine - 5/10
In principle, this game is super, but I think the conceit/mechanisms are unfortunately self limiting. Itās a logical puzzle with a 3 digit code that is worked out by testing your code in against a series of conditions with a cool āswiss cheeseā overlapping grid system. But with a 3 digit code its maybe too easy. We did puzzle 16/20 in 2 rounds. Thatās only testing our theories 6 times. Shorter than a suduko. 20/20 was rushed through because of closing time, but that was much more the difficulty I was expecting. The presented system is a great introduction to deduction/logic puzzles though. Great fun, just too easy as a puzzle. As a design, I salute the designers. Getting the design to work with cardboard is quite incredible. As always with these puzzles, there are harder levels online, so maybe thatās the true difficulty level that would fit us
11 Likes
The puzzles can be brutally brilliant. I think most of the normal difficulty puzzles can be solved in fewer than 6 āquestionsā
4 Likes
Oh yeah. We had some great puzzles where some people worked it out on round 2. I didnāt think I did, but thought a bit harder and got there on what the information I already had. Im sure it could work even leaner.
As a puzzle design itās brilliant. Just as a boardgame package I wanted it to last longer than a quick riddle. A sudoko or crossword takes longer! Itās effectively a game of 20 questions that can be solved on question 4-6. If it was packaged as some kind of āquick puzzle a dayā type product I think Iād have no qualms with that.
4 Likes
Yeah. I think Turing Machine will remain a solo experience for me. The āgameā portion isnāt as good as others, but the logic puzzle is great.
Awkward Guests is probably better but the puzzle isnāt as interesting; the game aspect is way better.
And, of course, Alchemists is a very fun puzzle with a great game attached ā my favorite of the three but the hardest to get players to sit down and play
5 Likes
Agree on all 3 counts (well not entirely sure if alchemists is my fav or not - barrier to entry so high)! We talked about strangers/alchemists/planet X afterwards. I think planet X is probably where you end up with gamifying these sorts of puzzles, but Turing Machine feels a lot purer. Friend of a friend apparently owns the game and treats it as a solo puzzle too
3 Likes
We had our younger kiddoās birthday party today, so had friends over. Our kids often like doing their own thing most of the time anyway, and our older kid was taking a nap, so we played a game.
Zoo Vadis finally hit the table!
At six players, we had all the animals except the armadillos. I was the crocodiles. This is going to take a few plays for us to really grasp the strategies, methinks. Like, when to pitch to someone they could use your ability, or how much to offer someone for their vote to advance, etc. That said, everyone seemed to enjoy the game.
There was almost no use of peacocks, either bribing for votes or even just moving them. The Ibises and Rhinos worked together a bit to get into the star exhibit first, but I made a deal with the Hyenas to use their ability to move the zookeeper to the space leading into the star exhibit if he voted for me to move in first, which he accepted.
By the end of the game, everyone managed to get into the star exhibit, so everyone was in the running. I made the last play, offering the Marmoset player first one laurel to let me use their ability, which she agreed to, and then one laurel to vote to move me forward into the star exhibit and end the game. She tried to bargain for more, but I could bribe a peacock instead, so settled for one, and instead of the two point laurel, I got a four pointer instead.
I ended up winning the game with 28 points. Rhinos were in second with 26, the Ibises third with 21, and all the other players were tied at 20. Rhino player realized that my last move is what won the game for me, robbing him of the victory and declared, āI love this game!ā So that was nice to hear. 
One couple had to leave, so the remaining four of us played a quick game of Sushi Go. I managed to pull a victory out of this one as well, only passing my wife because she had the least puddings, and I was tied for first in them, getting me to 47 to her 42. The other scores were 38 and 27.
Planning to have the same group over in a couple of weeks for a holiday party, so more gaming to come then!
9 Likes
My wife and I played Star Wars the Deckbuilding Game this evening, and she whipped me. I was the Empire, and the early galaxy row just was not very kind to me. I considered it a moral victory when I was able to destroy her second base, before she utterly demolished my third.
4 Likes
Me too! If it goes down a treat, youāre all to blame.
1 Like
Itās so good
You rated it āarkā out of ten?
2 Likes
Yeah, Iāve played ark so much now that itās transgressed the rating system. I donāt know what Iād rate it out of 10. Itās just Ark, innit?
(I do really love it. Probably is in my top 5 games now. It just flows so well and the action selection and upgrade system is so satisfying. Itās a comfort pick now. I can just chill out and have fun with it without brain burn, bit it still has things to think about)
7 Likes