I have no plans to do Exit precisely because you destroy the components. Although being honest, I think my appetite for escape room in a box content is liable to be plentifully satisfied by the like 40 scenarios worth of Unlock content and counting without me even needing to go to other sources. Although I will be doing Threads of Fate and Light in the Mist at least, for more complex fare.
I say this not because one could not tear through Unlock at speed, but because I have managed to get my parents to play three scenarios so far of the 9 I picked up on sale, over months. I expect this pace is liable to continue.
While I do understand peopleâs reluctance to destroy stuff, I would say that some of the clues in the EXIT games Iâve played are the most imaginative, original and satisfying Iâve come across, and at the price the games sell for I think theyâre fabulous value as a one-and-done.
Itâs not a question of value. I already feel bad about the sheer amount of packaging waste I have from Kickstarter games, I really am not excited about buying games that are produced with the explicit intention of being played once and then thrown away.
Robo Rally with 5 (the other 5 played Hansa). Obviously a good, chaotic time. Really love the Haywire cards in the new edition (damage that goes in your register and does a preprogrammed thing next round, so you can try to plan around it). There were a ton of walls around the first flag but I mostly got through intact, then my hover unit got me out of the morass and past the pits of doom and after a few twists and turns onto the second and final flag. And timing worked out to finish at the same time as the other group!
Two other players were in a whatever the opposite of a symbiotic relationship is: One had a double laser and a mirror, and the other had a card that let him only take 1 damage per register and get the rest as energy. So they would shoot each other, the first player would get one damage, and the second would get one damage and two energy. And we would all crack up.
Forgot to mention, I set up Loopinâ Chewie the other night and actually got my older kid to play it for a little while. He played two of the positions, leaving me with the third. He also didnât really care about the rules, and would pick up his stormtroopers and put them back in place when they got knocked down, but I didnât really care either. He was playing a game! And it was better than the Hungry Hungry Hippos he used to want to play all the time. Iâll take it!
Okay, so itâs not a question of value for you. It is for some people.
And as for waste - me, Iâd rather pay a tenner or so for two or three people have a couple of hours of great fun, and then pop a bit of cardboard in the recycling than splash out large amounts on the latest kickstarter full of plastic.
To each their own. But that KS game full of plastic can be played dozens or hundreds of times and passed from hand to hand as folks grow tired of it. So can Unlock, for that matter (in aggregate, if not any specific owner). ExitâŚcannot.
It can. But Iâd bet good money that almost none of them are played much more than once. If that.
Anyway, my point still stands that some of the Exit game clues are brilliantly original and imaginative. And some of that is only possible because bits get changed/damaged, and they can do stuff that the Unlock games (which I love) canât.
I donât tend to post about my sessions here anymore but as I play games most weeks, sometimes more than once, and own 90% Kickstarter games I can say you are definitely wrong in my case. Beyond that, who can say.
The other day we were at friends⌠just for some âKaffee und Kuchenâ but when we had chatted for a couple of hours, our friends asked if we would like to play a game. Usually, she visits me for Spirit Island or Revive or I bring games. This time I had thought we werenât going to stay that long and I thought her partner who is less into boardgames might object if I brought a stack of gamesâŚ
She asked for Hex Azul which we gave her a while ago and which the two of us recently played. But I said I didnât want to play with 4 players where two of them are known to have AP. So then we went to check their collection⌠it was a sad sight to behold: a bedraggled shelf half filled with jigsaw puzzles and games from the 2000s. Of course Carcassonne is still great and so is Dominion but my partner refused both in short order. I donât want to play Alhambra anymore⌠we then spotted a lonely box of Railroad Ink next to the Hex Azul that had also been ruled out⌠so we took that (their son has a small collection of bigger games like Ark Nova in his room, but there wasnât really time for any of those).
Railroad Ink was good fun, my partner won both games which was even better. We played the second with the lake expansion. I did better with the expansion. I am used to Railroad Ink Challenge these days and was irritated by the meager options in the base game.
So then we talked about what to do with their shelf.
Their son was already clamoring for them to finally get a copy of Cascadia. They apparently played a lot of that and Forest Shuffle during a recent vacation with other friends of ours. So I guess they will buy those. I recommended they also add Just One or So Clover or Codenames for bigger groups. They already have an Azul even if it isi the complicated one.
And I offered her a pick from my âdonât want to sell them because I would like to play them but canât play them with my partnerâ games I hope she takes a few off my hands and then I can visit and play them with her. And I might lend them my copy of Wingspan as I now have Wyrmspan and I know they liked playing Wingspan in the past.
That should make a good base set. Any other ideas for quick and relaxed games that are good with anyone? And play 4+ . Weâve debated this before⌠but maybe there are a few updated ideas and new games I am overlooking.
I feel like Chinatown gets overlooked any time itâs outside of its periodic reprint phases. Itâs just so family-friendly/ruining, itâs hard to beat.
[EDIT] I feel like games that develop/encourage a table-meta from the very first play is a subject worth exploring. That combination of immediacy and accommodation seems rare indeed.
I feel like Zoo Vadis might be the better negotiation game. Sometimes in Chinatown you just stuck with disconnected lots that nobody wants to trade you for, or never come across the business tiles you need. With Zoo Vadis, thereâs almost no luck at all, itâs all what you can negotiate with the other players. Plus, I think it is more available than Chinatown right now.
But, players have to enjoy negotiations, otherwise it will not go well.
Fields of Arle - really fun. Played 2 players with the Tea and Trade expansion. Itâs great! Tea is really fun to use. So far, my fave Rosenberg farming game.
Verdant - itâs fine. Not sure if I prefer this over Cascadia as they always do the same concept to me, which I donât find interesting. Good ending game for the night. I wouldnât say yes to this, unless itâs the end of the games night.
Those are the ones I own and would be willing to let go to a friendly shelf. Bear Raid was already on the list I made last night. I somehow overlooked Mission:Red Planet. Which I like but canât get played here.
Babylonia with a caveat that I am still hoping for an actual Samurai reprint at some point that has a less visually confusing board.
The ones I have and am definitely keeping. I should just put Scout in my pocket whereever I go.
However I had Bohnanza on my short list of possible recs-to-buy. But I want to keep that one extremely short. They are surrounded by friends with two huge collectionsâŚ
WaterdeepâWhile I would love for a collection near me to have a copy of this⌠I feel like it needs to be my own⌠style-wise. Fits best with me of all 3 households.
I could get behind that one. Our other friends have a copy. Iâll put it on my very short list of recs-to-buy. I might yet come to like it if it was somewhere a bit more accessible.
I did my taxes last week and felt I needed to somehow compensate or treat myself and I had just the right thing in mind and because I rarely buy just one box I got a little more. I am posting here directly and the rest maybe later in the confession booth.
Itâs been up on the hotness for a few weeks and I guess that is because it got a couple of reviews from minor reviewers around two weeks ago. So I was skeptical this was maybe a marketing push. It probably was. But checking it out I still got curious.
And as @lalunaverde would say, itâs maybe even so deserving to be up where itâs hot.
Pros:
Very nice box format (a bit smaller on the square footage than Cascadia), itâll probably not live on the small games shelf but close enough to it
While the rulebook as usual could be better, the rules are simple enough that you can learn them as you start playing and teaching them should be a thing of 5 minutes
Itâs pretty because Libellud makes pretty games
The wood tiles are nice and chunky
A cardboard insert that has a closeable compartment for the cardsâŚ
Feels a bit like playing a mix of Azul or Cascadia with more of the latter but definitely distinct enough to not be interchangeable.
Itâs just the right bit of a little thinky just like Azul and Cascadia.
Plays 1 to 4 and the solo mode is just a beat your own score thing but who cares, I am building a landscape.
It says 30 minutes on the box. Solo is faster but I think with multiplayer thatâs realistic.
Already has a small variant in the box but would be open to some extension
Cons:
Libellud is part of the Asmodee conglomerate
The number of animal cards in the box is not huge at this point, games might get samey? It doesnât feel that way right now but thatâs after 2 games. I thought Cascadia could get samey and didnât back it originally and now I am way over 50 games and it never got boring. SoâŚ
It plays like this:
each round distribute chunky wood disks in groups of 3 on the central board (this is a bit azul like) and every player gets 3 of them to put on their personal board. On the board they need to place the stones. There are a few building rules for each color. Water and Fields are flat so never stack. Houses need 2 stories but the roof needs to be tiled, below can be wood or stone or âtilesâ. Trees can have up to two wood as trunks. Mountains can stack up to 3.
You get points for each field of size 2+
You get points for each mountain, the higher the better
You get points for trees with greenery, and higher is better
You get points for your longest river (Or maybe every river)
Houses only get points of surrounded by different colorsâŚ
On your round you can also place animals. To do so you need to have an animal card and a pattern that matches the animal card. Then you can put one of the cubes from the animal card on the place in the pattern that the card says. Animal cards have a set number of cubes you can place from them this mostly depends on the complexity of the pattern. There is always 3 cards of animals open, you can take one on your turn and you canât have more than 4. Once you placed an animal cube on a disk you cannot put another disc on top but the pattern itself can be changed. Once the cube it placed it is pattern agnostic.
Every player gets a choice between 2 spirits at the start of the game (the manual suggest first playing without. I disagree. You want them in there). They donât have super complex patterns, but they change scoring a little and give you some idea what you want to be building
The game ends when either the bag is empty or someone has 2 or less empty spaces on the board but because you also build up height boards fill up at different speeds. So someone could go for some flat patterns and drive tempo in a multiplayer game with some bugs that just need a bit of bushes and waterâŚ
I like it. 8/10 pending that it doesnât get boring after 10 plays. edit: 5 games in, not yet boring. made some early scoring errors. still my pattern matching got successively worse. which is a very good sign
First 2 plays of Caverna: Cave vs nobody.
Itâs the Agricola solo trauma all over again: I scored 49 of 50 points in my first game. Second was worse.
Of course I like it, why do you ask?
Itâs the quickest of the âfarmingâ Uwe fixes I have ever played. And just 3 phases each turn. (vs AFFOs Elevenses). The Big Box however is a crime of hugeness and full of air and with the ugliest box design Iâve seen in a long time. Every single visible side of the lidâ5 counting the topâhas a huge sticker saying âDie Big Boxââbut if it was a sticker that would be nice I could try to remove it. It is printed on though. I got the thing cheap enough but beware: there is only 1 expansion and I doubt it is hard to get or a must have and suddenly the game goes from cozy-well-sized box to âwtfâ. The only thing this version adds seems to be the consolidated manual and the glossary or so they claim and they changed some of the materials to make me buy into the whole âwe had to make the box this sizeâ thing.
Also earlier today played a round of Wyrmspan with my partner. I like it even better when I donât have to do the automa (which is simple okay, fine, but it is still an automa). Sadly, my partner ran into the typical Wingspan/Wyrmspan conundrum of not planting his first dragon/bird in the âgimme foodâ row and then failed to obtain food. Also baby dragons need an awful lot of milk and are difficult to manage well. Which is all great for the aficionados who want more complicated⌠and not so great for someone who just wanted to lay some eggs and plant some dragons without thinking about it too hard. No more dice for food also meant there was no Mr Random to put blame on for having the wrong dragon food. So our first round goal was Baby Dragonsâof course. And now I will play against the automa until we go on vacation with our friends. (The 96 to 60 score didnât help, though 60 is pretty awesome for someone who wasnât even trying after the first round)
I hope she takes a few off my hands and then I can visit and play them with her. And I might lend them my copy of Wingspan as I now have Wyrmspan and I know they liked playing Wingspan in the past.
maybe even 