I think the message of CO2 is: We’re screwed. The world’s screwed. There’s no stopping global warming. It’s futile.
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It’s really brutal. And it’s absolutely harder in PvP…
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The co op version (plus it’s half the price of other Lacerda games) is why I went for CO2. Learning the game together seemed like the best way to experience it. I think my wife would destroy me in the competitive mode and it seems like the kind of game that would feel rubbish if you were doing badly.
My only concern is that once we beat the game, will we want to go back to it? We’ll have to win first!
Such hubris!
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Btw are you in the UK? I can send over the Kickstarter pack. Had a slight dent on one tile so I asked for a replacement. Been sat on my shelf for years!
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I am. Thanks
What’s in the KS pack?
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It’s this, minus the plastic minis: CO₂: Second Chance – Limited Pack Expansion and Upgrade | Board Game | BoardGameGeek
Some mini expansions… that I’ve never played with so can’t recommend one way or the other 
Rules can be found here: https://www.giochix.it/rules/Co2exp.pdf
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You have to survive before you can win. We first played in competitive mode because that’s how the original CO2 was designed, and we all lost so hard.
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Judge Dredd: The Cursed Earth
The Cursed Earth is the 2000AD-themed version of The Lost Expedition, and seemingly even more brutal than its predecessor.
Like TLE’s “Mountain” expansion, most of the Location cards have individual effects (almost all of them bad for you). On top of that, there is also untreatable Radiation damage (which is effectively an injury which can’t be healed – killing a character as soon as it exceeds their health), and the added pressure of a Chase – with the opposition having a head start, and the cards incorporating a new “delay” icon, which enables the enemy to extend their lead.
The game has three difficulty levels, and the following games were all played at the easiest level…
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Helpful cards seemed in very short supply in my first game, which (to the surprise of nobody) saw me fail.
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Slightly closer than the first time, but the same result.
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I actually lost ground in the chase this time. With the enemy pushing ahead every day even if you don’t allow them to gain extra ground, reaching the target before they do is incredibly tough. Not allowing them to gain extra ground usually involves getting hurt…
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Aaahhh! So close! I switched up my tactics and managed to not only open up a two-space lead, but to hold it for most of the second half of the game – but it all crashed to a halt just one space short of the target… on my last legs, I was forced to play safe repeatedly in order to remain alive, and I was overtaken once again.
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A win! By the absolute skin of my teeth, at the 11th hour, I manage to draw(*) about the only card which could possibly get me to one final location (before being killed by virtually every other card I’d drawn for the phase), and that new location was where the target turned out to be (meaning that I won immediately, without having to deal with the other cards). Easiest difficulty. Skin of my teeth. I’ll take it : ) I’d managed my cards carefully to give myself that chance, so I felt pretty good about it.
(*) For those who know the game system, this was my final blind draw from the deck in the Morning/Dawn phase of that day, and it not only contained the action combination I desperately needed, but also had a smaller sequence number than any of the other available cards (which was critical, as Morning cards must be played in numeric sequence, and virtually every other card I’d drawn, or had in hand, was going to immediately kill me.) Furthermore, there was only one card remaining in the deck, and my opposition was level with me in the chase, so I was about to lose the game in pretty much every way possible : )
The Lost Expedition (with the Mountain cards, and Rinty the dog)
After all that, I had to have at least one game of this, and I managed another narrow victory!
True to form, virtually the entire party perished (RIP Rinty – your doggy nose and instincts saved us from harm more than once); but my navigator Isabelle made it to the Lost City – with one health and zero rations. Although a post-game peek at the remainder of the deck turned up a remarkable treasure trove of good cards in a row – if I’d only known, I’m sure I could have saved Ynes too.
3 Likes
Village Green
Two games; respectively 33 points (for a solid “runner up” prize), and 26 points (for a not-so-solid-but-give-it-to-me-anyway-thank-you “runner up” prize).
The occasional gust of wind made it impractical to play this outdoors for very long, but it needed to be done.
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I introduced my partner to Nine Tiles Panic tonight and woof, is it bad at 2. I really enjoy the gameplay (as does she) but I went into it knowing I was outmatched and it’s just deeply unpleasant to lose in the manner this game presents with only 2 players to balance out the scoring mechanics.
I’ve vowed to give it a few more tries with her, but the skill gap isn’t going to narrow. It was like playing Scrabble alone with my mom: nothing more than a platform for a brutal trouncing. Give me a table full of people to help shoulder those losses and I’ll have a blast, but one-on-one it’s just embarassing.
Such is my shame.
5 Likes
At the Gates of Loyang
The last of the solo games that I managed to play during my holiday. (I was really wanting to give Nusfjord a try alongside this, but it didn’t work out. Hopefully I’ll give that a whirl over the next few days.)
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It took me 2-3 hours to re-learn and get through my first game, and for most of it I was thinking that my (single) previous game’s score of 16 was near-miraculous, so slow was my progress; but things can move quickly at the end, and I finished the game with a relatively-respectable 15. Still 2 short of a “good” score, but much better than I’d anticipated.
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Game 2 was much faster, now that I knew what I was doing, and I was making satisfying progress right from the start, and consequently I scored… 15. The same outcome as game 1. Darn it. (Closer to the 16 threshold than before, but still…)
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I finally reached the dizzy heights of 16 – and was only 5 coins short of the glorious “good” threshold of 17. However I put one of those points down to a particular realisation I’d had after game 2, which I think would have boosted me a point in each of those games as well; and so I’m not sure the bulk of the game was a significant improvement.
I’m really not sure about this game.
I’ve quite enjoyed other Rosenbergs, but I never play them enough to acquire any real skill at them, so each time has always just been me bumbling around and hoping for the best – having a pretty good time, but also generally a bit lost, and not feeling like I’m actually competing with the other players.
I bought ATGOL (and Nusfjord) specifically because they are considered to be two of his best solo game designs (and I also felt that I could get on board with these themes more than some of his others; especially ATGOL). As such, I’ve really been looking forward to acquiring some actual multi-game experience for once, and seeing how things progress as I gain more familiarity with the systems.
Unfortunately my experience of playing it three times in quick succession has been that, despite a semi-random set-up, and despite the specifics of each game varying, I feel like I’m doing all the same things for almost exactly the same end result; and moreover, that the potential for improvement is that, with time and practice, I might be able to do all the same things and, at the end of an hour, have “17” instead of “16”.
It’s just not an exciting prospect.
(I also have a hunch that making the jump up to a score of 18 or 19 is going to involve a degree of maths that I’m just not looking for in a solo board game.)
It would probably help slightly if I included the ‘tie-breaker’ remaining money as a part of the score, because when playing solo, you’re essentially breaking ties with your prior games all the time. That way you’d at least have a more granular score with more variation game-to-game.
Mostly I think it just hasn’t fared well as a solo experience against the other games I’ve played in the past few days. In the absence of human opponents and social interactions, I think randomness (and consequent variations in gameplay and outcomes) might be rather valuable attributes for a solo game. If I play a game three times in succession, I really don’t want to feel like I had the exact same experience three times in succession. ATGOL does have randomness, but it all seemed to be inconsequential in terms of the experience.
I’m not giving up on it yet, but I can see myself selling this one on.
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How I feel about Agricola
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I keep thinking about getting Cursed Earth as I am a big fan of Dredd. Never quite hit go for some reason.
Played some games with the eldest for the first time in quite a while.
Pandemic, we failed to save the world (no cards for flights probably hindered our chances, infinite hand size was insufficient compensation).
Flamme Rouge, she burnt all her big cards early. At the end of the race, we both drew into 2s, and she exclaimed that it really was like they had gotten tired 
Loony Quest she requested a second play, which is a great sign. I said no, because I know how to maintain her interest.
Incan Gold, kind of silly playing this with two, but she always enjoys it, and asks to play again.
Jaipur, bit one-sided, I probably need to hold back more.
8 Likes
With that avatar? Shocking! 
I’m guessing you’ve either not played The Lost Expedition, or you didn’t really enjoy it. (If you already like TLE then just go ahead and get JD:CE.) If you didn’t enjoy TLE, then the change of theme probably won’t help. If you’ve not played TLE at all, and it’s the Dredd theme which is the hook…
Both games feature big cards with very nice art, and there’s a small comic intro in the JD:CE manual to set the scene1, but it’s substantially up to you to generate some kind of thematic narrative when you play. The cards do facilitate this – you mostly just have to pay attention, and maybe get a little creative – but you definitely have to put a little something into it to get something out of it.
For example, the event card on the left says that dog vultures have stolen some of your rations, and you now have the option of either letting them take even more of your supplies, or else fighting them off (either expending ammunition or else accepting injuries). Note that the iconography itself only indicates that you must discard rations for some reason – but there’s usually some logical tie-in with the scene being shown. If the vultures steal extra rations then you must also remove the final card from the current day’s events. Why will dog vultures stealing your rations lead to that event not happening?? You’ll have to take a look at the event in question, and try to come up with an answer…
Some cards provide you with abilities that you can later spend to meet some kind of ability check, and I like to take a look at the scene portrayed on the card I’m spending and figure out what it was about that situation which gave me the knowledge or skills to meet the later challenge.
Being a Dredd fan will definitely assist you in concocting this kind of narrative from the cards; but if you’re hoping to be told a story, it might feel like relatively meagre pickings.
Theme aside, the game is a pretty challenging card-management puzzle, which sees you constantly trying to mitigate the vast array of bad things which are being thrown at you, using your limited resources (and hopefully a few of the nice cards which are squirrelled away in that deck, even if they don’t always seem to want to show up). It’s tough to win (but winnable), and pretty quick to play. There are co-op and head-to-head rules as well, but I’ve only played the games solo (and will probably keep it that way).
1 Anyone who wants to set the scene for TLE should read David Grann’s superb book “The Lost City of Z”.
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Lastly1, in amongst all the solo games I actually got some two-player gaming in too!
Hansa Teutonica (x3)
I won the first game by a smallish margin, lost the second by a larger margin, and then got completely annihilated in the third game. I completed the connection across the map for 7 points, and I thought I had a pretty good network if I could just pick up a key; but I lost badly on the Coellen track, and discovered that the opposition had packed rather more into their own network than I’d realised. IIRC we calculated that even if I’d got the key I’d wanted, I’d still have lost : )
Patchwork (x2)
I won both of these in similar fashion – missing out on the 7x7 bonus and most of the 1x1 patches, but nevertheless managing to fill up significantly more of my board, and taking the win by simply not losing many buttons in the end-game scoring (in the second game I left just 4 spaces). I think I lose at Patchwork more than I win, so this was a nice double for me.
1 I was going to say “but not least”, but then I realised that these will in fact be the least-detailed of my game reports : )
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Had another go at Stuffed Fables yesterday with my 8 yo daughter. We managed to finish two scenarios, and defeat our first boss comfortably. In all fairness, we struggled more on the train that with the boss, having had a few new items bought in the market gave our team the edge. Really enjoying the game, and my daughter as well, as she was wanting to play it as soon as we tidied up after dinner.
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The first half of my 12 Gamedays of Christmas challenge for 2020/2021 is in the bag - and a fairly mixed bag it was too in terms of success.
Day 1 (25th December) saw two quick party games with friends after a lovely lunch, playing Rapidough (sigh!) and Outburst. On the receiving end of two solid defeats there sadly, but at least in that company the games and night were fun.
Day 2 (26th December) saw little free time after another long lunch with other friends, but I got in a quick solo game of my print and play copy of Deep Space D-6. I nearly forgot I had this game - and how fun it was, even though as per usual with it I was rolling rubbish and lost pretty quickly during it. One day I’ll get those rolls!
Day 3 (27th December) saw more luck in a solo game of One Deck Dungeon. The Paladin sought out the Dragon, with some good rolling and nice skills quickly getting her to level 4 while still on the second flight of her descent, and some lucky drawing of encounters made for a relatively safe passage and an easy win.
Day 4 (28th December) was a calmer worker placement affair in the quiet fishing town of Nusfjord. Just a quick solo game where I tried out a few variations to my usual approach but after the day’s work I wasn’t concentrating that hard to build any particular strategy, ending up with a respectable 31 points but some way off my personal record.
Day 5 (29th December) saw a different solo challenge, taking on Pandemic Iberia. The Nurse, Royal Academy Scientist, Sailor, and Agronomist combined for a pretty easy win in this, despite a few quick outbreaks in the north around Santander and the far south around Malaga. Some fortunate resource card and event card drawing though made researching the cures for the first three diseases pretty easy, helped by the rail network and use of the Sailor ferrying others around, and the final disease was researched shortly after the third epidemic occurred.
Day 6 (30th December) saw a little more time on my hands so I choose a long overdue game of Eldritch Horror. A solo two-hander with the Shaman and Spy taking on the might of Azathoth. As it turned out though, this challenge proved surprisingly easy for the dynamic duo, who somehow quickly both got the Blessed Condition, and managed to get the right clue encounters to match the investigator’s stronger skills and solve the necessary three mysteries during the eighth turn, with only two combats required and the Doom Track hardly having moved. Still took me the best part of two hours all told: 30 minutes to setup and remind myself of the rules, and a little over 60 minutes to play.
The challenge continues tomorrow, hopefully with more quick party games as I am in with friends for New Year’s Eve, and then some longer solo games planned for the holiday weekend when I should have the time to try more longer games.
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We finished the first scenario of the first LOTR: Journeys in Middle-Earth campaign last night. So far it’s been pretty enjoyable despite my lukewarm feelings about the IP. That skill card system really is quite clever, and the characters feel pretty distinct. Maddy was playing a bard type, who was just a fountain of Inspiration for the other players, along with being an irregular source of healing. Liz was playing some sort of scout who was constantly scouting just enough to keep a full set of prepped skill cards and could bring other heroes to her position. (I assume both are from the source material somewhere but I don’t know the names.) And I was playing Aragorn, who helps nearby heroes better prepare each turn and was easily our most capable fighter and leader, though, at least with the Captain role suggested for first time players, not that great a fighter.
We managed to win, but it was a near thing - once we found our target there was an absolute swarm of orcs and goblins to contend with, far more than we could practically deal with in the next turn or two. I quickly realized that although I’d been able to pick off a lot of the enemies early on, we needed to stay focused on the objective, so with some footwork we managed to collect our team on the appropriate space and then skirmished with the couple of local monster groups to exhaust them so they couldn’t do opportunity attacks while our scout investigated the Search token, juuust managing to pull it off before the enemy turn would have hit and brought another 2-3 enemy groups onto us, possibly sending our bard (quite banged up and fragile) into “last stand” mode, whatever that does.
Damage, incidentally, feels quite like Mansions of Madness, in that you get two kinds, Damage and Fear (Sanity in MoM) and they’re usually face up, with various usually nasty effects, such that it’s nearly always a good idea to mitigate as much as you can, both for that reason and because nobody has that much health. Sadly, the “armor” you get on our characters seems mostly not very effective - Maddy could spend inspiration to cancel damage once per source, but Aragorn & scout only got to cancel one facedown damage per source…which we never had once all game.
1 Like