Pipeline has been in alpha for ages.
I’m not sure what the issue is.
And no, I’m not playing it (I hated it the one time I played it)
5 Likes
Plays of interest:
Castle Combo keeps being mentioned in whatever internet I’m consuming. I read the rules and dismissed it but it kept coming up. So I tried it.
Absolutely love it. It’s… you know how a game like Couture or Totally Human can be an amazing concept but completely fall flat on execution? The cards in the deck just aren’t interesting, the synergies are too obvious or too niche? Castle Combo is the opposite.
Really bland, played out premise. But the execution is just there. It’s a light tableau synergy builder, with just really, really good card design and synergy, with just the right level of constraints on economy, card purchasing, and tableau insertion. It’s on the lighter end but gives more than it takes. Sold.
Possibly a Fantasy Realms killer? Possibly.
Revive: With @COMaestro have gotten to play this PvP. I like the PvP much better than solo. The game didn’t interest me in a “how much can you get done in this number of actions” package. With another player the timer is less strict and you get the full effect of exploration, competition for real estate, and a chance to make your engine grow.
It’s good but I’m also struck by how familiar it is. Despite the theme and positive reviews, it feels very much like any number of other games. Build your deck, strengthen your actions, choose your scoring conditions, collect and spend resources at an increasing velocity, count up points.
So I’m enjoying it but I don’t know if it has a place on my shelf, just due to niche glut.
5 Likes
It helps to have cut your teeth on Trailblazers before going in as well. Maybe it’s a game that just needs the right front door.
2 Likes
I remember playing it when I was very tired and very hungover.
We played with our friend who has AP in spades and he absolutely rinses games.
And I’m crap at spatial puzzles.
He and Kate had these awesome Pipelines that they were running and generating loads of stuff, and I had a poxy pee shooter.
I’m aware it’s unlikely to ever be that awful again, but I have no desire to find out
5 Likes
I went to a new games club in my new area last night. It started off with a game Just One. I’ve not played before and I really enjoyed it. I can see why it’s got more mentions and longevity than many.
Next up was Magical Athlete. I can see why it’s bracketed with Hot Streak. My initial impression is to prefer Hot Streak but also I really enjoyed this. It’s very silly but still fun. I think one of the things I like better about Hot Streak is not having your own character. While some power combinations can be entertaining, some can just lead to some people being uninvested in a race.
Lastly we played Bring Your Own Book. This is similar to Cards Against Humanity in the way there’s a judge and you all proffer something for judgement. This game though is not seeking to be outrageous with more neutral questions and you all have a book to scour for a phrase which fits. We played for nearly 2 hours, the novelty wore off quickly and I dislike this sort of game to start with. Urgh. The organiser was quick to say to me that ‘we usually play less light, party type games’.
10 Likes
I’ve found the game is best played with Children’s books. I mean, unless you really knew the book you were holding. Last time I played (years ago at this point), I wanted to try a game where we used non-fiction/reference books, but, again, probably non-fiction aimed at children.
4 Likes
Yeh, we found similar. A combination of ease of reading and the recontextualisation making things funnier. The benefits of playing it in a bookshop, so we got to try out lots of random stuff.
The worst were any books that were intended to be funny.
4 Likes
The kids book we had didn’t do that well. I could possibly see it working better if it was all kids books. The thing I found with the adults books was the difficulty of scanning it led to the fun bits of trying to be inventive with what you could find.
4 Likes
I’ve played Railways of the Lost Atlas twice since my last post about it. The first of those sessions I won by $14, but then realized that I had let the 6+ player trains get mixed into the train roster, meaning the train rush would have happened faster and I knew that meant my win would have been a loss.
Then I played again
Game Result if you don't want to watch the video
Without really realizing it, I made a great map that let me block out the solo bot. There were a few misses in the game (which is why I take good notes and ultimately decided to record my sessions and create some software that understands the game mechanisms to track the game state)
The end result was $540, but actually $255
I think I’ve seen what the Railways of the Lost Atlas can offer, solo-wise, and I am going to give it a break. I’ve played it ~6 times in the last few weeks and each time I just want to play 1862 that much more.
I also really want to get High Frontier 4 All played, so I’ve been working on getting both 1862 and High Frontier 4 All supported in my game tracking/overlay app.
6 Likes
Last night I managed to get an 8 player game of Sidereal Confluence on the table.
Honestly, too many players. I think the sweet spot must be 5 or 6… maybe 4, even. But 8 is too many, too many people trying to talk over other people, too many people trying to make deals so that if you get stuck in discussions with one player and then they change their mind, everyone else is done trading the stuff you need.
But it was still good! I played the Unity, which are neat (wild resources), and I did very, very badly, but again, that’s okay! The winner were the Yengii (they license their technology rather than earning points when they research it, and Mike did a very good job with them).
Then we played a quick game of Green Team Wins. Just a simple party game, but a good one.
Then most people went home, and we played a quick 3 player game of Twilight Inscription, which is fantastic. Really satisfying, good depth, doesn’t overstay its welcome… I played as the Nekro Virus and got trounced, but in a very satisfying way.
October was a very good month for games, overall, I think.
7 Likes
Quick 2 hero solo of Gloomhaven Jaws of the Lion. One scenario, and so far it’s taken about two hours (because I hadn’t opened the box in at least a year and you have to know EVERY rule to be able to play).
Things are not great for our plucky adventurers…
8 Likes
Was supposed to have D&D this evening. The couple that host had to cancel last minute. We said anyone with nothing else to do could come to our house and play board games. Most the rest of the players plus one spouse showed up for 6 people total. That’s a slightly awkward player count but we made it work.
We played Mysterium with my husband as the ghost. We technically lost as one person didn’t get their weapon in time. We still did the final round and successfully picked the correct storyline.
We played 6 Nimmt! / Take 5. Everyone had at least one bad round where they got stuck with tons of penalty points. Final scores ranged from 55 to 76.
We ended with two plays of NMBR 9. First time we played, one person did not do well but said at the end that now she got it and really wanted to play again. So we did and she massively won the second game. Guess she was right that it clicked.
8 Likes
Mini Wellycon weekend. I played:
- Arctic Scavengers (3p) x2 (two different groups). My first time playing in about a decade, perhaps. Still pretty good (and I’ve still never touched most of the expansion modules).
- Hot Streak (4p). The most ridiculously unbalanced card draw, where Hurley started with fully half the cards, all of which were good ones, while the few cards for the other mascots were mostly bad. Plus a couple of greens. It was just a race for second place! (Or in Mum’s case, a challenge just to stay on the race track.) So with Hurley right at the finish line yet again in race 3 (where I’d had first pick of the betting, and hence was obviously making a risky bet for him to go 3 for 3), he surprised me by turning 180 and racing back to the starting line, giving the victory to the stupid bear.
- Dorf Romantik x2 (two different groups). In the first game we achieved every single (base game) task, with loads of tiles still to go. I’ve not had that happen before. We forgot about the longest river and railway bonuses, though, so didn’t score much for those. Made me want to break out my copy at home again, and make some more progress in the campaign.
- Great Plains x3 (two different opponents). I used this when I’d found a second player for something else but we were waiting for a third player. Always a delight.
- Hansa Teutonica (3p). Maybe my worst showing ever! I could only laugh at how badly that game went for me.
Cosmic Frog (6p). Carnage. An excellent choice of game to finish up with. I don’t imagine I’ll ever play this enough to be good at it, but with the right crowd it’s a blast, and everyone at the table was into it.
11 Likes
hahaha, love it!
6 Likes
I thought it was pretty good at the time of playing. But my partner hated it so much that I gave it to friends.
4 Likes
Rooms and Roomies - I thought this is gonna be a meh polyomino but it’s actually pretty good!
The Game Makers - mid game with the rondel being the thing that stops it from being absolutely forgettable.
Council of Serpents - nice game, but can be potentially wonky or potentially great. No inbetween.
Trick in the Future - very good fun!
Timespan - boring
Evenglow - boring
Kano - soooo boooriiiing (I did not play this. I’m just trolling someone)
5 Likes
Joined a “wargames only” group for the first time, consisting entirely of old Japanese men and run by a wargame publisher who told us it was the only wargame group in Osaka. Seems like they mostly only play those ridiculously complex hex and chit wargames.
Napoleon’s Triumph: a very very quick teaching game. My opponent called my bluffs and made some surprising aggressive assaults that won ground, but left him vulnerable to some devastating counter attacks.
Twilight Struggle: I was on the backfoot as the USSR for almost the entire game, but clawed my way back to a Turn 9 late war wargames victory when my opponent gave me the VP to do it just as I was contemplating playing it for a tie.
8 Likes
Sigh, okay okay, I “get” Gloomhaven Jaws of the Lion now. Previously I couldn’t work out why people thought it was any fun, but now I’m staying up late for “just one more turn” and card choices on level up, so I have to admit it’s very good.
Also well balanced, I won yesterday’s scenario on the final pair of cards. The “short rest when your hand is empty” mechanic speeds up during each game so it always induces more panic towards the end.
8 Likes
I’m always happy to see this is still out in the wild. One of those games that always makes me shake my head at the swirls and eddies of publicity and why it didn’t take off. Such an elegant, excellent game.
In my own life, I’ve realized two things - one is that I really like “shared map tile layers,” just as a genre it’s way up there. Also, Knizia pretty much owns the genre. I think he alone has put out more shared map tile layers than all other designers combined.
On the Knizia side, I got to try Gazebo (Qin 2e). Very accessible ruleset and a good game. The first game was just “pretty good” but I could also get glimpses of how great it would be with a table of experienced players. Just, the more people understand the board control and are tinkering with the game state, the more interesting moments come up. I’d like to take this one for a lot of cycles, and wish it was online to easily do so.
On the not-Knizia side, I got to try Seagrass (Benjamin/Gilbert, a la War Chest, Mandala, Moytura, Undaunted). It’s touted as a Babylonia killer or at least alternative and I get that. My one-play-gut-reaction is that Seagrass > Babylonia for the first 5-10 games and Babylonia > Seagrass at 10+ games. Untested hunch, obviously, but it seemed a little more accessible and “fun,” but with a smaller space overall. Beautiful game, beautiful production, travel case and all, so this one will more than earn its keep.
5 Likes
(
Just did a quick count with BGG advanced search and I see 11 for Knizia and 14 for all others so…
- Not an outright majority but still, dang Knizia
- Seems like a very underrepresented game demographic. Maybe with the buzz around Revive it will become next year’s Roll and Write / Polyomino / Trick Taking rediscovery sensation?
)
Given that I don’t know ALL the games listed and there’s some fuzzy cases like Azure, Hive, or Toy Battle that strictly do involve the physical placement of tiles onto a single map but really aren’t about what these other games are about…
Still, the private-map-tile-layer is king, with a dozen entries for each of these shared-map offerings.
3 Likes