The one (game) that got away

The topic says it: what game got away from you? It could be a game you played all the time, but had to give up because you moved/needed the money/was chased by a bear, or maybe it was a game you really wanted to try but for some reason never got around to actually playing.

For me it's the latter. I got Android - the cyberpunk detective game by Kevin Wilson - the year it came out, and sold it last year after never having played it. I've read the rule book numerous times, toyed with the idea of playing one of the solo variants, and in so many ways I absolutely adore the game. I love the somewhat over the top noir cyberpunk setting, I love the movement tokens that let you zip around in the flying car, the idea that entering certain types of locations could make you vulnerable to bad stuff happening through cards played by the other players, and I think New Angeles and The Beanstalk feel like real places even though I've never played the game. Rumour has it that it's somewhat flawed as a game, but I would have played it for the story - for the ride.

That being said I had the distinct feeling that too much was going on in the game - too many systems within systems. And that was definitely one of the issues when it comes to actually playing the game; teaching it was not easy, and I imagine it would be sloooooow the first couple of times as you constantly have to read cards that you would maybe play. But nonetheless I think it's one of the games I've been most excited about ever. And maybe that's good. Maybe I should just cherish the excitement gained from looking forward to playing it some day and never ruin it by playing a game that probably won't live up to my expectations.

But that's me - what game got away from you?

Android is very nearly a great game. I still have mine, but have only played maybe 6 or 7 times. Information overload is definitely part of the game, but I think that is very thematically appropriate for the game. The movement system is brilliant, because it feels so free and easy compared to the movement systems of most other games, conveying the sense that you are traveling in a flying car. The downfall of the game is the conspiracy puzzle, as a clever player might rig it to make a given chit color extremely valuable relative to the rest of the game and that detracts from the theme. Even so, I've got some people interested in playing again after the pandemic, and I have burned five CDs worth of synthwave and synthpop to serve as a soundtrack for the game.

The game that got away from me was Car Wars. When I lived in Indianapolis, even my nerdy friends were somewhat influenced by the local obsession with cars, plus The Road Warrior hit theaters around the time we were taking driver's ed and also starting to play Car Wars. I acquired most of the stuff for the first edition of the game, including every issue from the first three years of Auto Duel Quarterly magazine. We had some amazing experiences.

Then things started going sideways. Steve Jackson Games was cranking out content a little too fast, and got careless about game balance. My gaming group contained quite a few rules lawyer jerks and power gamers, so the rules discussions started getting intense. People would whip together custom vehicle designs right before we played, and often made math mistakes that were to their advantage in terms of vehicle cost or weight or handling. We got in the habit of auditing people's vehicles after each play, and disqualifying winners with cheating vehicles.

It all came to a head when a friend hosted a big Car Wars event. He set up an elaborate three-dimensional racing course on his pool table that even included a ramped jump. We had a record 12 players, divided up into six 2-player teams. The referee for the event was unfortunately the only friend in our group who didn't play Car Wars, and he was chosen for neutrality instead of expertise. The event was fun, but marred by a couple of biased ref decisions that favored the ref's best friend who was also host. The resulting rules arguments started around midnight and carried on until nearly 5:00 AM and featured many ad hominem attacks. Did I mention that we were all in our early 20s?

There were some hard feelings afterwards, and by the time I moved away a year later, we hadn't played any more Car Wars. To be honest, that last night of Car Wars influenced my decision to move, though it was not on the list. I left behind a lot of my Car Wars stuff for my friends to enjoy, and never got around to replacing any of it. My friends resumed playing on a less regular basis for years afterwards, with one big team versus team event each year (Indianapolis vs Bloomington). I have not played Car Wars since 1990.

I played Android twice and mostly enjoyed it both times. I was the "rules guy" so didn't get to read all the flavor either time because I was too busy referencing rules for everyone who was willing to play it with me. I think some things were badly implemented but overall its a good game that with a second edition cleanup could have become a great game. If you're mainly interested in the setting they did an RPG book detailing it for the Genesys system.

I sold my copy of Risk Black Ops to pay for Cthulhu Wars and expansions. I regret it all the time.

I enjoyed the Android background more than I did the game, although the game itself was decent. I REALLY liked Netrunner, but it hit its stride right about the time I decided collectible games were no longer for me. I ended up trading Android, because it was never going to be played, but I did do another trade for a copy of Android: Infiltration, just to have something in that universe and it's a decent game.

Thinking back, I don't know that there is a game that I regret getting rid of. Most of the time, when I've removed something, it's because it has worn out its welcome or really never had a welcome to begin with. I guess I could say I'm kind of disappointed that I sold off all of my Descent 2nd Ed. stuff without ever getting a ton of use out of it. But since both Descent and Runebound have been dustbinned by FFG, at some point we would have reached a limit and it would have gone out the door, anyway.

I'll keep thinking but, gaming-wise, my regrets are few.

I’ve got so much of my old crap laying around for my kids to enjoy, but my copy of Crossbows and Catapults seems to have disappeared.

One more game that literally got away from me is the rpg Lords of Gossamer and Shadow. It's a thinly-disguised imitation of the Amber diceless rpg, but nicely executed as a way to get around the license lost after Zelazny died and his hostile wife got control of his IPs. About a year ago, I had some family coming for a visit and was in a rush to tidy up the house. I distinctly recall facing a stack of rpg books and comic trade hardcovers that I wanted to put away in a hurry, and my last memory is thinking to myself "I hope I remember later where I am putting this stuff." Now I can't find LoGaS or the comics or the other rpg books from that stack, and I have looked through every single storage box in my house at least once. I have too much stuff, so I am gradually revisiting each box and doing some significant decluttering and reorganizing. If I finish that big project and still can't find LoGaS, I must reluctantly conclude that the box was stolen. That sounds extreme, but I have never casually gotten rid of any comics or games, and some of the people playing games at my house last year were of recent acquaintance. I have played Lords of Gossamer and Shadow a few times, but only at diceless rpg convention that used to happen here on an annual basis.

Mine would be Starfarers of Catan, but I need to put an asterisk next to it. It isn't that the game is gone, it's that the base game without the expansions is gone. I don't think the expansions added to the fun of the game (it's really a light-hearted zoom around the board game) but now that there on the table we don't play without them. They sort of spoiled the game for me.

I haven't gotten rid of it yet, but I don't know when I'll ever play Tragedy Looper again. It is more off the wall and difficult to teach than something like Root, in my opinion, and it's one of my favorite games from last decade.

I played a little with my friends, but eventually found out that my wife loved playing as the Mastermind (like the Overlord in Descent or other 1 v. many games). I liked the deductive puzzle of playing the Protagonists, so it worked out. We played through all 10 scenarios that came with the base game. (Once you play a scenario as either the Protagonists or Mastermind, you can't play as the Protagonists again). We played 3-4 games of the first expansion, and bought the 2nd expansion without question when we saw it in a shop.

We started playing games less and eventually separated in December, with me moving out to live with my aging parents. I took most of the board games, since I was more into them and usually the rules guy. Then the Coronavirus hit. Even if I were to try to play with someone else, I'd have so much experience that going over those old scenarios as Mastermind would likely give me an unfair advantage, and jumping in on the later stuff would be tough for a new Mastermind.

A lot of my games are kind of on hold without my normal game group to play with, but this one in particular has a bittersweet history. (We never finished Pandemic Legacy S2 either, but that was already kind of a slog for us).

I will never part with it, and even picked up a better replacement copy. Blood Royale is the one that I have fond memories of, but will not likely get to the table again. It is too long for most people, fiddly succession, people I know don't want to get into the contracts.

Jexik wrote: I haven't gotten rid of it yet, but I don't know when I'll ever play Tragedy Looper again. It is more off the wall and difficult to teach than something like Root, in my opinion, and it's one of my favorite games from last decade.

I came to the thread to talk about Tragedy Looper too. Fortunately, it's a positive story.

I got the game several years ago and learned it with my friends together. We didn't play as much as you but we liked it a lot and we had a lot of tense games going back and forth. As my group dissolved and time went on, the prospect of playing the game again seemed unlikely. I wasn't playing most of my games, it has a learning curve and, sadly, older geeks don't get the anime setting. I even put it temporarily on my trade list, thinking the game wasn't as great or that I wasn't going to play it again.

I ended up pulling it back. Things started to come together. I played a bit of Steins: Gate, one of the inspirations for the game, and got me thinking about it again. My girlfriend expressed interest and I found myself talking about its uniqueness with others. Then, I played them again. I ran the First Step scenarios for my girlfriends and a couple others and they liked it. Now I'm organizing games to see if we complete the base game and I don't shut up about the game on Twitter. In fact, I'm writing about it again this Friday.

I think it's more than fine to teach the game as the Mastermind. Having experience is not as much of a large advantage and you can always give them an extra loop to compensate, per the recommendations in the scripts. And while getting to the expansion is a problem, there's a website with lots of scripts to try. I think that helps a lot.

Like I said, I went from putting it on my trade pile to organizing games again. It's a great, unique game. I wouldn't trade it.

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Beyond that, the games that "went away" are LCGs. As you know, Netrunner closed shop. I started playing L5R but Coronavirus has wrecked things. I tried to meet someone to play today but not being able to play for months has resulted in many of them drifting way. There's a tournament this weekend but I haven't played in ages.

My list would be too long. I'll keep to the highlights:

Heroscape is the One True Game, and I gave or sold everything I had because I couldn't get anyone to play it anymore. My buddy has a large collection of it that I gifted him, so maybe someday I'll get that back.

SW: Queen's Gambit is one I honestly am angry I sold off. I basically couldn't get a single soul to play it with me despite it being the greatest toy-based game, beyond Heroscape, ever. I've owned two copies, and never played one of them more than once. I've literally only played the game four times total, and that's bullshit.

Cyclades got washed out because of the expansion creep. I should have kept it indefinitely as it was something we could always play at least three times a year, but I had played it probably 100 times at the point that I sold it. The issue was the expansions kept being asked for by others and I was a Cyclades purist; I think it was a perfect game as is, so I kind of resented that.

Last but not least:

EPIC DUELS. It is painful to even remember this game for me. So, the first time I even heard about its existence was with Stephen Avery at Trashfest some 12 years ago, maybe more. He played it with this cool custom terrain he built. It was amazing.

So, I ended up buying a copy, and then dumping about 400$ into hirst arts molds, resin, and kit to build it out. Over about 120 hours of time I built a 3x4 setup of an "imperial production center" and we played the shit out of it. I had the pieces set up on Halo Interactive Board Game tile, all glued down and totally permanent. It was literally fucking amazing to look at. I'm still shocked I got it all together.

Well, I needed room so I put it all into a very safe (read: not) plastic tub loaded with rippy bits of pick and pull foam. Fast forward a year when I wanted to play it, and something happened during a failed house sale/in storage situation where it was all broken into its bricks. I mean, wholly and totally destroyed in the saddest board game carnage experience of my entire life.

I am literally white-hot pissed off to this very day.

That is a sad story right there.

I always refer to Heroscape as the "Damn Near Perfect Game" and I usually put a trademark symbol after that phrase just to punctuate it. I like "One True Game" as well and I think it speaks to Heroscape's broad array of potential. It's still heavily played in tournaments around the country.

I have all of mine in a bin, unplayed for years, fully aware that it will be grandchildren that pull it back out at some point 15 years from now. You could sell all my games in an estate sale as far as I'll care, but I think the Heroscape stuff will get nabbed by one of my three boys, fully aware that it will be something the next generation can play with, even if they're not playing the official game rules. It's great on three or four different levels.

If you can't get along with Samurai charging headlong into laser-wielding robots while an angel protects them from the flames of a dragon, I just can't be your friend.

Heroscape is definitely one of my litmus test games. Unfortunately it's getting hard to find... and the terrain is getting brittle.

I've never liked Heroscape.

Good riddance to bad "friends".