HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I think my most disappointing game that was new to me was Jaws, though I think it’s a product of only playing with my family. It’s taken very long every time, and the shark has never come close to winning. I actually think I’m playing something wrong in the second half of the game but I cannot for the life of me figure out what. Like I said, I still need to play with all adults who can focus better and play more effectively.

I have a couple RPGs I bought, hoping I would have a chance to play them while in the USA. Unfortunately my online group disintegrated and I lost all interest in running things online for the time being. Hoping that I can find another group in Kenya because I really want to play both Scum & Villainy and Savage Worlds Adventure Edition.

Happy New Years folks! My only real gaming resolution is to try and hold a fixed game night at least once a month either online or in person.

On the reflections side, I know everyone sees the internet as a hate filled machine but my interactions with this site have been pretty stellar. I’ve been online since I was a kid but almost always as a lurker on various forums and communities. 2020 onwards is when I actually started expressing myself here more regularly and it has turned out pretty great! I’ve met a few gaming buddies both online and IRL and have played games I never would’ve known about otherwise. Thanks to the TWBG staff for attracting and fostering such a great community, here’s looking to more of the same in the coming year.

Gaming-wise (and otherwise), 2020 and 2021 were an undifferentiated grey paste for me. Hopefully I'm getting better. But I pretty much quit gaming in April of 20 and didn't start again until October of 21, so I didn't have a lot of time for trying new things.

The bad from this period was definitely Dark Venture. Just a fucking abysmal mess. The rules are spotty at best and unfathomable at worst, making you have to figure out what the hell it wants you to do at nearly every step. It's also a logistical mess...everything is a card, usually multiple cards. Characters are a card with multiple cards for equipment and multiple characters can be on a space (which is also a card). Throw the decks into the air, let them land on the table, and it's indistinguishable from the game in play. I hated this thing and gave my copy to one of the unfortunate players who tried it with me and thought maybe something there was salvageable (he was wrong). I didn't want this in my house anymore. Unfortunately they accidentally shipped me two copies of it and the expansion so I'm still providing room and board for it. If you want it, let me know.

The high point was Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition, which I got to spur me back into playing in October. I really like the original TfM a LOT but the terrible expansions have bogged it down for me. I don't like playing with them, but others do, and as a result it hasn't gotten as much play as I'd like. Ares returns to the roots and is slightly quicker and more streamlined.

Other ones I liked were Town Builder: Coeverden, Smartphone Inc, The Crew, and Chartered.

In 2022 I'm actually looking forward to gaming with my friends again. I have Omen: Heir to the Dunes which I'm eager to try out, and I also have coming to me Startups, an expansion for It's a Wonderful World, and Under Falling Skies, which I got because I'm going to try and create a videogame version of it.

The bad : Just this past week my friend brought over JOAN OF ARC TIMES OF LEGEND . This game is in a nutshell the poster child for everything wrong about Kickstarter. RIDICULOUS component bloat, a core rule set while not that complex, has very basic problems with presentation. There are like two examples of play.

Remember that episode of THE SIMPSONS where the TV producers of ITCHY AND SCRATCHY bring in a focus group of kids and ask what they want and the kids say yes to everything and the result is the Pookie character who totally sucks ?

Here's an example. We set up a scenario ( more on set up momentarily ) . We see each player gets a pair of Intrigue cards. We find the rule for those, which mentions you need to pay for them with Intrigue TOKENS. OK, how do we get those ? We find the tokens described under the components section, but not how they come into play. Finally a PDF word search ( which we've done way too many times already ) finds that we get them via Discussions with Civilians.

Civilians seem like more effort than they are worth.

Set up. OMFG. Basically set up/tear down takes longer than the actual game play itself. Enough said.

The actual game play ? Basically you jam as many figures in a space as possible. And I mean jam literally because some areas are too small to fit as many figure bases as they can hold. Speaking of figure bases, some bases hold three figures, some hold two. There is NO difference between a two and three figure base other than the unit type depicted. Oh and the figures don't snap into place, so when you move it or pick it up to move to the Disrupted area, they easily fall out.

Back to the as many units as possible - in reading various threads on BGG, the death star concept seems to be the ideal way to play. Dispersal is less effective, not to mention more vulnerable to massed archery. Whereas the more dense an area is packed, the more defense dice they can roll to deflect shots .

I could go on, but you get the picture.

Looking over my plays from the past year, not a ton of new stuff stands out. I did like TERRAFORMING MARS ARES EXPEDITION as a faster more,streamlined version of its predecessor. I disagree with some that say its just rehashed RACE FOR THE GALAXY which I found rather bland and non thematic.

Looking forward in 2022 to ENEMY ACTION KHARKOV, JOHN COMPANY 2, and NEMESIS LOCKDOWN.

Happy New Year!

I can't remember what my worst game of the year was because I play way too many that I don't like. Which is directly related to my biggest gaming disappointment-- not playing the games I like often enough. Both of which lead directly to my gaming resolution for the year-- Stop learning new games.

That's an exaggeration, but the core is correct. I read a friend's blog post this morning who put it pretty well-- "This game better be worth the time to learn, when I could be playing Modern Art instead." Does that mean I will refuse to play any new game? No. But it means that I will work to be more selective. If my group all decides they want to learn a new worker-placement game (my personal kryptonite), I will show the fortitude to let them enjoy themselves and bow out.

I've been a bit of a bastard this year by learning & playing new games I knew I would dislike, bitching about it, and ruining the fun for others. That's got to stop. Plus, I'm just damn tired of learning new games. Especially when I have games I know I love that never get played.

Everyone I’m seeing discussing Joan of Arc is waiting on new rules. Not a new rule book, new rules. So it sounds like it was shipped half baked.

Here’s one that caught my eye —

pre-ordered Nov 2017 all-in KS @ $560
received May 2019 (some of it) waiting for JoA 1.5 which has been a nightmare and is still a nightmare.

But look at those minis.

Yeah, part of the Joan debacle is that they didn’t pay the designer and only got to print it after a legal battle where the designer has the rights to the game and Mythic kept the miniatures, so now they are promising a new game that will use the same models.

After every single project of theirs having problems with playability, I can’t see how anyone is really excited over the idea of getting another set of completely new rules in hopes they get it right

KS backers often pay hundreds of dollars to be playtesters with deluxe prototypes.

ChristopherMD wrote: What was your most disappointing game from 2021?

Legend of the Five Rings. It was cancelled, meaning FFG's line of competitive card games is done. And the last tournament was so fun and the card pool so interesting it was a shame to see it go away. The fans did a fantastic job with an updated ban list and they printed a neutral card that removed attachments, like every single person asked FFG to print since the game was released.

What 2022 game release are you most looking forward to?

It was not released in 2022 but the game I'm looking foward is Flesh and Blood. I just spent a small fortune to get into the game. As it turns out, all the old players from L5R and Netrunner are now playing it so it should be fun. It's a very well-made game, with depth and very different playstyles. It's the current option for a competitive card game and I love the genre so I decided to get into it despite it being a CCG.

Any gaming related resolutions?

Lots! Most of them are related to my blog in some form but there are a few that aren't. I want to be better at meeting up to actually play and not try to organize plays at the last minute. I'm going to get serious into Flesh and Blood and I'll be writing lots, lots more. More people than ever are reading me so I need to make sure I'm taking it seriously enough.

Shelf Toads

I don't have any Shelf Toads per se, but I would have liked to play more 18XX. One of my goals is to print a few games and play them to the fullest: 1825 and its expansions (I only own one), Civilization and my improved Magic: The Gathering cube. Those are kind of my "Shelf toad" projects to me.

Game disappointments of 2021: only all the games I didn't play. I could probably sell the Marvel: United sans figures and not really miss a thing. I can't really call it a disappointment though as I knew the light game I was getting.

Most looking forward to in 2022: Tanares Arena/Adventures. Not looking forward to making space for it though.

2022 Gaming Resolutions: Teach my friend games in the Commands & Colors series. Paint more figures. Maybe finally finish the Arcadia Quest figures. LOL

My biggest gaming disappointment of new to me games was Queendomino. Sometimes adding something to a great game subtracts from the experience. Think King of New York, only worse.

dysjunct wrote: Biggest disappointment: Fort. Mostly due to high expectations. After being initially nonplussed by Root, then really digging it, I was ready to become a Leder Games fan. Fort made this not happen. It's not bad, just a forgettable use of a great theme and great art.

Meanwhile, I went into Fort with almost zero expectations and because my girlfriend picked it out. We played it quite a bit for awhile and liked it.

My favorite surprise, which was another light deckbuilder: Abandon All Artichokes.

I'm just looking for the supply chain crunch to loosen up so a lot of the smaller gaming companies can restock their catalog items. A lot of stuff (particularly in the world of small UK miniatures companies) has become functionally (but not actually) out-of-print due to simply not being able to get materials.