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What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?
Homeland - Believe the hype and what folks around here are saying. It's that good. Josh Look describes it as, "Crisis cards from BSG...all the time". The game just cruises along...things make sense mechanically AND thematically. Homeland is the one game from this weekend that I can't stop thinking about. I love semi co-op/ hidden role games so I'm inclined to like the game, but goddamn....this is great. The fact that you have to work together but only one person wins really sets it apart for me. Adds a nice wrinkle. This was the only game I won all weekend.
Space Cadets: Away Missions - Got to play this game and it's pretty fucking awesome. It takes the best things from the Dungeons and Dragons Adventure System games then adds some sexy new spices to the recipe. Coat it all in a cool retro sci-fi veneer and you've got Space Cadets: Away Missions. The "overkill system" is really great and gives you lots of tactical options each turn. People that backed this game are in for a treat. I can't wait for my copy to show up.
Mission: Red Planet - I really love this game. For some reason I don't play it nearly often enough. It's quick moving, has plenty of in your face fuckery and plays in about 60 mins. This needs to hit the table much more often.
Nexus Ops & Buffy - These Mass Market Hasbro/Milton Bradley/AH games have aged like fine wine. It's hard to find straightforward, fun first, CLASSIC Ameritrash style games anymore. Both of these games would probably get trashed if they came out today. Their simple rulesets make you say, "that's it?" Once you start playing you're like, "Awww, fuck yeah these games rock". Also, Nexus Ops might be the coolest looking game ever made.
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Gregarius wrote: Boss Monster - First play. I think the idea and artwork for the game are great, but the execution fell a little flat. I think my group was overthinking it and not playing quickly enough. There didn't seem to be enough player interaction, but that could have just been me since I was ignoring spell cards. I wouldn't mind giving it another try, but it went on too long for what it was.
I think this one is a pretty strong case of people buying a game for its cover. "Aw man I loved Nintendo games!" Is what most people think when they pick it up. And then they play an okay game that they would have ignored with a different cover and art style.
The longer I've been around board games, the more I think that presentation is what sells.
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- SuperflyPete
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I'm not typically pulled in by 8-Bit graphics but this one does it for me. It's like the worst part of Dungeon Lords re-imagined and stripped out and it just works.
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I love Boss Monster and I think it is a great game. Critically great? Not at all. And to be honest, most of all the games that I truly love are not critically great. And that's why I keep finding myself drawn to KS games more and more, because they ignore or are ignorant to these BGG or F:AT ideals to what a game should look like, should feel like and should play like.
When designers develop with those ideals in mind you get games like Stronghold, like Dungeon Lords, like The Battle at Kembel's Cascade, like Horus Heresy. Over designed, over complicated and developed with the interests of the critics in mind rather than the Average Joe. I can't help but think about what any of those games would look like and play like were they developed by a Kickstarter designer and likely how great they'd. I can't help but think about what a game like Flash Point, Arcadia Quest, 8-MInute Empires or Boss Monster would look like mechanically if a house like ZMan or FFG were to get a hold of them prior to release.
Boss Monster is the Average Joe game and that's why I love it.
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- SuperflyPete
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Mundus Novus was good fun. One of the online retailers has it in the bargain bin for £8 so i snagged a copy. It is really a fancy rummy (gin) variant but it adds enough to the pot to make the game interesting. You can win either by getting lots of cash or by getting a complete set of the 10 trade cards. This combined with the 'trading' (its more swapping) system and the upgrade cards that provide new ways of getting extra cards, money or other fun things allow you to pull some clever moves. Its not quite Bohnanza or High Society but its a solid short card game.
Arctic Scavengers got a mixed reception. I am a bit surprised that Deck Builders have caught on the way they have in retrospect. They by design heavily front load the decisions and demand a game long strategic approach. If you make a mess of your deck early it can be difficult to bring the ship round. Two players dug in the scrap pile too much and ended up with more tools than they could use. I ended up hammering everyone with 38 points, last place scrapped 20. Like most deck builders you have to have some idea of what you are doing or get rather lucky or it can be a frustrating time. I still like the game but the group isn't sold on it.
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- Sagrilarus
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In Arctic Scavengers case I think you're right, an early error can be tough to overcome, but the game isn't so long as to be that big an obstacle and you get pretty good feedback on what you did wrong. Reshuffle and deal again.
S.
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TLDR: In a moment of weakness, I failed to win.
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The two things I played are the Hinterlands and the Superbug. Hinterlands adds an extra "city" for each color, which has connections to 4 or 5 of that color's cities, making travel a little easier in some cases, but adding to the difficulty because cubes may be randomly added to one of the Hinterlands spaces via a die roll (which the Euro Pandemic fans are no doubt cursing the very presence of), which might outbreak into all of those connected cities. It's also easier to trade if players are together in a Hinterlands space, as they can trade cards of any city with that color. So overall, the difficulty is probably a wash, but it's a really fun variant to the original game.
The Superbug is nasty, but I like it. 24 purple cubes are in play and you can't treat them at all, other than removing them once purple is cured, via "vaccines" that are produced at vaccine centers (converted research centers), and eradicating purple (not merely curing it) is a requirement for winning. One means of dealing with the inability to treat purple is to quarantine a city, where you place a "2" marker on a city, and it gets to take two hits (flipping to "1" and then being removed) where no cubes are added from infections. Quarantines can be added to any game to make things a little easier, and they're a really nice touch. After two games of losing pretty soundly, I'm at a loss to see how I can have enough time and actions to eradicate purple, but I'm eager to keep at it.
If you like Pandemic but don't have any expansions, I would now suggest this as the first one to get. This will hold me over until Pandemic: Legacy in the fall.
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However, I'm starting to get the impression that it is pretty scripted. The random setup of the goods rarely affects anything but the layout of the track and to which city you have to connect on which turn. You always try to get a level six locomotive as quickly as possible, push your income above six and then switch to victory point generation. In the basic version you can't even spend more money to grow your routes faster and I'm not sure that the advanced version's auction for the special action tiles does allow for that. The urbanization action can present an interesting choice, but usually the need to make as much six deliveries as possible dictates the choice.
Did others have the same impression? Do the expansion maps with their special rules help?
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- Erik Twice
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Chances are you are not being enough of a dick to throw people out of the loop. Still, you should try the Advanced/Default/Whatever it's called ruleset because it's more explosive and the choices are far less obvious. You also have less money, which matters a lot.
Still, if you think the base maps are very basic (which they are), you can always try some of the expansions or print a couple of them.
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