What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

Went to my friends house and enjoyed some games out side in the warm sun;

QMG Cold War - this is ace, may be my favourite cold war game. I won which I did not expect for much of the game too. Its a tad more complex that some of the other QMG games but not too much and it is a very well balanced 3 player game in terms of encouraging all three players to fight each other. The cold war conceit is driven by open aggression being punished with eslcaltion points. If you have a lot of escalation points against a given faction they don't lose VPs when they fire WMDs at you. Later in our game a lot of WMDs were fired. Fortuanately i had managed to hang on in europe pretty well as the west and claim bits of Asia.

Triumph and Tragedy - This would be better if i played it more often as I would actually remember the strategy. We got through this pretty quick as we only went to war in 1942 and it was over in a year. I managed to swipe Moscow and Lennigrad as the Germans and nearly had London too. Both my opponents did not fortify their capitals well and front lines in this game can be surprisingly thin. You need defence in depth / a reserve. The game can end amazingly quickly if you are not careful. I still think its three fairly medocre subgames that combine well in to a decent all round game but i probably prefered the QMG games.

Finally we played QMG WW1 to finish off. This has a good WW1 feel in that it is more straight back and forth and attritional. I probably prefer the more dynamic cold war game but this is interesting in its own way.

Mezike and I played a random seed game of the late July almost fully locked down Oath playtest kit 2p on TTS. I was *shocked* by how much I liked it and do know I loathe playtesting. At first glance, they fixed a lot of stuff I was worried about in the streams I saw months ago. Narrative was amazing and the card and relic powers fucking ruled. If anyone wants to talk Oath I'll dig up the thread for it. By the end I was essentially running the Brave Companions from Game of Thrones but I didn't pursue the king (Mezike) hard enough so I lost because of his popularity and intelligence gathering.

We resurrected our weekly game night with only a couple friends that, like us, basically never leave their house now. So we knocked out a first game of Angola over two weeks. What a fantastic, fun game. 1988? Wow, you'd think newer games would be better by now...

MSample plays that game a TON, enough that his group pioneered some balancing rules. He might have something to say.

It has been on my shelf forever, shelf toad.

Gary Sax wrote: MSample plays that game a TON, enough that his group pioneered some balancing rules. He might have something to say.

It has been on my shelf forever, shelf toad.

I’d kill to see the system ported to other situations. Fuck COIN. An all time classic.

Msample wrote:

Gary Sax wrote: MSample plays that game a TON, enough that his group pioneered some balancing rules. He might have something to say.

It has been on my shelf forever, shelf toad.

I’d kill to see the system ported to other situations. Fuck COIN. An all time classic.

Vassalengine.org

While my wife and I never dug too deep into Escape the Curse of the Temple, I've held onto my copy because I have a problem figured that perhaps it would be fun to play with my kids at some point. Sure enough, that day came and it was glorious. My 9 year old and I did a run through without the soundtrack so she could get a hang of the mechanics, and then we turned up the bass. I have indulged myself with a respectable sound system and having the walls violently rattling as my daughter and I scrambled through the game was great fun. Towards the end she laughingly called out how it was making her anxious. I hope to get to experience many more fun times like that.

The comic shop tries to move games and then will have some decent ones marked down for their quarterly sale. This allowed me to get Roll for the Galaxy at a fairly low price. I'm glad I finally opened it up as we have really enjoyed our plays. I feel like the length is just right and our plays are opening our eyes to different paths to victory.

We spent some time with my sister-in-law in the hill country and got in two matches of Sleuth. This was a first time for all three involved and everyone enjoyed it. It's not like anything I've played (someone felt like it had some links to Clue but I've never played that) and it certainly feels of its time but also timeless. I'm not sure I can place it, but it took me back to the early 80's and our game room growing up. Like everything else listed in this post, I hope to play it again and again.

Finally, played Sandstone twice tonight after accepting delivery this afternoon. This is a Small Box Games abstract strategy area control game. I have to be in a mood for abstract strategy, and I suppose I'm fairly limited to Othello, Glux, Hive, Zertz, and of course Chess. I think I might have found one that I really like. In one game, there are only 5 possible rounds and each player can only do two actions in each round. I appreciate knowing that the game will not be a long slog, and every action made feels satisfyingly weighty. Both games featured really bold moves, and both ended in the third round. I would like to dig into this one thoroughly, which shouldn't be too difficult given the short play time - I'm not sure how into this idea my wife is however, so we shall see.

Oh yeah, around that age my kids were super into escape as well, there’s something so immediate about chucking fistfuls of dice in a panic. Glad to hear that it’s working out for you.

In light of the pandemic I've been limited to online games, and the one that has taken front and center is Rallyman GT, which I'll now highly recommend.

I say "now" because it took me a while to warm up to it. I've never seen a real copy. This is on Boardgamearena.com, and my first couple of plays of it were a little rough. But there's a lot going on in the game that changes from track to track and from car to car, so it's a game you need to grow into a bit.

I can thank dysjunct for dropping a surprise invitation into my inbox to get in on a game with himself and Gregarius, where G and I more or less got a clinic in how to play better. Dysjunct has more than a few games under his belt (and is playing half a dozen games simultaneously at all times as best I can tell) via Board Game Arena's play-by-email feature. It's called turn-based (which has about zero meaning on a boardgame site) but it's simple. You get an email saying it's your turn, click the link, the game pops up in your browser and you take your turn. Next guy gets an email.

It's my kind of game, and may turn out to be my favorite racing game ever, a genre I really enjoy. So that's a high bar to clear. You make your decisions, which can be fairly complex and not necessarily straightforward or predetermined, and then you hope for the best with the luck of the dice. I like decision-then-luck plays and Rallyman GT has it in spades.

The three of us have clicked the Play Again button three or four times now and I've gotten my gaming group of 30 years roped into a couple of games. We played a game live last night where I had the win and pushed my luck just a little too hard (finished third instead) and then started a play-by-email game which we played live until 11 and will pick up as the week goes on. Two laps, big track, this one could take a while. But who's in a hurry these days, especially when you're able to shut the browser and come back to it a day later?

^a thing that has never resonated with me about a lot of racing games is that they don't front the track and its particular characteristics enough. The nature of the track and conditions is extremely important for the result of the race but it's treated quite superficially in the games I've seen.

I second everything Sag said. I'm far from a racing game aficionado (although I have played quite a few), but Rallyman GT is simply great. One thing I've definitely learned, though, is how much better it is to play with the GT-5 (with the acceleration die) than the standard GT-4. That fifth gear and the ability to jump up a gear make for much more exciting and dangerous plays. I still haven't figured out if I like short tracks vs. long tracks or single laps vs. multiple laps.

Board Game Arena also has a nice implementation of Downforce. It's a racing game, but really it's a betting game. You spend money buying a car, play cards that move multiple cars simultaneously, then make money based on correctly betting on who will win. Based on the earlier Daytona 500, but has a few extra twists. It makes a nice, light companion to the sometimes stressful Rallyman.

Gary Sax wrote: ^a thing that has never resonated with me about a lot of racing games is that they don't front the track and its particular characteristics enough. The nature of the track and conditions is extremely important for the result of the race but it's treated quite superficially in the games I've seen.

The track makes itself known in Rallyman.

Gregarius wrote: Board Game Arena also has a nice implementation of Downforce. It's a racing game, but really it's a betting game.

Yeah, well . . . that ain't a racing game! It's a stock market game!

I tuned into what-his-name's video on how to play it and skipped ahead because he was dragging his feet. The spot I clicked to, he said, "and don't worry, you can wager on which car wins, I'll get to that in a minute." and I was done. Closed the browser and moved on! I don't care what Al Rose thinks! That's not a racing game!

Disclaimer -- haven't played Downforce.

Rallyman is a true race game. This is your car, get there first. No hidden traitors or syndicate bets in this one.

By the way, dysjunct speaks Esperanto.

Cool, I really like racing games so I will check Rallyman out. I play on BGA, but have mostly just been playing abstracts against a friend. (BGA has some great ones like Connect6, Lines of Action, Circle of Life, Blooms, Veletas)

Rallyman GT is the best racing game ever published. Yes, better than Speed Circuit.

Michael Barnes wrote: Rallyman GT is the best racing game ever published. Yes, better than Speed Circuit.

Its designer has just this one game attributed to him. A home run on his first trip to the plate.