What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

Root. Set up when I got here.

I'm in purgatory.

Turns out my eldest loves Candy Land and cheating. He will very carefully ask whether you want to go first or second and then turn his back for thirty seconds while he places Princess Frostine's card in the appropriate position. I probably should come down harder on him for this, but it brings him so much joy. It's not about winning, necessarily. It doesn't bother him if his very next draw is the Gingerbread Forest and sends him behind me or if he gets stuck on licorice for six turns.

I think the cheating just makes him feel clever, like that one time when I was ten and stacked the deck to draw a royal flush in a game of poker against my grandmother. Unfortunately we weren't actually gambling anything, and she had no idea what a royal flush was. That learned me.

Trying to start up a little weekly board game meet up at the county library, just in time for corona cases to start going the wrong direction again.

Took an hour for anyone to show up, but I did get to teach someone Carcassonne and Melee. Both remain great, and I remain annoyed that Melee isn’t a bigger deal in the hobby.

A dad also played some Rhino Hero and Animal Upon Animal with his four year old.

Reasonable start.

DarthJoJo wrote: Turns out my eldest loves Candy Land and cheating. He will very carefully ask whether you want to go first or second and then turn his back for thirty seconds while he places Princess Frostine's card in the appropriate position. I probably should come down harder on him for this, but it brings him so much joy. It's not about winning, necessarily. It doesn't bother him if his very next draw is the Gingerbread Forest and sends him behind me or if he gets stuck on licorice for six turns.

My son does this as well, mostly in the form of "do-overs" for a bad or even sub-optimal outcome. He's 8 now though, so I feel like he is old enough to learn about consequences versus the 'fun' of playing a game and winning outside the ruleset. I'm sure developmental psychologists have written books on this topic, but I agree with you that for real little kids some tolerance for cheating is ok, particularly in what is otherwise an entirely scripted experience like Candyland since it could just be them wanting to exercise some control. But now I see my son being intolerant of ANY bad outcome, and it makes him a sore loser. This is particularly evident when he is playing something like Fortnite and he will insist that the guy who just headshot him for the kill is hacking the game but when he does it it is just skill. I see this as a growth opportunity where I can teach him that being a whiney punk equals punishment and getting kicked from games but the wife wants him off the game entirely.

Found some time for Vengeance. Lea Pistolera earned me my first overkill score in her first scenario but fell apart halfway through her new boss rush scenario. I kind of love how everyone else needs to be inspired to take on the gangs are a kid or sibling or spouse is kidnapped or murdered, but Lea just hates the gangs and loves killing. Still fun and still evocative.

I know Charlie wasn’t too hot on the Director’s Cut expansion he inspired, (link) but he’s wrong, at least in regard to the more stuff aspect of the box. I really enjoy what it brings to the solo game, which is Vengeance’s highest form. The new solo scenarios try some interesting things that aren’t just a curated base game. Trying out the Rosari and Immacolati gangs for the first helped me appreciate the texture they introduced to the puzzles of defeating different bosses in different dens with different heroes.

The solo game is totally better with the expansion, that is true. I need to get back to it sometime and play more of the characters solo.

jason10mm wrote:

DarthJoJo wrote: Turns out my eldest loves Candy Land and cheating. He will very carefully ask whether you want to go first or second and then turn his back for thirty seconds while he places Princess Frostine's card in the appropriate position. I probably should come down harder on him for this, but it brings him so much joy. It's not about winning, necessarily. It doesn't bother him if his very next draw is the Gingerbread Forest and sends him behind me or if he gets stuck on licorice for six turns.

My son does this as well, mostly in the form of "do-overs" for a bad or even sub-optimal outcome. He's 8 now though, so I feel like he is old enough to learn about consequences versus the 'fun' of playing a game and winning outside the ruleset. I'm sure developmental psychologists have written books on this topic, but I agree with you that for real little kids some tolerance for cheating is ok, particularly in what is otherwise an entirely scripted experience like Candyland since it could just be them wanting to exercise some control. But now I see my son being intolerant of ANY bad outcome, and it makes him a sore loser. This is particularly evident when he is playing something like Fortnite and he will insist that the guy who just headshot him for the kill is hacking the game but when he does it it is just skill. I see this as a growth opportunity where I can teach him that being a whiney punk equals punishment and getting kicked from games but the wife wants him off the game entirely.

I know grown men (haven't forgotten about women, just don't know any with this bad habit) that are too fond of do-overs. As in "halfway through the next player's turn" do-overs. "Oh, wait, let me change that." I don't follow "A <blank> laid is a <blank> played," but if you screwed up and don't see it until the middle of the other player's turn, that's too bad.

That’s part of learning good moves from bad.

After trading for it two years ago (damn pandemic...), I finally got Shakespeare on the table. I am a dedicated Bill the Bard fan, have acted in some of his plays, and have multiple copies of many of them sitting around the house in various forms (former stage scripts, etc.) so I was kinda geeked to finally get this out. Mechanically, I think it's very solid. There are MANY choices to make and all of them can have significant ripple effects. The rulebook is questionable, as it was a slightly janky translation into English and there are a lot of steps in each round to remember. But it was pretty entertaining and everyone walked away from it wanting to try again, as familiarity with the systems, as with many games, will probably make it even better. My one real complaint is that I wanted the different characters (Romeo, Othello, etc.) to have actual abilities that tied in with their roles in the plays, rather than just different icons that triggered this or that mechanic when they were activated. But the game is very much a Euro, so "variable player powers" was probably not in the original design. Anyway, we'll probably try again soon.

I’ve wondered about that one.

This is neither here nor there but I spent all my leisure time this week playing PC games while I waited for a package to come, then I got it and played Arkham LCG last night... I had more fun 10-12pm with a solo Arkham scenario drinking a beer than I did all week with PC games. Good hobby IMO.

Tried out the Chaos Realms variant of Fantasy Realms the other night, which I think might be a better way to play high player counts than the regular game. You deal everyone out 7 cards, set a timer, and trade cards in real time until the timer ends. All trades have to be 1 for 1, and you score your hand at the end of the timer. Assuming everyone has played the game a couple times it's a blast.

Edit: a further variant was proposed to deal 8 and discard 1 at the end, to have more trade fodder. seems like that would be fine too but we didn't try it.

My wife and three young kids were out of town visiting family for the weekend so I figured it was time to dust off solo Gloomhaven. I could hardly recall the plot so I visited my 20 BGG entries to get up to speed. Given that my last entry was 3 years prior, I had to brush up on the rules watching two different lengthy tutorials. Once I packed away the micromachine playsets that stay out on the dining room table, I struggled to remember how I organized that abyss of a box. Ultimately, I leisurely took in 3 scenarios. I experienced memories of old PC games where I needed to take just one more turn before I went to prep some food or head off to bed. The decisions were crunchy and exciting. I retired my level 6 cragheart for a level 3 elementalist and retired a level 7 scoundrel for a plague herald (though I opted to pick the brute so I wasn't rolling with two 8 health characters). The box has been packed away again, though hopefully not for another 3 years as I haven't stopped thinking of the game for the past day.

Been awhile since I've posted here. These are over the past 2-3 weeks.

Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition - This is basically Race for the Galaxy meets Terraforming Mars. I've never been a terribly big fan of TM because it's taken close to three hours every time I've played it. At its core, it's a tableau builder and I always felt like my time would be better spent playing Race for the Galaxy, which I'm a big fan of.

Enter Ares Expedition. I actually got some of the Terraforming Mars feel from this. You're still juggling the various resources, the board which tracks oxygen/temp and has little spaces for you terraform may be superfluous, but it works as sort of a diet version of the TM board.

It's taken us about an hour to play it each time.

I've played this twice now (three players and four players) and enjoyed it. It still doesn't hit as hard as Race for me and I'd rather play Jump Drive than any of the above.

Ruination - Nothing new, just more plays of this. Still holding up. Big fan of this one. No one else has really talked about this game and it received a small print run. I can't see it making it long term.

Andor: The Family Fantasy Game - This is very good. Random, but good. My daughter loves it. I'll be writing a full article.

Space Marine Adventures: Doomsday Countdown - Way too easy and lame. Almost nothing interesting going on. I've played it twice solo and once with my daughter. I'm done with this.

Waste Knights Second Edition - After one multiplayer play (cooperative scenario), and two solitaire sessions, I'm loving this game. I was a bit hesitant because I'm a big fan of the first edition, and this took the adventure game format and bolted a big book of scripts to the game (reminiscent of This War of Mine to a degree). I was wary of introducing prescribed narrative to a game that so wonderfully generated narrative organically.

But it works, and it works well. It's streamlined and much less fussy than the first edition, although I do miss the more convoluted combat. My group absolutely loved our single play of this.

I really want to see how it holds up in a competitive scenario.

Dice Throne - This surprised me. A friend bought all of the season one re-rolled stuff. Very enjoyable game that operates in the same realm as Unmatched, although this is a Yahtzee roll three times combat game with no minis. The asymmetry of each character is what's truly interesting.

Barrage - There are some interesting things in this game - such as water diverting down different pathways towards the bottom of the board - but I found it a bit overstuffed. You could axe the resource wheel thing completely without harming the core strategic process for instance. It was also mean, which I appreciated.

Still, not really something I'm too keen to play again.

Dungeon Breakout - This is the little dungeon crawler filler from the people that made Dungeon Degenerates. This is pretty bad. Completely waste of time.

Tsukuyumi (2nd edition) - I'm hesitant to give thoughts on this game because I have a signed design with Grey Fox Games (it's been delayed so many times I'm not confident it will ever get published), so keep that conflict of interest in mind here.

This kickstarter sucked. It was delayed heavily, it had tons of issues, etc. Finally it arrived with an included errata pack (I feel for non North Americans who have to wait to get an errata pack separately).

We got it to the table in a four player game. I was a little bummed about it due to the Kickstarter problems. It surprised me.

It's a long one, three hours probably on average. But it felt like a bigger game. Not quite epic like Twilight Imperium, but approaching that realm. It didn't feel like an Eric Lang style area control game.

It also has the most asymmetry of any game I've played besides Root. I was the Board people and could spawn on my Boarmother outside of my base and create these terraforming constructions all over the board to block off spaces or shore up defenses.

Every faction has multiple unique units with their own stats and abilities, so you're given a reference card for each opponent. This game's a bit much on a single play. There's just a lot to take in.

Combat is deterministic, which I was nervous about, but it's still somewhat interesting. You pick one of your faction's asymmetric attack cards and then give it to your opponent and they pick a counterattack listed on it. Usually it puts you on a branching path between inflict damage or protect yourself.

There's a lot of unique stuff going on, like a quirky action selection draft, neutral Oni pieces wandering around the board and controlled by players, faction special abilities, etc.

I enjoyed it but it didn't blow me away. I'm determined to play it again before deciding whether it's worth my limited shelf space.

Tyrants of the Underdark - I received a review copy of the new edition from GF9. It removes the plastic shields/spies for tokens and includes the two expansion half decks. It's also in a smaller box.

I sold my copy of Tyrants a long time ago. I liked the game but it kind of underwhelmed me. I expected something with a little more attitude or fire I guess.

But my group really liked it and another person kept his copy. It grew on me over time. It's just incredibly smooth and easy to play, while still remaining satisfying. Our play of this a couple of nights ago was very good. I may keep this new edition, will have to think on it more.

Rhino Hero Super Battle - Still great.

charlest wrote: I have a signed design with Grey Fox Games (it's been delayed so many times I'm not confident it will ever get published),

Feeling this one. I'm to the point where I don't think anything will happen in this industry until I'm holding the end result. It's all a gamble, one which I'm increasingly tired of making.