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What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?
We ran Ahsoka against a velociraptor which was pretty boring in terms of movement, but the card play was solid and fun. I hope he finds a publisher.
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Cantaloop 2 is the second entry in this unique point'n'click analogue adventure, the first of which I wrote about some months ago . This picks up the story as Oz and his crew attempt to enact revenge on the man who put Oz into prison. As with the first instalment this is packed full of ingenious solutions to impractical challenges and introduces a hacking mini-game. This new mechanism sits slightly at odds with the rest of the package, a demanding deterministic logic puzzle which is a mismatch to the otherwise whimsical presentation. You have a small hand of cards that you use to move a pac-man like critter through a path filled with various hazards; the cards are dual-function and can be used to overcome a hazard or to move a number of steps along the path. Some of the cards have more flexible effects in boosting or repeating other cards, and working out the precise order and timing of card play is where the challenges can become quite demanding, especially when some AI guardians and the ability to create a trojan mirror of your critter are introduced. The system is however very malleable, so when we reached a point of frustration with the more complex hacking puzzles later in the game we declared that as no-one was looking we had done well enough, ticked off the box, and moved on with the story.
The story itself feels more straightforward to solve than the first part, or maybe we have just become wise to the twisted logic at play and navigated our way through more effectively. Having to make room for the hacking puzzle does give off the overall impression of it being shorter and more linear and we were able to blast our way through in two short sessions. The design on this sequel makes better use of the code-boxes and card-swapping, with greater use of overlays on the map and even a short comic-book style cut-scene of a particular event that I wish they would do more of in future instalments as it was enjoyably reminiscent of video game cut-scenes. Overall I prefer the first part of Cantaloop over the second but remain keen to see what else is to come in this particular series.
Empires of the North - I am, I suppose, somewhat of a fan of Portal Games given that I still have multiple titles of theirs which nowadays appear to dominate my heavily depleted 'collection', but Empires of the North was a game that I bounced off quite hard when I first tried it a few years ago. I was at the time disgruntled by the way the faction I was given worked, which required two or three specific cards to drive the engine and all of which were buried at the bottom of the deck (cue a laborious hour of focussing every possible action on drawing cards until the final round where I limped from nowhere to dead last). It felt like Ignacy had blown out on this particular iteration of 51st State which is now on it's fifth incarnation and I felt no reason to spend any more time with it when I already had two of the other entries to focus on.
Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago and my buddy, who has been gradually wearing me down to give the game another go, finally gets to show off what has happened in the design space with the expansion content. I was completely blown away - having a single deck per faction has allowed them to get really creative with specialised and innovative machanisms. The most engaging thing for me is that there are multiple different ways in which cards can be combined to deliver interesting plays so it never felt like there was a dull moment, and I was genuinely excited to see how the gears clashed with the wildly different function of the opposition. This provides much greater player agency with a bigger and more open space, a far cry from the very narrow rails that the low-complexity base game factions run on. It also feels maybe a bit more interactive than some of the other titles in the series - razing works in a very different way and there is more incentive to use those tokens to block key opposition cards which creates a great deal more tension on the timing of actions as there are always multiple things you want to do first but under the knowledge that you will miss opportunities on everything you de-prioritise. So yeah, I was wrong about this one and a moment of retail therapy later and Portal are owning yet more real estate on my shelves.
At the club:
Oh my. Was roped into Marco Polo which is a fairly derivative Euro that does something mildly interesting with dice. Chuck a handful of dice and use them to take a variety of worker-placement actions. You often get better returns for using higher value dice and if someone is already on the spot then you just pay cash equal to the lowest dice they have there, neatly circumventing passive-aggressive action-blocking whilst still applying a 'got there first' benefit. Place your dice to get stuff that you turn into other stuff that you then turn into victory points. I've played this game and have ticked off a box that I never knew needed filling.
Oh my oh my. Was then press-ganged into playing Marvel Splendor, which is Splendor with fetishistic artwork from the current zeitgeist. It's kind of weird to have all the Marvel porn on cards that then gets covered up in your tableau, but I suppose it's there to salivate over in the grid of the card market. The thematic connection is, as one might expect, absolutely zero - why are these characters teaming up, some of whom I'm pretty sure with even my shaky Superhero knowledge are supposed to be enemies, and why do I 'win' a cityscape or steal the Avengers title when I have a certain quantity of them? It actually makes less sense thematically than the original game. But, hey, it's Marvel! Do you remember Thor's hammer? Ain't it cool when The Hulk gets angry? That Spider-Ham is so goofy amirite? Don't mind me, I'm just being grumpy because I'm neither a fan of Splendor nor Marvel.
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Anyway, ASoE was kind of weird because we didn't get a lot of agents on the board(and a couple were killed right away), and the enduring effects were based on controlling cities, so it was somewhat of a rush for cities. I think by the end all but 2 were controlled. My opening hand, as a restorationist, had all of my bombs, so I just decided to go for it on turn 1. Why not? It thins that one-time action card out of my deck right away, and it's not often you get all your bomb cards in your hand at the same time anyway. Plus, the loyalist can't go and kill my agent on turn 1 as I would just win, so I have time to get away.
On the abstract front on BGA, for a few weeks now I've been playing a recurring turn-based game of Murus Gallicus against the top rated player. I wasn't sure what to think of this game when I first played it a couple years ago as it didn't seem like there was a lot here. I've been mostly losing and learning and now I think it's one of the top abstracts, so on par with your favorite from Project GIPF or whatever. Real simply, you have each have a home row of double-stacked checkers on a 8x7 chess board. Objective is to move a checker into your opponent's home row. On your turn, you can "un stack" any double-stack any direction, as long as it can fully unstack(so you need 2 open spaces). You can make new stacks of 2 in a move by unstacking onto your own single, but no higher. The only other move is an attack: you can sacrifice the top checker on your own double stack to kill a single stack checker of the opponent. If you ever run out of moves(because you have no double stacks), you lose. Sounds stupid, but it somehow really works. You're attacking and defending at the same time, trying to divide your opponent's forces, starve them from moves. Very dynamic! From the static opening, most of my games against this #1 rated dude are all going in drastically different directions, and that variety is really what made me realize how good this is.
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- Jackwraith
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Dragonfly took the honorable death approach, spreading out to every battle and attempting to win Seppuku and Imperial Poets. It worked well, since others were angling hard for province tokens. It made him the scoring leader throughout most of the game. Turtle, meanwhile, went the heavy military route, but left most of the Oni to me. At one point, a Recruit came around and he had nothing left to put on the board. Hemmed in as I was and not able to contest the shrines with the lowest honor, I got wiped in Spring and then could never rebuild properly from my lone stronghold. Turtle also picked up Path of the Serpent which even for Bonsai begins to cut a little. He had 21 coins in the final war phase of the game (Path of the Moneylender helped here, too.) Lotus also couldn't generate much but was paranoid about Dragonfly's huge lead and attempt to stymie him. Sun just kind of bided her time, winning battles here and there, with none the wiser. I came in dead last with a whole 21 points. Lotus gained 5 tokens and ended up with 47, helped by Path of the Pacifist for a while. Turtle had 7 tokens but not much else to show for it and ended with 48. Dragonfly's path of honor gave him 59... but Sun had picked up Form of the Dragon and Form of the Kitsune, which gives bonuses for strongholds, including Fukurukoju, and also had 7 tokens, so she shot from dead last to 78(!) points in Winter and took the game. Was really well played, especially since she didn't try to line up Sun's clan ability a single time and, thus, never used it. Heroes next time, I think.
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- hotseatgames
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I then introduced my friend to Volt. And like always, after one round he had ordered his own copy. I should get commission from FFG considering how many copies of Volt I have sold for them. We did a couple of basic rules rounds, and then we decided to get crazy and actually use the full rules. You draw modifications for your robot that give you extra options, and I have to say they were great. I should have been doing that a long time ago. I expect Volt will start hitting the table more often, and I certainly have no complaints about that. I should paint the robots. There are only four, it would take no time at all.
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Only thing I have mixed feelings about is the end game. It has explosive end game scoring cards that enter the tableau and really dominate your scoring. You're going to score a solid percentage of your points on the final card cycle off the last 5-10 cards and you REALLY need to be in a position resourcewise for that. I don't think this is a problem per se just requires knowledge and repeat plays. The bigger issue is the end of the world syndrome it invites. It pushes back a bit by giving a high point bonus to passing and ending the game for yourself but on first blush you really have a lot of maximizing and math to do with your last hand that will determine the game, not to my taste completely even if it's reduced when you know what you're building to.
Pretty wild 50-100 card tableau that could come out in any order (with a neat reorder in the purchase slots mechanic) and potentially drop some wild end game card in an early game that everyone will fight like hell for. Great stuff.
I'm going to keep my eyes open for it in case it hits the used bookstore.
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Saturday a local library hosts a monthly board gaming event from 3 to 7. I brought Inis and Black Fleet as easy to teach/short games they had never played. However, when I got there at 3:30 they were just starting a game of Cthulhu Wars and I joined as the 4th player playing as Yellow Sign. 2 first timers and 2 veterans (counting myself). I cut some deals and laid low while desecrating everywhere. The Cthulhu player went to take one of my gates early and I had three dice to defend myself. I rolled three sixes, taking out The old one and the two mobs he had along. The (new player) kid playing Crawling Chaos hit 27 Doom and (roughly) the turn before the Doom phase, he took out four of my cultist...which gave me 4 extra power. But, I didn't need it, I had a pathetic
14 Doom but I revealed Elder Signs to add 18 Doom to that total to end the game before the doom phase. I had that four power I could have moved and desecrated two more times but my wife was waiting on me.
Saturday night we played Sagrada six players (so I could take some pics for a review...but I somehow won) Stoner Parking Lot and Pictionary.
My daughter got up this morning and had a few hours before work. She requested games and I let her pick. So we played Cover My Kingdom and Tiny Epic Galaxies She trounced me in both. So, my wining streak in games was short-lived. Almost forgot how much I like those two games.
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Gary Sax wrote: Ah_Pook was generous enough to teach Faiyum to Not Sure and I. I really liked it, great boiled down distillation of a development and engine game where you are *using* your engine all game not building it for one final turn. Great big deck card reclaim mechanic, top stuff, so clever and snappy. Shared infrastructure, so you have to be pretty attentive to what others are trying to accomplish so that you can take advantage of their choices.
Only thing I have mixed feelings about is the end game. It has explosive end game scoring cards that enter the tableau and really dominate your scoring. You're going to score a solid percentage of your points on the final card cycle off the last 5-10 cards and you REALLY need to be in a position resourcewise for that. I don't think this is a problem per se just requires knowledge and repeat plays. The bigger issue is the end of the world syndrome it invites. It pushes back a bit by giving a high point bonus to passing and ending the game for yourself but on first blush you really have a lot of maximizing and math to do with your last hand that will determine the game, not to my taste completely even if it's reduced when you know what you're building to.
Pretty wild 50-100 card tableau that could come out in any order (with a neat reorder in the purchase slots mechanic) and potentially drop some wild end game card in an early game that everyone will fight like hell for. Great stuff.
I'm going to keep my eyes open for it in case it hits the used bookstore.
Yea the endgame can feel jarring, I can see it. I like the climactic feel of it and seeing your engine pump out a ton of points you've been working towards, but it's definitely a hard shift into number crunching. I scored 38pt off 3 endgame cards and won at 101. If you had swung one of those 15pt cards your way you probably win instead, since you definitely had the better points engine during the game. Even if you had just bought one so I couldn't score it that probably gets you the win, though it comes down to the tactical nitty gritty of who passes first etc at that point.
I think my favorite thing about Faiyum is how drastically differently things play out depending on how the cards come out and what the other players do. Like I monopolized workshops this game and was sitting on a ton of resources going into the endgame, so I was poised to take advantage of big endgame cards. But I was in that position because I hardly had anything during the bulk of the game to score big points with, so I'm just piling stuff up and crossing my fingers that I've got enough in the tank for a surge at the end. But that all looks way different next game y'know.
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- Legomancer
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Will have more to say in a bit
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After that a few folks had to leave, so we played a five-player game of Wingspan + both expansions. The Oceania expansion does make getting food and cards a little easier, and getting eggs a little harder. But while I was playing nothing from the expansion jumped out at me, so I just played like I was playing plain vanilla Wingspan. One of the players had to drop before the last round, so we just finished it like we were playing a four-player game. I won that one, 107-90-something-something. My take on the expansion was that it doesn't change the game all that much compared to what the first expansion did.
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I highly recommend painting the Volt miniatures. They become more recognizable by color and combined with the other quality components, they add to the experience.
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- Jackwraith
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- hotseatgames
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- Sagrilarus
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