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Mycelia Board Game Review

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Outback Crossing Review

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01 Feb 2016 10:55 - 01 Feb 2016 10:56 #221254 by Gary Sax
Yeah, Study would be a nightmare with randomish players. Just impossible. There has to be a lot of fundamental trust at the table for it to be competitive. I think it's still sort of fun if the ending is random, but it certainly isn't tense. The ending conditions are complex and subtle, so understanding them in order to jockey around them is a big part of the game. In particular, pulling up your teammate without letting them pass is a huge part of the interplay.

I still don't know if the game is actually too fragile to be great, I've never played it with a table of people who were really cognizant of its endgame. It was still fun.
Last edit: 01 Feb 2016 10:56 by Gary Sax.

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01 Feb 2016 10:58 #221255 by VonTush

Egg Shen wrote: My main gripe is that the game is simply not enjoyable. The mechanics as written would make for a fun little dungeon romp except that is not what the Campaign in the base box provides...I think my biggest problem is that I'm trying to play the game like a dungeon crawl when it is clearly not designed to be. It's a race game and you need to stay ahead of the Overlord or else.
...
I'm determined to finish the campaign, but I don't have high hopes that the experience is going to improve much. I really don't see what people see in 2.0. Still, onward I trek...


Sorry for the lack of poetic phrasing and I'm not trying to be an ass (haven't had enough coffee to worry about diplomatic phrasing)...If the game isn't what you want it to be why continue? Would playing the game that is in the box, rather than what you want it to be, increase your enjoyment?
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01 Feb 2016 11:19 #221258 by Egg Shen
Hahaha...I'm not a glutton for punishment or anything, but I'm just honestly trying to get some enjoyment out of the purchase. At this point I just want to finish the campaign. I'm thinking maybe as my heroes get more items and powers things might change...get a little more enjoyable. Maybe not. I dunno...I just REALLY want to like this game so I'm giving this more of a shot than it probably deserves.

I will say that, as a positive, after I get done playing I constantly think of things I could have done better. So despite being enraged sometimes, I am eager to set up another quest and push forward. It's a very divisive experience.

Also, from here on out I'm going to drastically alter my play-style. I've been trying to smash a a square peg into a round hole by attacking monsters and hoping for a dungeon crawl. I'm really just going to give into the design and play it as the way it is probably meant to be played. Perhaps then the 'ah-ha' moment will occur. It really seems to want to be a smash n grab, objective based race most of the time. So yeah, I'm going to give in to what the designers tried to accomplish rather than what my noggin' is telling me it should be. I'll report back after a couple more quests and see if it makes a difference.

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01 Feb 2016 11:23 #221259 by Sagrilarus

Egg Shen wrote: To make matters worse if an overlord blocks a door/choke point with a large monster you're fucked. Then if you die, be prepared to get caught in a cycle of stand up, KO'ed, stand up, KO'ed. Man is it frustrating.


So this begs the question -- what is the Overlord player's role in this game? Is he an opponent, or a DM?

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01 Feb 2016 11:34 #221263 by Gary Sax
^Very specifically an opponent, Descent v2 is designed around trying to actually balance the game for vs.

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01 Feb 2016 11:35 #221264 by Egg Shen
The Overlord is an opponent for sure. Yes, sometimes this creates un-fun experiences, but the thing to remember is that losing one scenario is just that...one scenario. They're trying to win the campaign as a whole and pulling punches in a single scenario for player enjoyment isn't going to help matters. I'd rather they kick my teeth in and get the scenario over faster than pussyfoot about and try to make it fun.

The quest I did was trying to save a Cardinal from getting eaten by zombies. In the first part of the quest I failed at stopping any zombies from entering the cathedral...my punishment was watching the Cardinal get chewed to death in like 4 turns. The Overlord played better and kicked ass. The heroes need to get better next time.

I think the campaign is at 3 wins for heroes and 2 for the Overlord. So it's not like the heroes are getting stomped. It's just that some of those victories were very un-fun. We will see if embracing the game's design will change things for the better.

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01 Feb 2016 18:26 #221305 by DukeofChutney
@ Jexik - I think we are in a death spiral in Pandemic, though one of my friends remains optimistic. We are playing with three and Im not sure how well the game scales with players. The main advantage of fewer players is the deck takes longer to run through and you start off with an extra card in hand, but we would get more actions per card in the deck (the games clock) we more players i think. Our current problem is that we don't seem to have enough actions between us to get three objectives before the deck runs out and it is not as though we are wasting actions either.

@Digustipater - you are probably right. i don't have a smart phone but I have seen people play this. Though the guy who bought it picked up the card game after playing the App. The card game is a bit of a throw away game really, quite good for what it is, but what it is isn't much.

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01 Feb 2016 19:02 #221307 by Da Bid Dabid
Another game of Dune with the non-gamers... who really at this point I guess should be considered board game players. I was Harkonnen this time and we had a VERY long game that went the distance allowing the BG and Guild alliance to win by Guild special rule. If you recall I spent my last game teaching and not playing all that well, this time I played much better with less teaching to do but still made some mistakes that prevented a win. As with any game of Dune, especially those going all 15 turns we had tons of ups and downs and the game was filled with pretty much everything that makes Dune great.

In an incredible highlight moment during turn 3 I simply FORGOT to play my defense after using Karama and ensuring I had the correct cards to win the battle. While it left me gutted and feeling like a total moron it was later revealed that my turn 3 victory was the BG prediction and I would have lost by prediction, which of course is preferable to Guild win condition but I digress.

Just a quick comment on the meta for this group. When I first played Dune with my original game group we had a mid-game alliance win game 1, alliance Guild win game 2, and solo Guild win game 3. After the third game most of the players kind of figured out some of the win conditions and methods to be successful, most games then seemed they could go any way. Seeing this developing meta somewhat mirrored is interesting, but it makes sense as people get a feel for the mechanics they are able to prolong or stop players from winning but not fully put together their own plan to win. Hopefully I'll have the opportunity and enough plays to see how long it takes this group to figure out that next step.
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01 Feb 2016 23:35 #221328 by dragonstout

DukeofChutney wrote: @ Jexik - I think we are in a death spiral in Pandemic, though one of my friends remains optimistic. We are playing with three and Im not sure how well the game scales with players. The main advantage of fewer players is the deck takes longer to run through and you start off with an extra card in hand, but we would get more actions per card in the deck (the games clock) we more players i think. Our current problem is that we don't seem to have enough actions between us to get three objectives before the deck runs out and it is not as though we are wasting actions either.


You get exactly the same number of actions per player card regardless of how many players there are, and the deck also takes just as long to run through (in terms of total player turns). Base Pandemic is easier, in my experience, with fewer players. The tradeoff is basically this: with fewer players, each player draws more player cards after the same number of turns has passed, so it's easier to find cures with fewer players. The drawback is that it is harder to have someone nearby every potential disaster with fewer players, and you also get one fewer tool in your swiss army knife of character abilities.

Can you spoiler-tag a description of the death-spiral you believe yourself to be in, as well as what month you're at?

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02 Feb 2016 03:51 - 02 Feb 2016 07:35 #221336 by mads b.
Played Cthulhu Realms a couple of times. This is very much like Star Realms, but with a few new things such as synergies between factions. Mechanically it's equally as good as Star Realms, but it just doesn't work as well thematically. Partially because I don't particularly like the silly mythos, but mostly because I don't understand why the cards do what they do. In Star Realms it's pretty straight forward. A frigate deals tons of damage, a trade ship gives you coins, and so on, but in Cthulhu Realms I don't quite understand why The Terrible Old Man allows you to both deal damage and heal or why a Deep One does whatever it does. And while it's a small thing, I'm very annoyed that the stay in place cards (buildings) arent horizontal as in Star Realms since that made them easily distinguishable. Small thing, yes, but one that has quite an impact on the ease of play.
Last edit: 02 Feb 2016 07:35 by mads b.. Reason: bolded game title
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02 Feb 2016 13:10 #221440 by Grudunza
Now that it's safely traded away (no backsies!), I can bag a bit on Codenames. Actually, no bashing needed on the game. It's fine. But I picked it up on a whim at the store the other day, based on the immense hype I've heard about it over the past year, and after noticing it is #18 on BGG. Not that I put much stock in the BGG rankings, but a word/party game getting to #18 should indicate it's pretty darn amazing, right? And I do like to have some fun party games to play with family and friends who aren't into hobby games.

Well... As I said, it's fine. Good, even. And I suppose particularly good for a word game. But it's not really a party game. Way too much thinking required, and not much of a fun kind of spirit to it. You have a bunch of words in a 5x5 grid, and you and your opponent are trying to get your teammates to guess the words that are indicated on a private card to be yours, without guessing your opponent's, or the game-losing assassin. You can only use one word clues, and the key is to choose a word that will work for more than one of your target words, without implicating other words. This is a fun enough challenge, but also a little brain-burny at times.

I played three times with my daughter and some friends, and we enjoyed it. But I kept feeling like "This? This is the #18 game?? This is higher than Settlers of Catan (not even in the top 100 anymore, which is absurd), Dominion, BSG, etc.?" I'm sure if Vlaada Chvatl wasn't the designer, it would be regarded well, but probably not crack the top 100. Anyway, I'm bagging more on the ridiculous cult-of-the-new/designer worship at BGG than the game. But even so, I didn't feel I wanted to keep the game, and have no real desire to play it again, so aside from that, it ain't all it's cracked up to be.

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02 Feb 2016 13:49 #221444 by Gregarius
I like Codenames quite a lot, but I agree pretty much completely with everything else you say. It's not *fun* enough to be a "party" game. It's not raucous or hilarious or embarrassing (words usually associated with the genre, though not necessarily a selling point for me). I also don't understand the hype machine around it. It's a solid, simple, well-designed game, but nothing more. I'll still keep my copy, though.
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02 Feb 2016 13:50 - 02 Feb 2016 13:51 #221445 by jeb
Chvatil is a champion. I am totally down for designer worship on that front. MAGE KNIGHT is my most played game this year, and PICTOMANIA is number 2. We even played some GALAXY TRUCKER--the guy has it going on. I haven't played CODENAMES, but you gotta know that BGG rating are absolute trash garbage. The lighter the better with that gestalt, and it sounds CODENAMES is an airy wisp of a game.

My son spent his read-a-lot-books prize on THE LOST LEGION for MAGE KNIGHT. That's how you do an expansion. Cool new ways to play, fixes the weak aspect of the original (dummy player) and juices the whole experience. This game is crazy hard to learn, but once you learn, it's super-rewarding.

We unwrapped PANDEMIC LEGACY here, but haven't played yet. We did a vanilla run to get used to things and beat it with no outbreaks. The karmic whiplash is going to be spectacular.
Last edit: 02 Feb 2016 13:51 by jeb.
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02 Feb 2016 15:21 #221460 by wadenels
I've played Codenames a handful of times and it's a game I probably never would have bought. Happy to trade for it though. It reminds me of a wordy version of Dixit, in that the puzzle and deduction aspect play a significant role.
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02 Feb 2016 15:42 #221464 by RobertB
My take on Codenames is that you can play it with just about any number of players, and with any types of players, and most of them will have a pretty good time. There aren't a lot of games like that.

@jeb - I got brainwashed into buying Pictomania this past summer. I liked it, but I think it has some human factors issues. I'm not sure how you get five or six people around the clue rack to make it usable, unless they all have 20/10 vision or all wear progressive/bifocal glasses. Also, to the non-gamers in my family, the scoring rules sound like, "Take the cube root of the Julian date and divide it by the size of brogan that your grandmother wears."

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