What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

Messr Sax sent me a copy of Startrak Encounters (I spelled it like that to trigger a Trakkie) (also, thanks again, Steve!) and we got fucking destroyed.

I don’t know that so many people have rolled so many dice and failed so many times since Great Britain’s generals tried to keep Argentina.

Hooooooooooly shit.

At home:

TTR: Europe wherein my scabrous spawn took great delight in blocking out my routes wherever possible, “let’s get dad” being far more fun than actually focusing on completing their own routes. My son in particular has become very good at figuring out which route cards people are likely to be holding from the cards they are taking and where they are placing on the board, so I have become used to masking my intent. However we had a big rush for connections through Paris and Berlin so the demands of the game meant that I had to tilt my hand enough for the little sod to start blocking me.
Resigned to having to use my stations to borrow some connections I ended up with an overstock of carriage cards in hand from my abandoned plans, so I dived into the route deck to see what delights I could dig out that would be compatible with what I had available. I was decidedly undelighted and had to dip in three more times, ending up with a couple of decent additions and a stinker that I would struggle to finish. Spending so much time acquiring carriages and routes meant that I was slow to the finish and got caught short with being unable to complete all of my routes. At the final counting though I slipped into surprise second place after their cut-throat approach backfired on their own scoring. Ahh, the hubris of youth.

My son then wanted to play Bios: Megafauna which I have an uneasy relationship with. The game that is, not my son. I like it and think that it is all very clever and everything, however the actual game always seems to be really flaky. The standout strategy is rushing for three emotions because the scoring imbalance is massive, especially if you secure a tool along the way, and finishing first almost guarantees a win especially if you can get in early. Unless you get some random assistance from the events the only way to combat against it is to spread and attack those creatures. This is complex and lengthy if trying to drive them extinct as you have to attack with two other creatures in every biome where they exist. It’s just too easy for the player under pressure to re-spawn and spread. What I think I’m getting at is that the two player game feels lacking as you want more crowded boards to up the competitive pressure so it doesn’t just become a matter of who is the quickest to buy the right cards. My chances of getting more players to the table are precisely zero so although I think there is lots to admire it just keeps firing blanks.

A very neatly wrapped parcel turned up filled with bubble wrap and packaging peanuts. My wife commented that it must be a game as only boardgamers are so obsessive with wrapping stuff up like a holy relic; of course, I snarked back, the fact that “Artipia Games” was plastered all over the box was a dead giveaway, although I didn’t actually say that because I love my wife and she would have cut my balls off. But I thought it really hard. Nestled inside was the Grand Fair expansion for Fields of Green which sits in a nice little pile of slightly quirky, slightly whimsical family friendly games with real world settings that we often enjoy. As a quick overview you build up a farm through card drafting and run through four harvests where you go through a delightful process of watering crops to produce food for livestock which you then exploit for cold hard cash. Chuck in some cards that represent various farm buildings and you have some victory point levers that add just the right level of strategic demand for this kind of game. The predecessor to this was a very mean-spirited space-themed game about hate drafting but this updated version is far kinder, although it does suffer from tending toward insular play as a result.

The main part of the Grand Fair are some side panels that provide countryside distractions from the main game such as tractor races and barn dances. These do a really good job in supporting the setting of the game as well as mechanically providing more and better options beyond the simple tableau-building core of the base game. It also adds a touch more interaction as you do need to pay attention to your opponents in order to successfully compete at the fair without losing ground on expanding your farm. There are also some additional cards which is nice for variety and the deck dilution is welcome, as well as some bonus awards that don’t do much other than adding an unnecessary layer of complication. All in all it is a really well thought out extension to the base game that adds something different whilst preserving the idyllic nostalgia that underpins the game.

At the club:
We are continuing our tenth anniversary celebrations and it was 2010 night. Somehow though the stars weren’t aligned for me and I only managed to play one game from that year, instead trying out a bunch of really new stuff. That defeated the object of the night but there were some really dry Euros coming out on the other tables so for the sake of my sanity it was the better option.

We started off with some Fields of Green as there was keenness to see the new Grand Fair, a place where I spent a lot of time as the initial card draws were messy an unhelpful for me. I decided to cut my losses and to go hard into the pie-eating contest which meant that I needed to focus on crops to spend on making the pies and I had little spare food for livestock. This then made me cash poor so with all the additional crops I comboed the building of water towers with getting sozzled at the beer tent, an event where you can get some cash amongst other things for taking non-standard actions. It was a slow start and my farm ended up fairly stunted as a result, however it earned me a big VP margin for embracing the country life. After I topped out in the pie eating I switched to heavy dairy production as an outlet for my abundance of crops and with some judicious placement of milking sheds and, ahem, “meat processing buildings” I bounced back to take the game.

The 2010 game that I did play was Caveman Curling which is a simple flicking game that also throws in a limited supply of wooden blocks that you can use to move your stones in order to simulate brushing. It features cavemen because… well I dunno really. It also supports three players very well which was interesting, although the game itself isn’t a patch on the other curling game I was eulogising about last week.

Had a chance to try out Fireball Island which someone had just taken delivery of that morning and were proudly setting up to an appreciatively cooing audience. I think that we were several beers and a shit-ton of nostalgia shy of being the target market for this, it wasn’t part of our collective childhoods so was just a toy that we fiddled pointlessly with for a bit. Kudos to those who get enjoyment out of it, after all I have a secret passion for Pop-Up-Pirate that would likely raise some snark, but Fireball Island just didn’t do anything for us.

After reading KingPut’s recent write-up of playing Hellapagos I just knew that it would be a good fit for our group, and with the game available for less than the price of a pizza I had no qualms about getting a copy to try out. We closed out the night with a five player bash which went down very well indeed. Three of the others all asked me if it was a co-op to which the reply was, well, sort of – we’re working together to get off the island but not all of us are going to get off the island. That very quickly got some interest up.

Right off the bat two players put their stake in the ground with bonus wood and water collection, hoping that would make them valuable enough to protect. The best that I could offer was the plank of wood that would give an extra place on the raft and after picking up a coconut (worth three water) I tried to get both those guys onboard with a plan to quickly build two rafts and then bump off the other guys, only then needing to fish for a round in order to get away. However, everybody was still in optimistic co-op mode and kept doing their best to keep everyone alive. I pointed out a few times that we would need ten each of food and water to get on the rafts but the reality didn’t hit home until the Hurricane suddenly appeared and our hands were tilted.

With almost no resources left in the pile my friend to the left innocently pipes up the question we were all waiting for – “does anybody have the gun?” One player was hoarding cards and as he had stolen some of them from us we knew he was hoarding food and water that he wasn’t sharing; this meant that the escape was viable if only we could bump him off, which we could not do via the conventional means of dehydration or starvation. This triggered a mad scramble for searching the wreckage for the gun, the true colour of humanity coming to the fore as we abandoned all sense of trying to save ourselves as a group in the hope of forming a power coup with the man with the ammunition. Alas the gun was not to be found, and in the aftermath of our neglectful selfishness we looked with sorrow at the measly drop of water and handful of remaining food. My bullet-toting buddy was the first to be targeted in the vote and expired on the beach from an extremely parched throat. When the fingers then pointed in my direction I ditched the Coconut to stay in a bit longer but it was inevitable that they would then choose me to starve. At least I would have the satisfaction of seeing them unable to load up the raft except that one of them then has the bright idea of revealing the cannibal barbeque card. The hoarder is given no option but to finally share some of his food to keep the long-pig chef alive and my friend and I therefore kind of got off the island in some way after all, just not alive to enjoy the journey.

This is a good game that has gone well under the radar. It does something really novel in exploring the nature of co-operation in that you need to keep each other alive in the beginning so that you can make headway on building the rafts and scavenging for useful items. However you also know that you will have no option but to bump a few people off as it is almost impossible to gather enough resources for everyone to leave the island, which then leads to hoarding for personal protection which in turn makes it harder to keep the co-op going in the first place. But if everyone is too selfish then you all run out of your personal supply and are back to the start again. The fragile group interaction is always at the point of falling apart in the tenacious scramble to retain value in the eyes of the majority. There is no noble sacrifice on offer here, it’s all knives all the time, which makes for a very fun game which indexes heavily on social interaction. Looking forward to trying this out with a much bigger group as I think it will become deliciously messy with a big crowd involved.

Had a solid game night tonight. First up Stephenson's Rocket , which I'm thrilled to have found a few regular players in. It's been really hit or miss as far as people's reception of it, but one lady loves it and a couple others like it enough to play it if she's there and I have it with me. That game gets harder the more people you add in, but in fascinating ways. You have less control the more players, and things become way more about playing the table and trying to anticipate what other people are going to do and where/when to throw elbows. Myself and the lady were at each other's throats from the jump, and thus essentially handed the game to the other two players. Ended up 59-57-49-47, with the two new players at the top end. Even though the map starts same every game the way things play out is radically different since it's all player driven. Man it's a good one.

Up next, Pandemic: Fall of Rome , which I wrote a long post about that got eaten in the upgrade. Long story short, it has quickly become my favorite Pandemic version. Making cube removal non deterministic is really good. All the changes are smart and fun (how cubes come out, fixed setup cards, corrupt events, more I'm probably forgetting). The alternate win condition (make alliances with all 5 barbarian tribes, or make alliances with some and kill all the rest) is great, and gives you a solid thematic thing to shoot for if you get screwed by the card draw... Yea it's really good. We won with 4 cards left in the draw pile by killing off the recalcitrant Anglo Saxons, who refused to see the light and become Roman allies.

Finished off with a couple games of FITS, which is Tetris by Knizia. It's one of those puzzle games where everyone has their own board and pieces, you flip a card that shows a piece and everyone places that piece (Nmbr 9, Karuba, Limes, etc). It's also a game where every single card flip is met with groans around the table, and people can easily score tons of negative points. It's extremely quick to teach, and pretty much universally enjoyed in that light 20-30 minute time slot in my experience.

Had another great night of games with Uba and Al on Thursday. We played two rounds of The Bloody Inn. First round was a short game just to refamiliarize ourselves with it and the second was a long game with the Carnies expansion. I really enjoyed the base game, it’s such a dark theme with a really odd game behind it, but the expansion really does complete it. Essentially it forces you to make decisions you usually wouldn’t and adds more of that game of chicken the base game only hinted at. I’ve slept on it for quite some time, but I think I’m going to have to get a copy of the expansion. Huge thumbs up.

After that, Al and a I went back to the project we’ve been working on, which I’m sad to say will result in a delay of the next episode of ICFTT. This game has consumed my thoughts in a way that I totally needed and I had to know if the alterations I made would work. Good news is that they do and the game is leaps and bounds ahead of where it was a week ago. I know that given how close I am to it isn’t going to sell anyone on this when I say it, but this game is SO DAMNED FUN. I’ve seen people talk about designing the kinds of games they wanted to play and this is very much that. So thrilled with how it’s coming together. In the place of the podcast this week I’ll put up a piece, probably a blog, that talks about what finally got me off my ass and into designing something. Might even spill the beans on what it is. We’ll see.

My spouse set up Xia to play when I got home. Good, dumb fun. It's growing on me long-term and I initially liked it already. What I like about it is that it has a good sense of humor and fun, baked into the design itself. The events and titles, for example, encourage you to take major risks in weird ways you've never played before.

The number one thing I would impress upon players is that the penalty for death is low, especially with the expansion rules. Once my spouse internalized this, she started trying way crazier stuff and her enjoyment has increased considerably. At first she was playing pure pick up and deliver and being quite cautious. Xia doesn't want you to be cautious.

Xia should be arriving here in the next couple of weeks, looking forward to it after finally caving in on the third time around. Any tips on the best way to get started? I hear that parts of the first expansion are quite vital, to the point of fixing some elements of the game but is it going to be overwhelming to dive straight in with everything?

Sax has played way more of this than I have, but I'd suggest printing out the commodities board and using those rules from the expansion ASAP.

It's easy, and makes it so a random short trade route doesn't accidentally break things. Otherwise it's extremely tempting to do boring stuff for an easy payout.

There's plenty of game in the base box (I haven't coughed up for the expansion and I think its still between printings). But the commodities board helps to stabilize the game with minimal effort.

NotSure has most of it. You must use the economy board, so crack that expansion immediately. Also use the expansion changes to the base rules to make dying less punishing and adjusting a couple of other things---those are on the 2nd page of the expansion rulebook. Also use the new mystery token rules, which means introducing the ice rules, which are super simple.

Beyond that, I'd play a couple games with the base game but I don't think more than that is necessary. You can put the expansion elements in the game almost immediately.

I've posted about this several times but the Xia expansion is just better designed all the way around than the base game so getting it in quickly is desirable.

In reaction to something upthread I missed---I was really interested to hear your thoughts on Bios: Megafauna, mezike. I've heard lots of good things about the game and I know it's an Eklund, but it is *so* nice to get thoughts here at TWBG where people actually play complex games like that more than once. Almost every single other thing I've seen about the game is "it's a wild ride!" from people who have played like twice.

I saw some comments on High Frontier in the Spacecorp thread that neatly sums up how I feel about most of Eklunds stuff. There is so much going on in them that the complexity on entry hides what is often somewhat diaphanous gameplay. They also tend to be prone to random elements with extreme effect that more or less reset people to square one which I find a bit hokey. But I keep forgiving him because there are at the same time moments of real brilliance. Every time we play either Genesis or Megafauna I find myself astonished and grateful that games like that even exist, but I never seem to come away feeling like I’ve had a great time playing boardgames.

I've also soloed Merchant of Venus 4 times since I got it last week, and I am really loving that game. I guess I've never played a big pick up and deliver game before to compare it to, but this one really clicks along once you get into it. Puzzling out the best routes and racing to satisfy demands as they pop up is great fun, and I love the vibe of the whole thing. I've been playing 2 handed, and I'm really curious to see how it plays out 4p and possibly playing to 3k instead of 2k. Both of those would make the game longer, but I'm getting through Solo 2p games in just over an hour so that's probably fine. I haven't seen the full map get explored yet, which seems point towards playing the longer game. One of these games I'll actually find the humans and trade some of their sweet sweet rock videos.

Eklund...

Speaking of complexity and dis-satisfaction, I am trying to teach myself Neanderthal. I picked it up second hand a while back, tried then, and failed miserably. I have made much better progress this time - forcing myself to endure a youtube playthrough by a very popular play through-er did help somewhat in the end. It's still difficult to keep the exceptions around sexuality in my head, and the way you can move your discs around, and when, but the system is flowing for me now. I'm playing multi-handed. Man is it punishing though. Every event seems to have chaos on there keeping the population down, or a blizzard tying up the hunters, and every daughter seems to not be the one I need to unlock any of the portals to flip a species into Tribal, to see what that's even like.

There are some really interesting ideas of course, and I can't work out what I think about the whole daughter thing - essentially, it is the females who carry the transformative ideas that make connections in species' brains that lead them on to bigger and better things; this is because they are at home looking after the kids. I mean, that's simplified in the extreme, but I was thinking about how I teach this to someone, and, well, I'll have to have a good think to get it straight.

I haven't played Greenland, if that's not obvious. I'm enjoying the hunting on the biomes and the way they move around with climate change (non man-made, of course, just like now - I assume there is a footnote about this somewhere in the rules, I just haven't seen it). It's kind of like Stone Age but interesting.

Interspersed with this has been my son and his hilarious long-running gag, which goes something like:

-Dad, I want to play a game.
-Okay, what do you want? You can choose.
-That new one!
-Okay, no worries.
(Footsteps... pause... return footsteps, much grinning)
-That's Forbidden Desert.
-I tricked you!

Every time.
So, Forbidden Desert, one of my other kids had clearly ordered the tiles when playing one of their many make believe games with components that they play (I really wish they were this methodical in other aspects of their life, i.e., their bedroom), and so, as I zig zagged the tiles down, I was unsuspectingly placing all the clues next to each other. So... an easy win there then. I think this is one of my most played games, if I were to keep count, because all of the kids have gone through stages of really digging it. I often think about maybe getting a pandemic or something to replace it but eh. It will do.

Same joke, and this time Survive.
My second daughter is the co-op player of the house and for her I invented (although I've seen similar versions) a co-op version of this game where the beasts go for the closest/juiciest target. I complained very vocally today when the boy insisted we play that version, but to no avail. I KNEW what would happen also, which was, at the end of the game, he would insist on working out who "won".

Yesterday with my eldest dug out El Caballero which, sits there, making Marie Kondo squirm, until I get it out and play it. I really quite like this one. It probably suffered from using those tiles instead of dudes or cubes or whatever, so it's not too attractive to look at, but there's a fair bit to it; bidding for turn order, with the bids corresponding inversely to how many dudes you get, tile placement, 1 special ability bid, 2 different types of area scoring, way to lock in your dudes/prevent them from being killed.... it's tight, nasty, "oh yeah, that's why this is still here. My daughter hadn't played it before, I went easy, she liked it.

Her little gamer brain is firing at the moment, and she's also really digging Blue Lagoon which was a christmas present. I am too, but, it needs more plays to develop that insight into what points to go for and when - what's really worth it? . So simple though, just that neat little twist to set up for the second round with the huts.

Totally not inspired by the recent podcast and this talk of Xia, the same daugher also requested a game of Firefly. The length on this with kids is a killer, I don't know, that wasn't discussed at all, but man. You wanna try this with a 5 year old. So I usually play a home-spun variant with a low money/number of jobs target just so they can get their fix - because they do love it, despite not having seen the show; I guess because I don't have too many adventure games. Anyway, this time, it's just her, so I carted the thing downstairs where we could set up. Downstairs at my place is the cooler part of the house, and we've been having extreme temperatures, so there was more to this plan than meets the eye. Anyway, we went for a proper scenario - the one where once you hit a certain cash point you get to call it and if you have unfinished jobs they count against you -and had a blast. She had the captain that gets half price ship upgrades and was using that most effectively; I had a good crime crew; she finally learnt to take some risks, the other variant not requiring it. I had multiple warrants, failed Niska jobs, but was still there. She got to the money first and called it, but I had a lucrative job that would put me over the edge if I could just get two sectors away on my turn. Flipping to get to the right planet, I flipped the reaver card; I could crazy Ivan but then couldn't get to my planet to finish the job. Good stuff. Took several hours, spread over a day or two, interspersed with other stuff.

re: MoV. My recollection is that the humans get plenty of drugs and alcohol demand tokens in the bag too.

Merchant of Venus -- you'll go from $2000 to $3000 in no time. Extends the length of the game a couple of turns. The reason you're not exploring the whole map is that your one set of eyes is finding a synergy and exploiting it. Put another couple of players in the mix with everyone thinking differently and the map will open up.

Played SpaceCorp last night, Mariners solo. First impression -- absolutely themeless. There are names on cards and art, that's it. Gameplay pulls your eyes away from both and there's nothing thematic in the rules. You could retheme this to cave men in the Neander Valley in a weekend. Gameplay was exceptionally light. Received a full GMT pimp-up treatment that moved its MSRP over $80. I'm not confident this pony is gonna go the distance, we'll give it a shot multi-player.

Interested in a sanity check on this one.

mc wrote:
Her little gamer brain is firing at the moment, and she's also really digging Blue Lagoon which was a christmas present. I am too, but, it needs more plays to develop that insight into what points to go for and when - what's really worth it? . So simple though, just that neat little twist to set up for the second round with the huts. .

We got this for Christmas as well and have really been digging it. I think I've thrown 90% of the games I've played by over focusing on making a long train hitting all the islands instead of contesting the goods tokens I need harder. Something about making that long train is like a siren call to my brain, even though it has proven to not be a winning strategy by itself. I think you do that if it happens to work out, but don't give up tokens for it (especially if they're tokens someone else needs badly too).