Why Do I Own This? - Part 3

Blokus
How did I get it? I might be mistaken, but...

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Man, that's such a snapshot of my first few years in the hobby.

Carcassonne is great but the expansions really kill it. It's a good 45-minute game, but a terrible 2-hour game.

Blokus is fine for what it is but not really compelling. Also the box is annoyingly large.

Bohnanza is the only one I still have, and it's probably on my forever shelf. The "rough edge" of not being able to rearrange your hand is what makes the game. It is weird though, so I always teach that part first. And, I take out the coffee and cocoa beans, which tightens the game up considerably and keeps it manageable. (They weren't in the original version anyway.) It's a surprisingly cutthroat game.

The theme of "simple classics , with expansions that must be studiously resisted" keeps coming up with those early German games.

I still have Bohnanza and Carc too. They're a hard sell to get rid of because they are so compact, it's no big deal to have them around.

Played Bohnanza last weekend. It's close to a default choice if nobody wants to fight for a particular title.

I will always have a hatred of Bohnanza. In the Spring of 2018 I took one of the first production copies of SEAL Team Flix to a game meetup. The game was not for sale in the USA yet, and these people had the opportunity to be the first to play it.

They totally ignored it, and played Bohnanza instead. I quit that group.

hotseatgames wrote: I will always have a hatred of Bohnanza. In the Spring of 2018 I took one of the first production copies of SEAL Team Flix to a game meetup. The game was not for sale in the USA yet, and these people had the opportunity to be the first to play it.

They totally ignored it, and played Bohnanza instead. I quit that group.

What a bunch of bohnheads.



This post is Matt Thrower approved.

You're right about Clowdus as he just posted on his KS comments lately, "While I wish every other game publisher out there the best of luck with their endeavors, I have no desire to sell the rights to one of my game designs to another publisher again." He's an independent game publisher again.

Carc is still a game I adore. You describe its seminal gameplay well. I find it's still a good recommendation for those new to the hobby to learn how different and good modern board games can be.

I'm enjoying these reviews of your collection. How will you ever condense your thoughts on CE to only a few graphs.

I'm glad people are enjoying these. As I told Uba on Facebook, I always worry that these will get a little self-indulgent, which is why they are blogs. I'm gratified that other people find them interesting, because I have fun writing them.

I kind of admire the willingness for experimentation with Carcassonne's expansions. The driving question seems to be "let's see how this goes," which is refreshingly devil-may-care in an age when crowdfunding campaigns drive most board game content. The Catapult expansion is a good example. I wouldn't call it good exactly, but I like its "why not" approach. It's kind of fun in its own way because of that.

I completely forgot that my edition of Bohnanza (and I'd wager the most common edition in the US) has a couple of expansions in it. My main way of shortening the game has always been to go through the deck twice instead of three times. It's one of those games like the original Citadels that wants a lot of player, but too often goes on too long.

Speaking of Citadels, that one is next week!

Lee, I've already written like three reviews of Cosmic Encounter on various platforms. I'm not sure what else I have to add to that by this time, aside from just a willingness to keep gabbing about it. I have not had a chance to play it very much for the past few years, which is a crying shame. Hopefully I can correct that sooner than later.

Writing creative stuff on the internet and putting it in front of people is inherently somewhat self-indulgent. As long as you don't go full egotist it can actually enhance the piece. Make it more personal. And that's what you've managed to do with these.

Really enjoying them by the way, if that wasn't clear.

eclectic_lee wrote: You're right about Clowdus as he just posted on his KS comments lately, "While I wish every other game publisher out there the best of luck with their endeavors, I have no desire to sell the rights to one of my game designs to another publisher again." He's an independent game publisher again.

So I like Kolossal and Travis Chance who runs it, but this does not look good. First Grant Rodiek deciding to split with them after how they handled Imperius, and now Clowdus - who signed several of his small box titles with them as well as the upcoming Mezo, his first big box game.

Yeah, I get the impression that it did not go well overall. It's too bad, because it looks like Clowdus no longer has the rights to a bunch of his own games. I don't say this to wish him limited success, but self-publishing on Kickstarter really does feel like the most natural place for the brand Small Box Games has already created. Not that I don't want him to get a wider audience.

His new one, The North, looks like a cool game. Definitely backed that one.

Bohnanza is a brilliant game, but I think it should always be played in its original German form: cards valued 6 - 20 only. The 4s add too much luck and the 22s and 24s extend the game for too long.