OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

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LordMortis
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by LordMortis »

I remember looking at that some time ago. I can't remember why I didn't bite. Probably because I figured either I'd be too dumb or it would be too much like work.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by hepcat »

I played the 1980's version and was a huge fan of it back then. So when they reprinted them/updated them, I jumped on them. They are work, but it's a game about solving crimes, so it comes with the territory. But it's a blast trying to find links/lack of links between all the clues/dead ends in the numerous number of resources you have access to.

Replay value is nil, but that's also to be expected in a narrative heavy game.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Anonymous Bosch »

hepcat wrote: Fri Jun 11, 2021 11:44 am I played the 1980's version and was a huge fan of it back then. So when they reprinted them/updated them, I jumped on them. They are work, but it's a game about solving crimes, so it comes with the territory. But it's a blast trying to find links/lack of links between all the clues/dead ends in the numerous number of resources you have access to.

Replay value is nil, but that's also to be expected in a narrative heavy game.
Indeed, I would agree with the conclusion of the SU&SD review. Granted, replay value is negligible, but much like Pandemic Legacy: Season 1, the tremendously immersive and rewarding gameplay experience Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective provides is absolutely top-notch, and ought not be missed by any fan of the genre.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Skinypupy »

One of the Wonder Twins got Kingdomino as a birthday present this week. Far more fun than I expected, been playing it most of this morning.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by coopasonic »

Skinypupy wrote: Sat Jun 12, 2021 1:55 pm One of the Wonder Twins got Kingdomino as a birthday present this week. Far more fun than I expected, been playing it most of this morning.
Yep I really enjoy that one and the kids can absolutely be competitive in it. If you start getting bored with it there is a solid expansion. There is also Queendomino that takes the concept to another level but might be a bit harder for the younger kids to wrap their heads around.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by AWS260 »

A lot of gaming yesterday. First, Trickerion, the game of Victorian magicians competing for fame. There's a lot going on: you have to learn a trick, buy components, build it in your workshop, set it up on stage, and finally perform it. I really like the system for selecting actions: you secretly assign a destination to each of your workers, then everyone reveals their assignments and you can see where you're going to be competing for the best action spots. It's definitely one of the heaviest games I've ever played, but all of the mechanisms worked together smoothly (well, maybe not the trick-linking spatial puzzle; that might have been one mechanism too far).

Then we played a truly delightful game of Oath. Everyone had at least a few games of this under their belt, so we didn't have to worry about rules explanations and could get straight to the battles, politics, and backstabbing. It was a very dynamic game, with the Chancellor stripped of the Oathkeeper title by turn 3. Meanwhile, an exile had a vision of conquest, and another exile's false prophet claimed to have the same vision.

Thanks to infighting among the exiles, the Chancellor managed to quell the numerous threats and even cajoled one of them to become a citizen of the empire. But one of the remaining exiles struck at the empire's weakest spot - not to win the game for themself, but to hand victory to the other exile and forever reshape the land.

I was the kingmaker in this scenario, and it was so, so satisfying. The empire thought it had secured its future, and I was able to throw it into chaos.

The more I play Oath, the more I like it.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by coopasonic »

Taught Aeon's End to 3 new players. Carapace Queen crushed our hopes and dreams. We were going to run out her deck, then she popped a minion that had 30 health because we let the husks get away from us. Then another card that would have her swarm, spawn 2 husks and swarm again. That would be the end of us unless we could clear husks. Narrator: They could not, in the end, clear the husks.

Then Forbidden Desert (yeah, it's been a while), again first time for the other three. Played on the lowest difficulty, things were going pretty well and then the storm told us to go to hell, burying the last part and then running us out of sand.

Finally The Red Dragon Inn. This was a fun one that was new to a couple of us including me. Not deep in any way, but very interactive and entertaining and not too long.

So nice to be able to play board games again.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Isgrimnur »

husks
I do not like this word today.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by coopasonic »

Isgrimnur wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 11:57 am
husks
I do not like this word today.
Is that a word that hurts people's brain like moist? Just curious because otherwise I don't get it.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Isgrimnur »

I will need to encounter it at other dates and times to be sure for my own experience. Alas, I do not live in cicada country.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by YellowKing »

Every time one of our group is out of town, we try to play a one-off game from our pile. This week's adventure was PALEO published by Z-Man.

In PALEO, each player represents a tribe of primitive people trying to survive together. Cooperatively you are trying to work together to complete a 5-part cave painting to win the game. You lose the game by gaining 5 skulls, which happens when people die or you can't fulfill the requirements of your people.

Each player has a random deck which represents a day. Each turn you draw 3 facedown cards, choose one to play, and return the other two to the deck. The backs of the cards give vague hints as to what's on them - ability to gain food, wood, stone, danger, camp, etc. Then all players flip the card they chose and work together to fulfill an action on one or more cards. These actions usually have skill requirements (fulfilled by having certain people in your tribe or the right tools), and a time cost in the form of having to discard cards from your deck.

As you go through the day, you'll work towards gaining the resources you need for the night time, build tools, acquire new people and inventions, and generally try to do anything you can to improve your chances. Once you run out of cards to play, you fall asleep, and once everyone is asleep the night phase begins.

In the night phase, you suffer one skull for every person you could not feed, and a skull for every adventure requirement you could not meet based on the module you're playing. Then all the cards played during the day are shuffled to form a new deck which is then split evenly among the players and a new day begins.

The game flows really quickly and is easy to grasp once you get the hang of it, but there is a LOT of strategy that arises out of the card interactions and deck-as-a-timer mechanic. We played on the easiest difficulty and got our asses handed to us twice, though we did come close on the second run through. It's difficult, and there are a lot of subtleties here that I think can only be learned through repeated play.

Speaking of repeated play, there's a ton of replayability in the box. There are 10 different "modules" (decks), and typically you choose 2 modules + the base deck for each session. Mixing and matching modules changes the difficulty, and there are rulebook suggestions on how to build your module combinations to steadily increase the game's difficulty.

We really enjoyed this one. I play a LOT of cooperative games, but many times it's separate individuals working towards a common goal with very little direct assistance between players. PALEO shines in that nearly every turn you'll have one or two equally good options which will require one player to sacrifice their reward for the good of the group. It's a truly collaborative game where it's nearly impossible to go it alone.

Big thumbs up from me, but proceed with caution. This one's deceptively tough, and the rulebook is not the greatest in the world. However, it has a great blend of mechanics, satisfying choices, and a ton of replayability.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by wonderpug »

Paleo made a good first impression with my group as well. I really like how much the theme comes through as you play. It’s easy to imagine little stories emerging around how the cards play out.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by hepcat »

AWS260 wrote: Sun Jun 13, 2021 10:06 am Then we played a truly delightful game of Oath.
I finally got around to playing this Saturday with Zarathud (the owner of the game) and Seppe.

While I enjoyed it a great deal, I will say that the campaign action is seriously UNDER explained in the game. We alternately had 3 rules explanations at any one time for what you could or couldn't do during a campaign. Add a freaking example next time, people. How hard is that? You're already writing the rules in GMT wargame fashion (section 5.1, section 5.1.1, etc.). Take that extra step and include a detailed play through. :x

But yeah, there is a lot to like about the game. I struggled with timing and understanding the victory conditions (you can tell Cole cut his teeth on Pax games as he makes the win conditions rather obtuse until you get a few games under your belt). But I always felt like there was something I could do on my turn.

Then we broke out wingspan. I've never played it, believe it or not. I enjoyed it a great deal. I look forward to trying it again.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by hentzau »

Had my first in person game session in over a year. Pulled out Back to the Future:Back in Time. Really fun. Biff sucks.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Skinypupy »

I got Middara set back up on my table, but didn't actually get around to actually playing.

Does that count as weekend gaming?
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by AWS260 »

Skinypupy wrote: Mon Jun 28, 2021 4:51 pm I got Middara set back up on my table, but didn't actually get around to actually playing.

Does that count as weekend gaming?
That absolutely counts! I would also accept punching out tokens as weekend gaming.

On Saturday, I played Santiago at a friend's house. I really love that game, even though the two times I've tried it I've lost horribly. The gameplay centers around bribery: everyone is trying to plant crops in an arid field, and each turn you have to offer a bribe to the canal overseer (who is another player) to extend the irrigation canals so that they reach your crops. The overseer doesn't have to take the highest bribe, so you're constantly negotiating and/or begging so that your crops don't die. There are constant opportunities for screwage; it's delightful.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Smoove_B »

My fathers day gift this year was Horizon Zero Dawn, the board game. It's been a video game that both my daughter and I have been playing and enjoying the hell out of.

Enlarge Image

She managed to learn the game last week and then taught me how to play over this last weekend. I can honestly say I never saw that coming and it was pretty cool.

Regardless, I think if you're a fan of the video game, this board game does a great job of trying to recreate what hunting the machines feels like. It has card play, leveling up and dice tossing - all things I enjoy. The meat of the game though is puzzling out how to take down the machines knowing how they behave. The boss monsters have an AI deck so there's some randomness, but the lower level monsters follow a script. It plays like quite a few other games in that respect, so for me it wasn't too hard to learn.

My only complaint is that other than the core set, you're not going to find any of the associated expansions that were part of the KS - not even for outrageous, inflated prices.

They are releasing one more (?) expansion via the publisher's website, allegedly coming in September and I might order it for an Xmas gift, knowing there will be no way to get a copy otherwise.

The core game is easy to come by (for whatever reason) and if you liked the video game, I'd give it a thumbs up. I will note we played it fully coop and not semi coop or competitive; I think it would be a very different game that way. It's also a bit long (we played for a total of 6 hours over two days), but i think if we played it regularly it would go faster. The learning curve is a bit steep to start, but having familiarity with the video game helped tremendously.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Tao »

Have been continuing our trek through Dice Throne Adventure this past few weekends and we did another round on Sunday. We managed to take down the third boss, Fallen Monk, last session (or maybe the one before) on the first attempt. The Fallen Monk has more depth of play and can be tricky but he just doesn't have the big power hits like some of the other bosses, that can take out a hero in one shot. After beating the Monk we dove in to the 4th and final portal run and lost horribly, then tried again and lost not quite as horribly. Yesterday was attempt numbers 3 and 4, both loses again. The first run yesterday was another blowout, we pulled a couple of tough minions early on and just never regained our footing, by the 2nd level 4 minion it was over. The second game yesterday we again collected all the shards and unlocked the portal to the final boss but first needed to face off against a level 4 minion. The 4th portal crawl, the party has to defeat 4 level 4 minions to collect the shards and open the portal and they really suck. There are a total of 5 minion cards, which we are now really familiar with, so for the last fight we had a 50/50 chance to draw either the Corrupted Rogue or the Goblin Horde, we got the Rogue. It was a really close battle and really came down to one roll of the dice. We were completely out of healing/revive potions and I was down to 1 HP and stacked with DOTS, with no revives if I dropped to zero health the party loses. I laid in to the Rogue with everything I had and pulled off a slick move where I got to take 3 turns in a row and managed to drop him down to 5 health and poisoned him. It looked like we would pull out a narrow win. I ended my turn and the Rogue immediately was up due to his First Strike ability, but even with his biggest hit he would be unable to take out my friends Treant and on his turn it was a near guarantee he could do the few points of damage he needed to kill the Rogue. I threw dice for the Rogue and completely whiffed the attack, which you would think is great, except if the Rogue fails his attack he gains a damage boost and drops in to shadows, making him completely invulnerable to damage for one turn. AHA! But the Rogue has Kings Hand tokens that allows the minion to make a D6 roll to try for another attack roll! At this stage of the campaign the Kings Hand succeeds on a 2,3,4,5,6. I just need to NOT roll a 1 on a D6 to give the Rogue another turn and of course, no big surprise with my magic dice rolling skills, I roll a 1. The Rogue fails to attack drops in to Shadow, takes no damage and then proceeds to kill me on my turn with my one hit point.

At this point I think my friend is even getting a little jaded on the game, as he was leaving he said, hey maybe we could play something else next week.

Hey Smoove, if you've actually read this far, you may want to check out Primal: The Awakening. The KS campaign ended but they are taking late pledges once the pledge manager opens next month. It's a bit pricey but it's getting lots of good vibes from folks and sounds similar to Horizon Zero Dawn.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Smoove_B »

Tao wrote: Mon Jun 28, 2021 6:50 pm Hey Smoove, if you've actually read this far, you may want to check out Primal: The Awakening. The KS campaign ended but they are taking late pledges once the pledge manager opens next month. It's a bit pricey but it's getting lots of good vibes from folks and sounds similar to Horizon Zero Dawn.
I did look at that a while back - looks closer to Kingdom Death Monster with a hint of Kaiju-style monsters for inspiration. I can seem the similarities, but I think for us the draw is the HZD theme. But yeah, if you're into that kind of game play, it does look interesting (though, spendy).
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

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We got in three rounds of Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition today. I am pretty good at its influencer, Race For the Galaxy. I suck TM:AE, bad. TM:AE to the RftG concept and ran with it. It is way more in depth using just about every Terrafroming Mars concept except the card draft and integrating it well into TM:EA. Right now it's looking like it has more legs the RftG, even if I do suck, bad.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by YellowKing »

We finished Case 3 of 4 in DETECTIVE: VIENNA CONNECTION and I'm really liking the evolution of the series. This one certainly feels like the most polished iteration of the game, even though it does change a couple of key mechanics.

I think the biggest change (and one I hope they continue for future versions) is the removal of the Pass/Fail scoring system. Instead, you're now rewarded for correct conclusions with additional story elements and resources for future cases. If you don't draw the correct conclusion, you're not penalized - you just don't get the extra stuff.

For example, let's say you recommend arresting the wrong guy when turning in your final report. The game will give you story text about what happened with the wrong arrest, and the overall campaign story will still continue as maybe Interpol or someone else nabs the correct guy. However, if you did arrest the right guy, you may get to write something in your campaign journal that gives you bonus resources in the next case, or provides a helpful clue later on that will assist in solving the next case.

We're planning on picking up the DUNE iteration of Detective when it comes out later this year. If they continue to evolve and improve as they did with Vienna, I'm very much looking forward to it.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Isgrimnur »

Went to Target and picked up Ticket to Ride Europe, Azul, and Villainous.

We’ve played two games of Azul, one learning game of Villainous, and two games of Five Crowns.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

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Did you get regular Villainous or Marvel?
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Isgrimnur »

Original.

One more game of each of Five Crowns, Azul, and Villainous again today.

Saturday is going to be dominoes all day.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Defiant »

So in the last month, I've done actual in-person gaming. Here's some of the games I've enjoyed that I hadn't played before:

The Search for Planet X - Excellent deduction game, where you're trying to figure out the contents of each sector of the sky. You start off with a few clues, and can research clues that give logical rules (eg, no asteroids are within two sectors of a dwarf planet). You can also scan sectors (you can scan lots of sectors which is quicker but gives less helpful information, or you can scan fewer sectors which is more helpful, but also takes longer). You can get points by publishing theories that are proven correct, and by locating planet X (You can manage to win without locating Planet X, provided you publish enough theories). This is like a more streamlined version of Alchemist (without all the worker placement stuff).

Pulsar 2849 - Nice space exploration game where you daft dice to determine what actions you can take, with a bunch of methods of obtaining points. I enjoyed it and would like to play it again.

Cartographers - fun little roll and write game where you're building a map to your kingdom. Each turn, a card is revealed giving you one or two options of geographic features (eg, town, forest, farm, etc) to place somewhere on your map in Tetris like shapes, with randomized methods of obtaining points based on your map. I've played similar games before (with actual boards/pieces), but this one is nice cause it's quicker.

Oath - By the same designer as root, and there are some similarities. It's felt like it had an (unnecessarily) high learning curve IMO, but things mostly made sense by midgame (still had to lookup some rules on occasion, though). You've got different types of roles you can have, and some of them (and what your goal is) can change. While I was the only exile to remain an exile, I managed to get an overpowered combo that allowed me to get lots of favors, and managed to almost win two different ways (by ruling enough locations and later by managing to get and hold on to the favor-based relic) but managed to lose to luck. Some of the players felt that was a design flaw (that the player who played best should have won) - I was just glad I knew what I was doing after being confused by explanation videos.

Mottainai - interesting, short abstract card game with a minimal theme pasted on, where the cards have multiple functions. Not bad, but I needed to lookup things repeatedly during the game - I think a few more plays would have been needed for the game to go much quicker

Sonar - I've played the turn based 4 player version before, but this was the first time I've played the 8-player real time game. First game I played as Engineer, second as Captain. It was utter chaos, because it turned out the two teams were using different maps :lol: . Even more embarrassing, we didn't even realize this until the *second* game, after each side kept firing and missing (wildly off) and kept being confused as to how the other side wasn't going through islands.

The Coldest Night - cooperative card game where you're trying to keep a fire burning. We barely lost, but I think we played it wrong and it's even more difficult than we played.

Rurik - area control strategy game where you big on your actions. I feel like it was a little too short and could have used another round., but maybe I would play better/more efficiently in a second playthrough.

I also played fames I've played before. Most notably:
Secret Hitler. Where we had perhaps the quickest Liberal victory ever. We had only liberal policies enacted. Turns out that after the first government, we had only all-liberal governments, and lucked out with liberal policies in the deck.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Tao »

TLDR: Finally beat Dice Throne Adventures, played some Street Masters, definitely need a refresher.

Yesterday was another attempt at the last portal crawl in Dice Throne Adventure, attempt number 5. Some strong card draws and good luck with the dice got us off to a really good start this time around. Second to last level four minion we pulled the Raging Berserker. First Strike, 2D6 starting damage and every time he takes damage, he adds another status token that adds another D6 to his damage. Luckily, we had the cards to keep stripping his buffs and kept the damage very manageable and were able to prevail not too badly beat up. We opened up the final tile to the boss portal with 5 healing salves available and drew the Goblin Horde. On a successful hit the Goblins half the targets health, nasty but it meant they wouldn’t simply one shot us for a few rounds. For defense they can not take more than 6 damage in any given attack (except for an ultimate). It was a close fight but we managed to finally get the win and to move on to the last and final boss, and without having used any of our healing salves.

Feeling buoyed by our win we pressed on against the Mad King.

For our first foray against the Mad King, he unequivocally crushed us. We entered the fight with 5 healing potions worth 6 health each but within a half dozen or so rounds he killed us, he easily pulled off an ultimate attack, then twice rolled an attack that reduces the party health by half and nothing can alter the effect. Combined with a constant bombardment of debuffs and regular heals on himself it was just ugly and we finished the evening battered and dejected.

Seeing as we both had off today, we did another gaming session and tried the Mad King again. Today’s first battle was equally as ugly. The boss starts with 85 health and the party has a singular health pool of 50, after just a few rounds the boss was at 92 health and we were sitting around 30. Yes, his health was climbing up as ours was going down. Third time is the charm and after a mighty struggle we were able to defeat the Mad King and claim victory over the campaign. Having failed the previous attempt, we started this round with 8 healing potions worth 6 health, along with our 50 starting health so overall 98 health. We managed to get some good card draws and some lucky hits in and managed to whittle him down to 14 health, while the party was at 12 health and completely out of healing. With just 12 health there were multiple ways the boss could easily one shot us on his next turn. My friend drew his card for the round and pulled a card that gives the player 2 +4 damage buffs, however playing the card would cost all available resources and there would be no way to manipulate any of the dice rolls. My friend would need to rely on purely natural rolls. We go for broke, take the +8 damage and roll the dice, literally. First roll my friend gets a natural large straight on the dice, 2,3,4,5,6. Ten damage plus the two tokens, plus a third bonus for three more damage for at total of 21, the boss rolls his defense but he can’t heal through it and we finally close out the campaign. Believe of the 8 base sessions we wound up +9 for a total of 17 attempts.

After that we had about 2 hours left before my friend had to leave, looking for a one-shot and something light we narrowed it down to Too Many Bones, Marvel Champions or Street Masters. We were pretty diced out and I have been itching to get Street Masters out again so we did an easy refresher run against the Brotherhood in the Going Ballistic Stage. I forgot how many different game mechanics and things to remember were involved. I kept screwing up the turn orders for the enemy and kept having to look up rules in the book, I think the fight could have gone either way but we called it quits before finishing as my friend had to leave. I very much still enjoy this game and the card synergies; I just need to play a few rounds solo this week and go through the manual again as I would like to play through some of the hero stories over the next few weeks.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by coopasonic »

Defiant wrote: Mon Jul 05, 2021 10:09 am The Search for Planet X - Excellent deduction game, where you're trying to figure out the contents of each sector of the sky. You start off with a few clues, and can research clues that give logical rules (eg, no asteroids are within two sectors of a dwarf planet). You can also scan sectors (you can scan lots of sectors which is quicker but gives less helpful information, or you can scan fewer sectors which is more helpful, but also takes longer). You can get points by publishing theories that are proven correct, and by locating planet X (You can manage to win without locating Planet X, provided you publish enough theories). This is like a more streamlined version of Alchemist (without all the worker placement stuff).
If you haven't checked out Cryptid, give it a look. It doesn't get more streamlined in the deduction genre. Beautifully simple game if only I was able to keep all the relevant info in my head!
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Skinypupy
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Skinypupy »

Played Wingspan for the first time tonight. Cool game but man, that theme does absolutely nothing for me at all. While it had neat systems, placing birds and collecting grubs simply did not interest me even the slightest little bit.

Slap that exact same system on a game about orcs, dragons, and wizards? I’d buy it in a heartbeat. As is, I've got no issue playing it when others bring it, but I doubt I'll get a copy for myself. Highly doubt it would ever hit the table.
Last edited by Skinypupy on Mon Jul 12, 2021 9:20 am, edited 1 time in total.
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alanwats
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by alanwats »

Ok. So if I post one time without spammy links, will you believe I'm a real person and not just a spammer?
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YellowKing
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by YellowKing »

I own a bird but wouldn't say I'm a "bird person", but my experience with Wingspan was kind of the opposite. I found it a bit of fresh air after all the fantasy/Cthulhu/agriculture titles out there. I'm still on the fence, however, about the Oceania expansion. I love the base game and the first expansion , but the addition of the nectar food tokens adds a bit too much for me.

We finished up VIENNA CONNECTION which was stellar. Probably my favorite of the DETECTIVE series so far because every case was interesting and felt fair.

I ordered ALIEN: FATE OF THE NOSTROMO which is now available for order at Target (though not yet in stores). This was a sight unseen purchase because I know next to nothing about the gameplay other than it's Ravensburger, co-op, and sounds from the description like an Alien version of Horrified. Should arrive Friday and hoping to maybe get it to the table next week.
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baelthazar
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by baelthazar »

Skinypupy wrote: Mon Jul 12, 2021 12:14 am Played Wingspan for the first time tonight. Cool game but man, that theme does absolutely nothing for me at all. While it had neat systems, placing birds and collecting grubs simply did not interest me even the slightest little bit.

Slap that exact same system on a game about orcs, dragons, and wizards? I’d buy it in a heartbeat. As is, I've got no issue playing it when others bring it, but I doubt I'll get a copy for myself. Highly doubt it would ever hit the table.
That's funny, I love the game because it is birds (and I love birds)! The art is beautiful and I learn a little while I play! More importantly, I can get my wife to play, because she also loves birds. It could have been a game about factories (given that it is basically an engine builder) but the theme really comes through for me.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by wonderpug »

My gaming group isn't particularly fond of birds, but that just makes us enjoy Wingspan's theme even more in a roundabout way. We sort of ham it up over-the-top. "Don't you dare take that last mouse! Mother @#$%! I gotta feed this kestrel! Oh hey by the way, did you know that the kestrel can hover 20 meters off the ground while searching for prey? Would you like to know what regions of the world kestrels can be found?"
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by hepcat »

:lol: :lol:
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Skinypupy
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Skinypupy »

My brother is the one who brought the game, so we incorporated his house rule: Any time you play a bird, you must demonstrate what that bird's call sounds like.

It was highly amusing.
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baelthazar
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by baelthazar »

Skinypupy wrote: Mon Jul 12, 2021 3:30 pm My brother is the one who brought the game, so we incorporated his house rule: Any time you play a bird, you must demonstrate what that bird's call sounds like.

It was highly amusing.
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Zarathud »

Wingspan is a sexy little engine builder. With feathers. Love it.
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YellowKing
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by YellowKing »

Got one 2-handed play in of ALIEN: FATE OF THE NOSTROMO, so these are VERY early impressions. Take them with a grain of salt.

Ultimately the game appears to be very similar to HORRIFIED in that you're primarily engaging in pickup and deliver to accomplish objectives while avoiding the monster. Just as in HORRIFIED, you lose when your morale track is depleted, and you win if you complete all of your objectives (1 per player +1, and then a Final larger objective). You're still playing unique characters with a special ability and a certain number of actions they can take per turn.

There are a couple of key differences. The first difference is that the board will populate with scrap tokens you can use to build items which give you powers. For instance, building a motion detector will let you reveal concealed tokens on the map, and the electric prod will allow you to move the Alien 3 spaces. Some items have a couple of uses and are then depleted, and others have infinite uses once crafted. Taking certain items to certain places on the ship constitutes many of the objectives, so gaining scrap and building things is also necessary to complete those goals.

The second key difference is that there is no dice resolution involved when encountering the Alien. Just as in the movie, if you see the Alien you run. You lose morale according to the current morale value on the encounter card, and then are forced to retreat 3 spaces. Sometimes this can be used to your advantage to get you closer to an objective, so the forced move is not always a bad thing.

WHAT I LIKED:
- The random small objectives and Final objective make for a lot of replayability, and with a little imagination add a nice cinematic story to go with your playthrough
- The tight quarters of the map force you to really plan out your moves and lead to a bit of a claustrophobic feel which fits the theme
- Crafting your own items provides a bit more flexibility than Horrified's random perk cards. In a way you're crafting your own perks which I thought was kind of a neat mechanic
- There's at least one Alien encounter card and one Ash-related encounter card that shuffles all cards of that type back into the deck. The result is that those cards are going to come up more often as non-Ash/Alien cards get thinned out. It serves as a way for the game tension to escalate as time goes on.

WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE:
- The map is really rather bland and ugly. I know the Nostromo was as well, but the rather confusing and drab design doesn't do the game any favors
- Many turns I found myself doing nothing but taking move actions trying to get somewhere. This can lead to some rather dull turns when the alien isn't anywhere close and you're just walking a corridor.
- Obtaining and keeping scrap can be tough, as there are encounter cards that will cause you just lose it all without a damn thing you can do about it. I'm guessing this was done to force players to build items quickly, but at times it felt a bit unfair.
- The rulebook is not great, and instead of printing the crafting cost on the item tokens, you have to look it up in the rules or player card. BAD design decision.

THE MECHANIC I BOTH LIKE AND DISLIKE:
- Concealed tokens are hidden tokens that are added to the board during setup and through encounter cards. Entering a room with a concealed token forces you to flip it over. In most cases it's nothing, but there's a chance it's a surprise alien attack. There are ways to mitigate these, which I'm fine with, but I don't like that once revealed you have to shuffle it back into the stack of tokens. It's almost impossible to shuffle a stack of tokens thoroughly, and you'll be doing this a LOT. I think I'm going to get a small drawstring bag and use that to randomize them instead. I've found joy in this mechanic when I figured out how using the motion detector allowed you to reveal them early and avoid danger, and I've also found extreme frustration when I ran into 2 or 3 surprise attacks in a row and had my whole morale meter nearly wiped out.

OVERALL:

Right now the jury's still a bit out. My knee-jerk reaction was "meh" - the game's ugly, and the turns where you're just moving are boring. On the other hand, the randomized objectives and a couple of other mechanics have me intrigued as to what strategies I may be missing. I got crushed in the Final Objective for my first game, so at least the challenge level is high enough right now to make me want to immediately play again.

We'll see how it goes, but my current recommendation would be "wait for a sale." I'll update you once I get a chance to play a few more games and maybe try various player counts.
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AWS260
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by AWS260 »

I played a solo 2-handed game of Horus Heresy, to teach myself the rules before I try to play with a friend later this summer. I decided to call it about 80% through the initiative track, when it was clear that the forces of Chaos wouldn't be able to reach and defeat the Emperor in time.

What a lumbering beast of a game. I really like the initiative track and the card combat, both of which do a great job of balancing aggression with risk. But throw everything together and boy does it take a long time to play. Not to mention the very long setup, which requires a lot of squinting at tiny
miniatures to make sure you don't confuse Chaos Cultists with Chaos Warbands, or Adeptus Custodes with Adeptus Mechanicus.
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Defiant
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Defiant »

Got to play A Study in Emerald, which is a deckbuilding game with hidden teams. The team I was on didn't end up playing very well, which caused the game to end fairly abruptly early on (when one of my team mates managed to get themselves killed and completely off the board). I wasn't crazy about the game, but the abrupt ending probably affected that.

And got to play a couple of games of Dune Imperium. It's an excellent combination of worker placement and deck building, with some fighting and building relations with factions. I enjoy worker placement, so I focused on that (in one game my character bonus towards putting troops in the garrison so I focused on fighting, in the other game, I focused on building relations), while others focused on building their deck and removing the weak cards in their decks. Enjoyed the game a lot, but I love me a good worker placement game and I havent gotten to play many recently. Managed to tie for first twice, once losing the tie-breaker, once winning it.

Also got to play sidereal confluence, which is an impressive negotiation game (it can handle up to 9 players, and you can negotiate for almost everything). Each player has a race with different abilities/etc. You have an auction system each turn where you auction for planets (that give resources) and science teams (which will allow you to build a specific tech when you give them the required resources. When you unlock a tech, it gives you victory points and it gives the tech to everyone). Techs are converters that allow you to input certain resources to get other resources and/or victory points. And like I said, there's plenty of negotiation on almost everything to be had. That said, while it's enjoyable, it's also somewhat cumbersome (at least as a new player)- it requires plenty of table space, it becomes difficult to see everything you have, techs are double sided but with different names (which we didn't realize and so some of us didn't find techs we should have gotten, thinking the techs were different), plenty of times it wasn't clear what I should negotiate for right away and the negotiation becomes a mad rush to make deals as quickly as possible before the opportunities to trade were gone. Also some of the trades became long, complex affairs that were difficult to keep track of. Also, you're likely to not be able to follow what most other people are doing and how well they're doing in the game. Still, it was an enjoyable experience and managed to play fairly quickly considering the number of players (since much of the time, people are doing their turns at the same time), I just wish it were a little less cumbersome (maybe if/when I play again, the prior experience will make it less cumbersome).
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Lorini
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Lorini »

I love Sidereal Confluence but most of my gaming is with three and that's not a good number for that game.
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