I’m not a big fan of Friedemann Friese’s game designs. Very… dry. Definitely prefer a game like Steam (or basically any other Martin Wallace Euro) to a game like Power Grid.
That said, Power Grid is generally well regarded so take my opinions as just that. Power Grid is just definitely the kind of game that were it my introduction to the medium I would never have gotten into them.
Power Grid is okay but something about it doesn’t really grab me, even though I like cube pushers. I think I’m just not a fan of auction mechanics in general unless the game is either short or has something else interesting to it, eg Ra, Dungeon Petz, Keyflower, etc. Oddly enough, I really want to try out Modern Art even though it’s like the definition of a pure auction game, go figure.
Speaking of auctions, I played an extremely funny game of Biblios Dice tonight, where all 5 of us ended up overbidding in the same auction phase. So the way the auction works is if you get second place you only pay half of what you bid, so it’s perfectly legal to bid more money than you have. Howeever, if you end up with the “winning” bid and can’t pay all of it, not only do you lose all your money and not get anything, but you’re also not allowed to participate in the next auction. It was the perfect storm of everyone trying to push their luck and getting brutalized for it, further proof that pushing your luck doesn’t require dice.
Also played 7 Wonders Duel for the first time, which is a great reimagining of 7 Wonders as a two player game. I’d like to see some of the quality of life improvements it made backported into 7 Wonders actually, but that’s a separate story. The biggest change, in short, is that instead of drafting hands of cards, you make a pyramid of cards at the start of each age and you draft cards from the pyramid, but you can only take cards that aren’t covered up by other cards. Furthermore, every other row of cards in the pyramid is flipped down during setup, and cards are only turned face up when they’re uncovered. Lot of tense moments where you really want to take a card, but you don’t want to give your opponent first look at the two cards it’s covering up and stuff like that. There were a lot of other things that were changed or tweaked around, like science and military in particular, but the pyramid was definitely the coolest.
The Dungeon game sounds cool, and it’s cheap too. Ultimate Werewolf has interested me, but I have an irrational dislike of any game that uses an app. I prefer everything to be in a box.
Other games I’m interested in getting mentioned in this thread are Codenames, Witness, Space Alert, Mysterium.
I actually REALLY want the latter but doubt I will because it’s stupid expensive. I can buy like 5 other games I’m interested in for the price of that one. The components must be made out of cocaine or something. I guess Space Alert is the same.
You don’t need the app for Werewolf, it just helps cover up the environmental sounds and fidgeting you’d be focusing on otherwise. You can just have everyone make noise and fidget constantly. Other than that, it just keeps track of all the roles you’ve put in and the exact order they go in, which a player can do instead. Same with all the One Nights.
I bought a polish version of mysterium a year ago because it was cheaper
I’ve played Power Grid 5 or 6 times, and I think it’s a very good game. The theme doesn’t grab everyone, but if you’ve already tried it once then you know whether you are someone who might find it too dry. I really like the elegance of the rules and the art. I recently saw that there is a new “Deluxe” version, but I don’t like the way it looks.
Last night, a friend taught me how to play Android: Netrunner. I had only heard the name previously and knew little about it other than who designed it. Now I have to decide whether to get a starter set of my own. If I do, I can imagine I will end up buying more in the future because I find it hard to resist that sort of thing.
A friend of mine bought netrunner recently and I agreed to try it out with him though I’m not a big CCG guy.
We’ve played like four games and it seems boring to me. But I almost always hate stuff that’s supposed to be all about the meta
Correct.
Netrunner is OK for here and there play. It’s much better if you play it weekly with a group.
My favorite FF game is Black Friday, a literal spreadsheet.
@tulpa, what’s your beef with Dead of Winter?
Poor theming, really bad traitor mechanics, really high randomness, the “crossroads” cards are a novelty that dont do anything half the time.
Fair enough, I only played it once and thought it was not bad, though it turned out there was no traitor on our team. I agree the crossroads either did nothing or were just a pain in the ass and didn’t add much to the game. The best thing about them was doing dramatic readings of them.
The very first thing I ever did in Dead Of Winter killed both my characters and I never recovered. That aside, it’s alright. If people want to play a zombie game, I always try to make them play Last Night on Earth because it’s my favorite of those, and I always like games with a DM.
I’ll probably actually end up buying Space Alert on my first paycheck because no one has it and I really want to play it.
Has anyone played Time Stories?
I forgot to ask, are all of these games (and Looper) replayable, or are there limited scenarios? I know Witness is limited, but at least it has a large number of cases.
Tragedy Looper has limited scenarios in box but also rules and mechanics for making your own scenarios and a few websites full of fanmade scenarios (making your own scenarios is really easy and straightforward once you’ve played a few of the premade ones, so don’t let this put you off the game)
Space Alert uses a Mission CD for its missions but because of the other randomizing elements, the missions are still replayable. If that’s not enough, you can find mission generators online. I get that you have an aversion to apps but a lot of really great modern games have benefited from their existence.
I cannot get into real-time board games, including Space Alert. I’d always rather be playing a cooperative vidcon. If we’re voting, I’d second Love Letter, Jaipur, Splendor, and One Night Werewolf as easy-to-teach and accessible games that tend to do one or more thing better (or less worse) than other games in their respective genres.
Three questions for the field:
I’ve played Keep Talking and we loved it. I defused one bomb with 0.01 seconds to go one time.
We played in a team which led to a few problems early one since they already played through early missions and understood many of the modules whereas I didn’t and couldn’t contribute much. It didn’t take long at all for me to catch up, though.
Card passing can be for drafting, passing penalty cards, or sharing information.
it feels funny to describe card passing as ‘drafting’ for traditional card games, but I suppose it is for preparing your ‘deck’ (cards in hand). In games like 500, the winning bidder drafts the kitty (effectively drafting from cards passed to/from the game itself). Most variants of Hearts include passing cards to the player to the left at the beginning of each hand (limited drafting + avoiding penalty cards).
The Great Dalmuti/Presidents and Assholes use card passing as reward/punishment: the first-placed (+ others depending on player count) player exchange any card they like with the last-placed (+ &c.) player’s best card (forced unwanted drafting).
Sherlock Holmes: The Card Came uses card-passing to avoid holding penalty cards: playing an Alibi in response to an Arrest lets every player pass one card, allowing players to get rid of Villains + muddies the facts for deducing who should be arrested.
The Lost Cities team play variant adds a second action: exchange 2 cards with your partner.
I uh have a few non-drafting card passing games.
This was one of the least popular games my group has ever played. Mainly because if someone starts down the bottom of the rung, it’s pretty difficult to climb back up. I kept winning consistently because of where I started.
I guess it’s a good metaphor for privilege!!! Can make a pretty aggravating game, though. Drove one member of the group crazy.