I have too many games and a party to play them every month in Oakland you should come.
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I guess Iāve played a lot of tabletop games recently. Here are a few highlights (images are mostly from boardgamegeek.com):
Bosk
This is my newest game purchase, after not having bought a board game in about a year. Itās an abstract strategy āarea controlā game with two phases: place your trees and then drop your leaves. Itās colorful and fun.
Parks
One of the very few times in recent months that I convinced myself to show up for a meeting of one of the local board game clubs in my city, someone brought this game. (I brought Bosk, and it was funny how similar the covers and themes were, since both I and this other person each brought exactly one game. We ended up playing Parks instead of Bosk due to the player count.)
You score points by visiting (real) national parks. The park-specific art is not unique to this game, but it is nice. You select actions and gather resources by walking along a shared hiking trail. I like the design of this game and would play it again.
Embers of Memory
A friend who is visiting my city (his home town) for the holidays brought this one. I donāt know that it would have ever come to my attention otherwise. Itās a re-theming of another game Iād never heard of, The Ravens of Thri Sahashri, but this time based on characters in what looks like a series of fantasy romance novels. Itās a two-player cooperative game with information sharing that I guess is slightly reminiscent of Hanabi.
The game progresses through seven levels, each introducing new mechanics (kind of like one of those legacy games). We have made it about halfway through so far, and itās been a fun experience. Weāve skipped over the flavor text that must be taken from the books. In writing this, I find myself wanting to try the next part of the game but I donāt know whether that will happen anytime soon unless I buy a copy (which I am considering).
Crimson Company
This game initially reminded me of Battle Line. Every single card is a character with a unique power (though of course some are similar). You bid to determine which characters youāll get and attempt to apply more points of strength toward a castle to prevail in two of the three lanes.
Cartographers
This is a game that I think would appeal to certain SB members. You draw a map based on different terrain options that come up, and you have randomized goals to make your map as āaccurateā (efficient) as you can. There are also monster infestations, which another player gets to add to your map for you to deal with. Itās a little like a more complex, RPG-themed Patchwork, and your map ends up looking something like this:
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I played the new reprint of the 70ās Dune board game the other day. I had previously played Rex, Fantasy Flightās Twilight Imperium themed reskin of the game. I found this Dune version much more enjoyable, and I think 99% of that additional enjoyment can be chalked up to the theme.
Iāve rarely seen a gameās mechanics tie into its theme this directly and with such thoroughness. The 6 different factions play completely differently, and every nuance of their mechanics is based on their characterization in the book. Thereās such thought put into this that successful play for each of these factions is essentially indistinguishable from role-playing that faction.
Like, I played as the Fremen, and I ended up bombing the shield wall to allow a sandstorm to ravage Carthaq and Arrakeen, driving out the Harkonnens and the Emperorās forces so I could occupy them. The whole experience got me jazzed for the movie later this year.
I wouldnāt give the game my total, unqualified recommendation. The rules are fiddly as hell and the game is just a little too long for what it is. But I would play it again. I can see why itās a classic, the strategy is chunky and the politics are hardcore.
Itās very jarring how every single fucking human pictured in the entire game is white. The publisher really embarrassed themselves with that one.
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wow, reading Dune as Lawrence of Arabia in spaaaaaace is literally the cover hook!
would love a 3v1 sequel called God Emperor of Dune
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maybe Iād like Dune more if Paul was a masochist who endured what few other people from his background could because of a pathological internal drive to be refined through suffering
also if he was gay?
The best part of this is that the 1 is really just trying to get the 3 to win but the 3 are actively undermining themselves by constantly plotting to win.
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We have a lot of board game enthusiasts at work and have been trying to find something we can do quickly during lunch breaks. So far Sushi Go Party has probably been the best since it fits like every criteria.
Easy enough to learn which is good since they usually find someone new around to join us.
Casual enough that even someone new isnāt completely left in the dust by people with slightly more experience.
Not built around social player interaction (people are tired enough from sitting in meetings all day) but still enough to have people reacting to other playersā actions.
Doesnāt take too long even if not everyone knows the rules.
Can be varied a fair bit between games.
Can play with like any number of players, never know until the last minute who will be joining in.
The Resistance has also been played a couple of times but thatās mostly at the behest of a few. Feel like not enough of us are just prepared to engage in the mental tactics required in the middle of the work day so the spies never really get too far.
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Iāve been recently infatuated with a bunch of stuff from oink games for casual play. All the games I have tried so far have been extremely light and take ~20 minutes to play at most
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Of the oink games I have played
Insider is kind of at the intersection of 20 Questions and the Resistance? All the players are asking the game master yes-no questions to find out the secret answer, but one of those players already knows the answer, and wants to get everyone to reach that answer without revealing that they knew the answer all along.
A Fake Artist Goes To New York is a drawing game where all but one player knows what is being drawn. The fake artist is trying to figure out what is being drawn while all the real artists are trying to figure out who the fake artist is. We played it in the first SB meetup!
Maskmen is an excellent card-shedding game where relative rank of each suit is determined through play! It takes a couple hands to really understand how the game works but I think itās a wonderful variant on traditional card games.
Deep Sea Adventure is okay. Itās a push your luck dice-rolling game with enough twists that it has actual strategy, but itās not as exciting as the other games I have tried. The components and visual design is excellent, though.
Dungeon of Mandom is a bluffing game with some elements of push-your-luck. Iāve played the expanded US remake, Welcome to the Dungeon and have probably recommended it before. Each player is trying to make the central dungeon either un-beatable (with the hopes that another player will have to traverse it and lose) or easy to beat (with the hopes that they are the ones who get to traverse the dungeon and win). Another game that really shines on repeated playthroughs as local meta-strategies develop.
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Fake Artist in New York is great, itās like Spyfall but not crap.
I played VILLAINOUS, the Disney villain card game, and boy howdy was it a dud for me. Waaayyyy too luck heavy, and the bulk of the game for me was just discarding cards to find the right ones I need to progress in my deck. Surprise, the ones I needed were right at the bottom.
Also played WELCOME TO which is a terrible game to explain to people, but pretty fun once you get going. I donāt see myself playing it often, but I wouldnāt say no if someone brings it out.
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During quarantine, itās 2 player board games or nothing for me.
Esme and I have been playing a ton of Ascension. Itās a pretty basic deckbuilding game, actually somewhat similar to Slay the Spire. Itās super easy to pick up and play. The rules are simple, the strategy is about Hearthstone level (only complex enough to work as satisfying brain candy, not much more), and itās a very digestible length of 30-45 min. Itās clearly meant for 3-4 players, but it works perfectly well with 2. The player interaction is relatively low, but thereās enough of it to add some slight spice to the typical deck/engine building model.
The base game is a ton of fun for a while, but eventually itās clear that the number of viable strategies is a little too limited, so games start to feel pretty samey. We ended up getting a big box expansion called Dreamscape that has a lot more going on with it, so that solved that problem.
So yeah, Ascension isnāt going to rock your world or anything, but it is such a nice, chill time to put on a good album and play a game of it. I would not call this a great board game, and I might get some side-eyes here, but weāre seriously enjoying it a LOT more than we expected to.
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I miss playing tabletop games. I bought a new one right as quarantine started but have not played my copy yet. Itās a Japanese subway routing game called Metro X.
The first (and only) time I played, the game seemed simple at first. And then it seemed as if I was going to utterly fail. And then I ended up not doing too badly.
The person who taught me this game had laminated the boards for reuse. When they released the North American version a few months later, the boards were designed that way in the first place (and larger, which is nice).
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Iād also recommend Star Realms for a ascensionlike designed specifically for 2 players.
Really not a fan of that game tbh!
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boooooo
edit: pmād-- was definitely booing the game, not you!
Your pre-edit post said it was because the game creators apparently have bad right-wing politics and I guess 8128 is booing me for the same reason? Sorry, I just bought the game when it first came out like 8 years ago and havenāt paid attention to the board game community lately, so itās ignorance not tolerance of whatever they may have said in public.
I can understand not wanting to play it with that in the back of your mind, certainly.
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it was illustrated by an evil Italian
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Felix can draw??
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Only a bath! ::fart::
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