Gloomhaven sucks because of the price barrier, also it’s good for the same reason (both bad reasons). tbh the way Cuba describes getting to grips with it, it sounds like a war game
would always be down for a quick Wiz-War for that tactical chaos
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Tabletop Simulator is only 20 bucks 
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yeah im sure it gets better with even more fiddlyness OOOHHHH
i would like to play gloomhaven though
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The TTS version is very funny because it is actually exactly as fiddly: for every gain via automation there is a loss in how dumb it is to move cards around with a mouse
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me too, but I’d pay $0 for the privilege
edit plus buying the owner a drink/snack
I am entranced by how Magic the Gathering: Arena handles the physicality of the cards without adding fiddliness. super dumb stuff like rearranging your hand—I miss it in other board game adaptions.
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The standalone expansion I’m playing, Jaws of the Lion, was $40 at Target. Surprisingly, it does not feel too dumbed down, and its components are pretty decent quality. Having played the original Gloomhaven a couple times at friends’ houses, this just feels like a smaller-scale but totally worthy version of the same experience.
it would be tempting if it was £28 but still a lot to spend on a game that I may or may not like but lol it’s £40 here
edit wow reverting posts sucks
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speaking of games that need multiple sessions and hundreds of hours to properly appreciate: https://18xx.games/ has 1830 in beta
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price barrier doesn’t feel too bad considering it costs about the same as Food Chain Magnate
edit: yes I know this is a lame justification but the dude went out of his way to make demo versions available, including releasing a bunch of TTS exclusive scenarios
mostly escape room games! sometimes these games can only be played once when components get cut up or destroyed. I found all of these from Which room-in-a-box should I buy? – Escape the Review
Exit: The Game - The Haunted Rollercoaster
This was the first one we tried, it ruled. We used a couple of hints for the 10 puzzles and didn’t make the 60 minute time limit. A lot of arrangments, some deduction. Turns out this was probably the hardest of the bunch! Some wild 4th-wall smashing and we got totally pumped by the final puzzle’s twist. Well worth a go for ~$10-15. Like the rest of the Exit series, it’s single use!
Unlock! Squeek and Sausage
This was a point-and-click adventure in a deck of cards. Super fun, tho having the complicated part of the puzzles on the companion app feels… tacky? Wonderfully recreates pixel-hunting by hiding clues to other cards in some illustrations. Can be played again (by someone else), good hints, easily completed in a hour. Single games cost ~$15, cheaper to buy a triple-pack but I feel like the system would get old fast if you played them back-to-back.
Mystery at the Stargazer’s Manor
This one had the most bits, but was way too easy. Felt the most like an actual escape room but that just highlights how much you’re not in an escape room. Resettable. Don’t get this.
Doctor Esker’s Notebook + Son of Doctor Esker’s Notebook
From the creator of Snood. Each game is a deck of cards, 10 numbered solution cards and 9-10 sets. You examine the starting puzzle set, work out a number, flip the solution cards corresponding to the number, and spot the connection between them to figure out the next puzzle. Has a lot of wordplay and deduction in the solutions. This was more puzzle than game, I’d recommend the first one over the second but they’re both pretty good for $15 and an hour. Trivially resettable.
The Librarian’s Almanaq
This is not a game but a puzzle, made for a Microsoft puzzle hunt. Tear pages out of the book & solve 112 rebuses, use the overall solution to tear out 8 more puzzles (and avoid the decoy pages), flip the first puzzle over, insert the solutions to the 8, solve the final puzzle. It has a 8-40 hour playtime guide, I did it solo in about 16. Most of the time was on the first puzzle because it’s very US-centric & I had trouble recognising some images/getting the right noun (trunk/boot etc), plus taping everything together is its own challenge. For $15 it’s unbeatable value, the hint system is online but invaluable when you can’t e.g. tell the difference between a cardinal and a jay. Can’t be replayed (book gets trashed).
I really enjoyed making accessories for The Duck puzzle, which is a board game with ludicrious rules and state-tracking. Here’s the player guides I made for remembering & tracking the behaviours of each stage of zombification.
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those Microsoft puzzle hunts are no joke, a friend at work would bring puzzles in hoping to build a crew and we’d spend hours on a single puzzle group
I have no information but hope it’s been useful in seeding Seattle’s escape room scene
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http://www.gamejournal.net/item_list/gj_079/index.html
New Japanese wargame magazine Game Journal 79 arrived after 2 months. Includes three wargames designed by Tenshin Roshi.
Three Kingdom Saga after Red Cliffs
Genpei War in Bando Region
Minsk 1941
I bought it for the Genpei War in Bando Region, it only released on a doujin wargame magazine called SLGamer in Japan before GJ reprint it.
solo play. 
SLGamer Vol.07
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Been obsessed with Res Arcana. It’s an engine builder where you have about four turns to play cards to generate resources to get points. Normally turn 1-2 is you playing your cards, turns 3-4 is manipulating your resources to get your points. It’s got a good pace.
Shades of CCGs like Magic, with tapping cards for effects and even some minor monster attacks against other players. Attacking is pretty weak though and more of a niche option to throw someone off their game plan rather than a viable strategy itself.
After playing a fair amount of CCGs I appreciate certain things Res “fixes” from that genre. Your deck is drafted at the start, and only 8 cards. So you don’t really get bricked hands full of bad draws, the deck count is so low that you’ll pretty consistently get the key cards you need. And any card can be discarded for two resources, which is a strong play.
So basically there are no dead draws and no bricked hands. It makes 40 card CCG decks with fickle resource systems seem completely cumbersome.
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ooh, a tom lehmann engine builder is def something that sounds appealing to me, will have to try it out.
Plan to play Shinsengumi: Ikedaya-sodo at night.
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Bought A Victory Lost: Crisis in Ukraine 1942-1943 from a local store, and plan to collect A Victory Awaits later.
Also bought 2nd hand Game Journal No.61 from a player, it contains a war game about a brutal turning time of Japan, which happend at end of the bakufu. It uses same system as COIN series by GMT games. Maxium allow 4 players to play together.
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Solo play a free PnP game on this weekend: Battle of Slim River , it’s a Japanese night Blitzkrieg during the Malayan campaign at WWII. Very simple rule but friendly to solo play.
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Bought Res Arcana last week and played my first 3 games with a buddy tonight. Had a pretty great time! The design feels really tight (at least with two players) and we were pretty quickly making cool combos. It’s sort of an amalgam of a lot of different concepts from currently popular board games, but the way it all fits together feels really good.
I like that the possibility space in any given game feels a little “closed” based on the 8 card deck you have, but there’s enough complexity that it feels like there are always a few different strategic lines you could pursue. And like Race, it’s important to keep an eye on your opponents and adjust the speed of your strategy based on what they’re doing.
I also like that the game isn’t too punishing in terms of how many turns it takes you to do things. It makes some pretty disparate strategies possible. Sometimes (when fighting over the same card, ending the game, picking items, or attacks) the order you do things or how fast you do them is very important tactically, but a a good chunk of the time it’s a little looser and you’re not stuck analyzing what order to play every line.
Was surprised how fast my buddy and I were able to get through games because we are notoriously slow and prone to analysis paralysis.
Thanks for the rec!
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I read General magazine yesterday, found something really interesting.
It has contest about solve a puzzle of wargame to win the prize and uses the rules of Afrika Korps. About the combat resolved, it offers a very smart way in public: they use the stock price in the furture as the dice result and you have to choice many stocks as dices before the market close.
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