Last night I finally got to play a game that I received as a gift about three years ago. It’s called Windward and it’s a Scythe-like with sky whale hunting airships.
I like the components and the mechanics, but I will have to play it again to form an overall opinion. I got the impression that scoring will tend to be very tight, the winner coming partially down to luck in the end. Unless one player directly attacks another and sets them back without time to realistically recover. I’m not sure yet whether those things are true or whether they will make the game one I won’t play much if they are true.
Last week I got to play Hansa Teutonica for the first time in a while. Still one of my favorites.
It’s very easy to lose Robinson Crusoe, in my experience, if you don’t at least use the dog.
My favorite part of boardgames is learning and teaching them. This new vid is full of proven useful advice for teaching, so I hope it helps someone out there. A lot of this is applicable to teaching in all kinds of contexts, I did lots of this while teaching English in grad school.
A game I ordered at the beginning of the year finally arrived, and now I feel like I don’t really want to look at any other board game until I’ve had my fill of this. Being satisfied with what you have truly is the worst feeling.
Part of that could also be because I now understand that the board game world is as wide and rapidly moving as the video game world, with umpteen new board games out there every week, but the level of effort to partake in new things is a lot higher. Pricing varies a lot, but you also have to consider the physical space to store a box and the time it takes to just setup a game before you can even start playing. It’s not as easy to just dabble and sample random things like you can with digital games. A little disappointing, but it is what it is.
(I’m also realizing that no matter what I play, my desire to play the Bloodborne board game that started this whole descent isn’t going away. I don’t know if anything is going to fill that hole until I decide to just pony up and get it myself.)
Still not as easy as video games, but one good way to sample a wide variety of board games and see what you like is to show up for a local public board game club (as opposed to always just playing with people you know). Most cities have them these days, and in my experience there are always a few people who bring a large number of new and old games who are open to playing whatever.
Is the Bloodborne board game good? I like the card game and I think they have the same designer but I’ve never heard anyone say much about the board game.
I’ve played a friend’s copy a little bit and it seemed cool, but I certainly don’t have the experience in the medium to have an educated perspective. I’ve also realized that all the games I’ve been poking at this past year are combat focused “ameritrash”, so I think my fascination with the medium right now is predominantly with this side of board games that I never knew existed (I’d only played euros in college). But the Bloodborne theme is surely going a long way towards attracting my attention for sure. I think I recall also seeing people say Bloodborne is not quite as random as regular dice based “ameritrash” since it uses set decks of cards with deck building mechanics, so maybe it’s more in line with something like Gloomhaven. You play actions using a deck of action cards you draw through, and enemies act based on behavior cards you draw. So it actually is a lot like the Gloomhaven mold now that I type that out.
Are BGG ratings a decent way to get the general temperature on the reception of a game, or is that heavily skewed towards a certain audience? My impression is that the Bloodborne boardgame is well received but I’ve also seen a fair share of people not liking it too.
If a game has a lot of ratings with comments, I find that they can sometimes give a decent idea. But it can still be hit and miss because it can be a matter of personal taste or a first impression.
If you like “Ameritrash” games, one of my favorites is Nexus Ops (which unfortunately is out of production). It feels like Starcraft, even more than the Starcraft board game does (which I also like).
2 people couldn’t make to it pub games this week to there were just three of us. somehow this meant retro night as me and another player both brought very old games. played Settlers again for the first time in forever, and finally got to try Hansa with three (real fun)
Spent some time learning how to play and set up Arkham Horror the Card Game yesterday, and actually got around to playing a few solo rounds during my lunch today. I am super impressed with how much it feels like an RPG adventure and how strong the atmosphere is given that its just card mechanics supporting character building, a dungeon map, drama, and events and monsters. I can’t wait to learn this more thoroughly and play with someone else.
Arkham Horror Card Game is very good. It delivers on the story-driven experience that games like Eldritch Horror only hint at (though I still like EH).
I’d be up for going through a campaign at some future SB meetup. I have several of them that I’ve never tried.
