There was a board game convention in the Netherlands last weekend and I bought King of New York, Flashpoint and Ticket to Ride. I have played Ticket to Ride Europe lately and I really liked it. Flashpoint came as a surprise, at first it looked boring as hell. But we tried it out and it was so much fun. Either everyone wins or everyone loses. Which brings me to another favorite of mine: Legends of Andor.
I bought and played King of New York. Loved it, it definitely added what King of Tokyo was lacking for me.
I also played Arcadia Quest, which was also great, although it can really suck for someone who is losing by a lot.
I played castles of mad ludwig recently, and thought that was great.
I already own suburbia and its expansion, so I'm not sure if I want to pick up castles too, but I'd say castles is a much better introduction to that designer's games; less math and fiddly-ness than suburbia. The castle theme is also a little easier for non-gamers to swallow (my girlfriend rolled her eyes in boredom when I tried to describe suburbia to her).
I find that funny since my fiancee loves Suburbia way more than I do. I do not dislike the game, but she wants to play it every chance she gets and that bores the hell out of me. The expansion, Suburbia Inc., was okay. I like the new buildings, but find the new long pieces awkward. Subdivision is a different game altogether though. You have a lot less control over what to build and it becomes more about activation chains that strategic placement.
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“Your body is not a temple, it's an amusement park. Enjoy the ride.”
― Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential
I will always firmly stand by the belief that Magic is a game first and a collectable second.
Each round, the current player 1 repositions the tiles on the bidding track. Since information is open, players can interact by privileging which of the tiles are cheaper for them while making tiles advantageous for the opponents more expensive. Also, each opponent pays the player 1 when they pick up tiles during player 1's turn, rather than the bank, so you could theoretically deprive 1 player cash by picking up the least expensive tiles you can each round. Finally, each round you're bidding for tiles that are often just plain good for anyone, so the interaction in this case is grabbing the tiles you need before your opponents can get to them.
Last time I player it took us < 5 min to score. In no way is the game a headache. Very recommended!
Been playing lords of waterdeep. Very fun game really makes you think about what moves you want to make because of limited resources and turns you have.
I liked Lords of Waterdeep a lot for a bit but it kinda lacks replay value. I wish they differentiated the lords a bit more.
Haven't played anything new for a while now except for Caverna, which I got my brother for Christmas since he loves Agricola. I think I liked it a bit more than Agricola but still not that much.
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"Virtue, Jacques, is an excellent thing. Both good people and wicked people speak highly of it..."
I received the Adventure Time Munchkin game as a Christmas gift & haven't played it yet. I like the rest of the Munchkin series & Adventure Time is my jams so I have high hopes for it... probably going to try playing it the next time my family comes to visit.
Not so much "currently playing" as "anticipating playing" though.
We've been transitioning lately to quicker to play games, and slogging through two-three hours in one big game is no longer ideal for us, especially when we get together maybe a quarter as much as we did before. We tend to play games like Fibbage XL at parties, or relatively simply games that my wife's fellow residents can pick-up and play quickly (since I see them more than my usual friends, at this point).
I highly recommend the You Don't Know Jack Party Pack, for those of you with a gaming system and friends with smart phones. It has almost completely replaced the party game for us.
In any case, the current hotness is:
Bang! The Dice Game (I got my family into it around Christmas)
King of New York
Citadels (also popular with my family now)
Pandemic (my whole family works in Medicine or Public Health, so this is a favorite)
Games I haven't gotten a chance to play yet (but own):
Dead of Winter
Forbidden Island
Any more recommendations for 6+ player games? Anywhere from 6 or more, I mean. I'm currently looking for things that I can explain pretty quickly.
A friend of mine was a backer for Cthulhu Wars and got his copy last week. I had to appreciate how easy it was to learn, I think we only had to rule check 2-3 times the first game we played. It was pretty fun, although I feel like the expansions will be required for the game to shine/have staying power.
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“Your body is not a temple, it's an amusement park. Enjoy the ride.”
― Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential
I will always firmly stand by the belief that Magic is a game first and a collectable second.
WAny more recommendations for 6+ player games? Anywhere from 6 or more, I mean. I'm currently looking for things that I can explain pretty quickly.
Greed is like Bang! but better in my opinion, though only up to 5. The Resistance is my favorite Mafia-esque light game, but there are a lot out there (some with more unique twists).
I'm having some trouble thinking of more simple, large games for some reason. Mostly when I get a lot of people together we play a big wargame or deep cooperative game.
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"Virtue, Jacques, is an excellent thing. Both good people and wicked people speak highly of it..."
Something partyish like Ultimate Werewolf or Resistance or Maskerade maybe?
I... actually don't like Resistance. It's set up in such a way that unless a traitor is incredibly stupid or the group gets lucky, it's very hard for the Resistance to actually win. The only thing that it has going for it is that it's very quick. Is there something I'm not just getting? It seems like if a traitor goes on Mission 1 and doesn't fail the mission, the traitors win because it's impossible to weed people out in the remaining missions.
Maybe I just haven't played with enough people? I think the most we've played with is 5.
WAny more recommendations for 6+ player games? Anywhere from 6 or more, I mean. I'm currently looking for things that I can explain pretty quickly.
Greed is like Bang! but better in my opinion, though only up to 5. The Resistance is my favorite Mafia-esque light game, but there are a lot out there (some with more unique twists).
I'm having some trouble thinking of more simple, large games for some reason. Mostly when I get a lot of people together we play a big wargame or deep cooperative game.
A friend has ultimate Werewolf, and while it's a good game I don't feel any desire to buy it on my own.
I should note we don't actually like Bang! the Card Game, and Greed sounds similar.
Thanks for the suggestions, though. I'm at the point where I'm hesitant to buy anything else because my collections looks like this:
Bang! The Dice Game
Bang! The Card Game (Passed on, as The Dice Game has been unanimously voted by my group as more fun)
King of Toyko w/ both Expansions
King of New York
Smallworld w/ all Expansions (They just reprinted the last couple I needed)
Smallworld Underground
Arcadia Quest w/ all Expansions
Zombiecide w/ all Expansions (minus some Kickstarter Exclusive survivors)
X-Wing Miniatures (2 of most units, 4 of a couple and a TIE Swarm)
Pandemic w/ On the Brink and In the Lab
Citadels
Blokus
Dead of Winter (Not Yet Played, but looks like fun)
Forbidden Island (Not Yet Played, only got it a couple weeks ago)
Moved into the closet (So there, but no longer actively played:
Pathfinder Adventure Card Game (Hard to get the same people regularly enough to play)
Munchkin (This game sounds fun, but really isn't)
Cosmic Encounter (Can't get anyone to play it as they all say it sounds boring)
Defenders of the Realm (Only played once - the rules tend to make everyone's eyes glaze over and ask to just play Pandemic instead)
My buddy owns:
Battlestar Galactica
Shadows Over Camelot
Bang! The Dice Game
Smash Up! w/ one or two expansions
Ultimate Werewolf
The Resistance
Legendary (Original and Villains versions)
I'm sure he has a bunch more, but these are the ones I can remember.
Also, I'd like to take a moment and say screw FFG for releasing Armada parallel to X-Wing. It looks really interesting, but also ridiculously expensive when the cheapest expansions are $20 for a single ship. I've also completely skipped over Descent: Star Wars or whatever they're calling it.
I... actually don't like Resistance. It's set up in such a way that unless a traitor is incredibly stupid or the group gets lucky, it's very hard for the Resistance to actually win. The only thing that it has going for it is that it's very quick. Is there something I'm not just getting? It seems like if a traitor goes on Mission 1 and doesn't fail the mission, the traitors win because it's impossible to weed people out in the remaining missions.
For my playgroup it's the opposite, there are a few of us who are master spies and unless one of us makes a big play the Resistance usually wins. Mostly because many of us are really good at playing the Resistance side, by now. I actually think it's more in the favor of the resistance members, though not by much and though I might be biased to my playgroup.
For us the average game revolves around 2 or 3 resistance members quickly figuring out that they're both trustworthy and how well the spies can manage not necessarily to trick them into thinking a spy is very trustworthy, but simply not having enough trustworthy people to make the last groups locks. The resistance members can only get this far (and make no mistake, it is far because a small alliance of trust resistance members can pretty strongly control who is allocated to missions) by talking a lot. Given that I know nothing about your playgroup and how things play out for you, I would ask whether you guys talk a lot and usually delay missions until the absolute last chance because I think those are both integral for the resistance's side to win often.
It's definitely not the type of game to play with people who aren't invested (one guy we played with once voted fails as a resistance member because he didn't give a *****/wanted the game to speed up, never again) and can be silly with people who are new or far below the average skill level ("So what do I want to do as a spy again?").
Anyway I love that type of game even when it's a bit imbalanced, because in the long-term it develops into some really fun meta-game stuff. I still have tricks and general rules as a Spy that I've used for ages but I think noone has picked up on. I even have some strategies for when I realize a specific person is starting to think I'm a trusted resistance member, because I know how to make him fully trust me. Finding stuff out like that that works to tip the game in the underdogs' favor (remember spies usually lose for us) is extremely engaging to me. Then there are also 3 really good resistance-side players who, should they all get placed on it, generally make it nearly unwinnable unless we spies get very very lucky.
A few more new games that I have been playing several times recently:
Splendor: Quite a luck-based, resource-management game where you pray you get the best cards from the draw pile, or worse, just hog the best cards first even if you can't build them yet. Simple but pretty cutthroat.
Dominant Species: Frikkin cutthroat. People want to kill you left and right with so many ways (starvation, active killing, card effects etc). And damn long.
Also just started with Progress; I may need to play that game a few times, it's decent.
Just tried The Manhattan Project at a friend's house. It's a very streamlined worker-placement game with a lot of player interaction. Play goes around the table very fast: there aren't multi-step turns, you just put workers down and do what the spaces say. Scoring is simple - there is only one thing that grants victory points, nukes - and victory is on a first-to-the-post basis, so the game ends immediately on an exciting note when somebody builds a big bomb, rather than stopping at an arbitrary point and having everybody total up all the miscellaneous VP they've accrued from everywhere. And the espionage mechanic is especially cool, leading to lots of clever plays as well as serving as a way for smart players who have fallen behind to catch up. Good production values, very thematic aesthetic. It's a Eurogame that elegantly fixes the problems I have with most Eurogames. Highly recommended.
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I bought and played King of New York. Loved it, it definitely added what King of Tokyo was lacking for me.
I also played Arcadia Quest, which was also great, although it can really suck for someone who is losing by a lot.
TerribleBad at Magic since 1998.A Vorthos Guide to Magic Story | Twitter | Tumblr
[Primer] Krenko | Azor | Kess | Zacama | Kumena | Sram | The Ur-Dragon | Edgar Markov | Daretti | Marath
― Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential
I will always firmly stand by the belief that Magic is a game first and a collectable second.
I already own suburbia and its expansion, so I'm not sure if I want to pick up castles too, but I'd say castles is a much better introduction to that designer's games; less math and fiddly-ness than suburbia. The castle theme is also a little easier for non-gamers to swallow (my girlfriend rolled her eyes in boredom when I tried to describe suburbia to her).
"Personally I love high-riak, low-reqars gambles. Life's best with a decent amount of riak. And f*** reqars."
― Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential
I will always firmly stand by the belief that Magic is a game first and a collectable second.
(1) What's it got in the way of player interaction?
(2) How long does it take to score the game?
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Last time I player it took us < 5 min to score. In no way is the game a headache. Very recommended!
"Personally I love high-riak, low-reqars gambles. Life's best with a decent amount of riak. And f*** reqars."
Haven't played anything new for a while now except for Caverna, which I got my brother for Christmas since he loves Agricola. I think I liked it a bit more than Agricola but still not that much.
the game is just so much better with it that I just couldn't play without it anymore.
Not so much "currently playing" as "anticipating playing" though.
I highly recommend the You Don't Know Jack Party Pack, for those of you with a gaming system and friends with smart phones. It has almost completely replaced the party game for us.
In any case, the current hotness is:
Bang! The Dice Game (I got my family into it around Christmas)
King of New York
Citadels (also popular with my family now)
Pandemic (my whole family works in Medicine or Public Health, so this is a favorite)
Games I haven't gotten a chance to play yet (but own):
Dead of Winter
Forbidden Island
Any more recommendations for 6+ player games? Anywhere from 6 or more, I mean. I'm currently looking for things that I can explain pretty quickly.
TerribleBad at Magic since 1998.A Vorthos Guide to Magic Story | Twitter | Tumblr
[Primer] Krenko | Azor | Kess | Zacama | Kumena | Sram | The Ur-Dragon | Edgar Markov | Daretti | Marath
― Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential
I will always firmly stand by the belief that Magic is a game first and a collectable second.
I'm having some trouble thinking of more simple, large games for some reason. Mostly when I get a lot of people together we play a big wargame or deep cooperative game.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
I... actually don't like Resistance. It's set up in such a way that unless a traitor is incredibly stupid or the group gets lucky, it's very hard for the Resistance to actually win. The only thing that it has going for it is that it's very quick. Is there something I'm not just getting? It seems like if a traitor goes on Mission 1 and doesn't fail the mission, the traitors win because it's impossible to weed people out in the remaining missions.
Maybe I just haven't played with enough people? I think the most we've played with is 5.
A friend has ultimate Werewolf, and while it's a good game I don't feel any desire to buy it on my own.
I should note we don't actually like Bang! the Card Game, and Greed sounds similar.
Thanks for the suggestions, though. I'm at the point where I'm hesitant to buy anything else because my collections looks like this:
Bang! The Card Game (Passed on, as The Dice Game has been unanimously voted by my group as more fun)
King of Toyko w/ both Expansions
King of New York
Smallworld w/ all Expansions (They just reprinted the last couple I needed)
Smallworld Underground
Arcadia Quest w/ all Expansions
Zombiecide w/ all Expansions (minus some Kickstarter Exclusive survivors)
X-Wing Miniatures (2 of most units, 4 of a couple and a TIE Swarm)
Pandemic w/ On the Brink and In the Lab
Citadels
Blokus
Dead of Winter (Not Yet Played, but looks like fun)
Forbidden Island (Not Yet Played, only got it a couple weeks ago)
Moved into the closet (So there, but no longer actively played:
Munchkin (This game sounds fun, but really isn't)
Cosmic Encounter (Can't get anyone to play it as they all say it sounds boring)
Defenders of the Realm (Only played once - the rules tend to make everyone's eyes glaze over and ask to just play Pandemic instead)
My buddy owns:
Shadows Over Camelot
Bang! The Dice Game
Smash Up! w/ one or two expansions
Ultimate Werewolf
The Resistance
Legendary (Original and Villains versions)
I'm sure he has a bunch more, but these are the ones I can remember.
Also, I'd like to take a moment and say screw FFG for releasing Armada parallel to X-Wing. It looks really interesting, but also ridiculously expensive when the cheapest expansions are $20 for a single ship. I've also completely skipped over Descent: Star Wars or whatever they're calling it.
TerribleBad at Magic since 1998.A Vorthos Guide to Magic Story | Twitter | Tumblr
[Primer] Krenko | Azor | Kess | Zacama | Kumena | Sram | The Ur-Dragon | Edgar Markov | Daretti | Marath
For us the average game revolves around 2 or 3 resistance members quickly figuring out that they're both trustworthy and how well the spies can manage not necessarily to trick them into thinking a spy is very trustworthy, but simply not having enough trustworthy people to make the last groups locks. The resistance members can only get this far (and make no mistake, it is far because a small alliance of trust resistance members can pretty strongly control who is allocated to missions) by talking a lot. Given that I know nothing about your playgroup and how things play out for you, I would ask whether you guys talk a lot and usually delay missions until the absolute last chance because I think those are both integral for the resistance's side to win often.
It's definitely not the type of game to play with people who aren't invested (one guy we played with once voted fails as a resistance member because he didn't give a *****/wanted the game to speed up, never again) and can be silly with people who are new or far below the average skill level ("So what do I want to do as a spy again?").
Anyway I love that type of game even when it's a bit imbalanced, because in the long-term it develops into some really fun meta-game stuff. I still have tricks and general rules as a Spy that I've used for ages but I think noone has picked up on. I even have some strategies for when I realize a specific person is starting to think I'm a trusted resistance member, because I know how to make him fully trust me. Finding stuff out like that that works to tip the game in the underdogs' favor (remember spies usually lose for us) is extremely engaging to me. Then there are also 3 really good resistance-side players who, should they all get placed on it, generally make it nearly unwinnable unless we spies get very very lucky.
Splendor: Quite a luck-based, resource-management game where you pray you get the best cards from the draw pile, or worse, just hog the best cards first even if you can't build them yet. Simple but pretty cutthroat.
Dominant Species: Frikkin cutthroat. People want to kill you left and right with so many ways (starvation, active killing, card effects etc). And damn long.
Also just started with Progress; I may need to play that game a few times, it's decent.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.