The Thread Where We Are Board Game Geeks

ya wonders looks impenetrably cryptic at first but its actually easy as pie

Haven't played Forbidden Desert but I don't think it's any harder than Forbidden Island - but I kind of stand by what I said, both of these are entry level co-ops with a greater chance of winning than Pandemic/Twelve Ghosts/Witch of Salem (that's probably in ascending order of likelihood of getting absolutely smashed to bits in).

― Ian Glasper's trapped in a scone (aldo), Thursday, January 30, 2014 4:48 AM (15 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i would really like to play any of the SUPER COMPLEX and time-consuming co-op games but my friends are not that nerdy and way too competitive

what i really want in my life right now is betrayal at house on the hill, which somehow hasn't been mentioned itt? it's wonderful fun co-op until it's not, easy to learn, and every copy in the world costs THREE HUNDRED FUCKING DOLLARS BECAUSE FUCKING WIL WHEATON

If other players undervalue science it is not hard to obtain a full double or even triple set of the cards which will normally be enough points to win you the game.

To be fair to him, what happened to Betrayal wasn't a Wheatoning. It was already pretty rare before he featured it, I got my copy a couple of months before it was on Tabletop and it was being described as 'one of the last copies available' then.

I haven't managed to get a game of it together yet. :-/

I like the idea of so-called 'party' games like Dixit quite a lot because they appear to require a spot of imaginative thinking as well as strategic. How's that one?

I just really don't fancy Dixit at all, and/or wouldn't find anyone to play if with.

Dixit isn't really strategic at all - in fact, it goes over well with my friends who dislike strategy games. The fun of the game varies wildly on how imaginative people want to be; I've had really good games and really boring games. Also I rarely play more than once in a row, because it's difficult to come up with fun/interesting descriptions. It's a cool game even with those caveats, would recommend.

Apples to Apples, Cards Against Humanity, Wits and Wagers, and Time's Up (aka Celebrities) are also good party games you might like, dl.

played wits and wagers for the first time last night with a group of friends, pretty fun. i hate cards against humanity, it ruins whatever is fun about apples to apples by forcing "edgy" humor into it.

I know where you're coming from - my first reaction to Cards Against Humanity was that it robbed the fun out of AtA by making everything edgy. But after I played a few games, I started liking the questions more than the adjectives in AtA. Especially the ones with two blanks, which add a different angle for creativity.

i hate cards against humanity, it ruins whatever is fun about apples to apples by forcing "edgy" humor into it.

if you've ever harbored suspicions that certain acquaintances are deeply unfunny play 'cards against humanity' with them, it will be horribly obvious w/in about 10 min, then you will get to keep playing for another two hours

playing CAH with people who are like politically into it is just the worst. and play with too many people and it gets tremendously boring. by the dozenth card announced you don't even remember what the question was and then the person has to chooooooose ugh

best party-ish game i've played lately is anomia

Went for Carcassonne in the end, erring on the side of caution

Cards Against Humanity is the worst - "mixer" game for freshman drama students who like showing off how 'edgy' and 'over the top' they're willing to go, but need the crutch of cards coming pre-loaded with "hilarious" "off-color" phrases. It also loses the actual humor in Apples to Apples, which emerges from an appreciation for your friends' moments of offbeat logic and surprising combinations of ideas.

eh i think Cards still retains the offbeat logic thing sometimes. imo its major downfall is that because it trades in shock value it has super low replay value. like if "firing a shotgun while balls deep in a hog" is trying too hard the first time someone plays it, it is so incredibly tedious the second time.

there aren't really THAT many major shock value cards -- a lot of it is just slightly more adult/varied A2A. i read every one (of the initial set) on christmas cause my sister was thinking about playing with the family and i was determined to locate and remove every single card i wouldn't want to explain to my mom. still sounds like a horrible idea not sure why anyone would want to play with their parents

but yeah the cards like "firing a shotgun while balls deep in a hog" or "the taint; the grundle; the fleshy fun-bridge" are barely meant to be played, they're just meant to be read and laughed at in their own context. they'd never actually win. one thing that sort of annoys me about it.

I played it with my bro & my mom over the holidays; it was weird

So I guess I'm amassing a bit of a collection.

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f223/joegood/DSC01021_zpsc030813c.jpg

Where to next? I kind of want another one that's easy to learn and can be played in under an hour. And maybe that's good with only two players.

So I received Carcassonne last week and have played it three times with different people and they all love it. Nice one!

chap, what's Cosmic Encounter like?

Settlers of Catan is worth getting, it's 3+ people though.

chap, what's Cosmic Encounter like?

― Spaghetti Sauce Shampoo (Moodles), Monday, February 10, 2014 3:12 PM (8 minutes ago)

I'll repost something I wrote about it upthread:

it's a silly and crazy imbalanced game but can be very fun.

This is pretty OTM. Like you can be building a tactic and reserving some kick arse attacks for a big push, then some bonkers card comes up which completely disrupts the status quo and you're back to square one. There's still skill involved, but it's more reacting to the situations that arise rather than trying to build a coherent strategy, which will almost inevitably end in frustration.

It's a good laugh though, and pretty easy for anyone to pick up. I like the slight pokerish/psycological element of selecting your encounter cards.

Settlers of Catan is worth getting, it's 3+ people though.

― Kim Wrong-un (Neil S)

I've played Catan a few times and always enjoyed it.

cosmic is fun

played a huge twilight imperium game this weekend, it was pretty fun too.

It looks a bit more strategic/less wacky than Cosmic, true?

oh god yes. it's like a super complex game that takes 8 hours and feels like multiple strategic games on top of each other. i'm not even sure i like it, but it's fun to hang out with some of my buddies for 8 hours and do something ridiculous.

A+, s1ocki
we need to start collaborating :)

it's like a super complex game that takes 8 hours and feels like multiple strategic games on top of each other. i'm not even sure i like it, but it's fun to hang out with some of my buddies for 8 hours and do something ridiculous.

― socki (s1ocki)

Game of Thrones looks like it might be like that. Haven't played it yet, it only arrived three days ago.

we need to start collaborating :)

― sean gramophone, Monday, February 10, 2014 12:06 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

let's do it this week or weekend!

lol i got an email from amazon that betrayal at house on the hill was available for $50 so i went SHIT SHIT SHIT and ordered it immediately

Played this weekend for the first time in a long time. Played:

Flux - Kind of crazy, the rules change constantly, as does the goal for winning. Pretty random and hard to strategize. Still fun.
Tsuro - A path building game. Really simple, you try and make the other dragons crash into each other or the edge of the board. Not the biggest fan.
DC Deck Building Game - First deck building game I've ever played. I enjoyed it, made me want to play others.
Power Grid - I was too drunk by this point, but I seem to recall liking it, even though I was playing very badly.

feel like Power Grid should've gone first and Fluxx saved for the "too drunk" part of the evening but fun is fun

Now you tell me!!

Just finished almost five months of weekly plays of Flying Colors, which recreates historical sea battles from about 1750-1800. Despite the absolute chaos of the board mid-battle, it's pretty straightforward to play. Highly recommended if you're looking something big that takes multiple sessions to finish.

http://cf.geekdo-images.com/images/pic2018330_md.jpg

I played Betrayal at House on the Hill last weekend (and had no idea how rare and expensive it was!). It's a lot of fun, and I feel like the creators maybe should have sued the people who made Cabin in the Woods, as the general concepts are practically identical!

World in Flames is finally out (sans AI), but I'll probably wait until it comes down in price a bit.

lol i also played betrayal last weekend and friends also pointed out the CitW comparisons

was unfortunately playing with one dude who got really whiny about all the rules and cards and he ended up being the traitor and it sucked

Dan I. if your name is actually steve you're the worst

what do ppl itt think of smallworld? It attracts me aesthetically...

I own it. The aesthetics are awesome and add a lot to the fun of the game. The gameplay is pretty interesting too - it's based around a mechanic of mixing and matching races and classes, so you get different experiences each time. That said, I've played about ten games and don't play it anymore. The winner almost always comes down to people playing kingmaker, and worse, sometimes players get into positions where they are losing yet the other players are incentivized to keep attacking them, which is really unfun.

I don't mind playing the IOS version(which cost next to nothing depending on when you bought it) but have ABSOLUTELY no desire to play the IRL game no matter how you could present it.

That must be for iPad only bc I've looked for an iOS version specifically

Can anyone recommend a relatively quick/straightforward game that is fun with two players (preferably not collaborative)?

Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer

Thanks, cool. Decent enough with just the base set?

Yeah, it's pretty basic but fairly fun

Coloretto

2 player Dominion is my favorite Dominion

Yeah, Dominion is a good 'un. Similar game mechanics to Ascension.

opinions on twilight imperium?

fun, though sometimes it feels like a bunch of different games cobbled together—i could do without like, the politics angle—but as an eight-hour, once-a-year thing, i dig it

I really have far too many games.

Brits of a certain age really shouldn't snooze on Tony Boydell's game of Ivor The Engine. It's a proper game and not just something for kids, plus new Firmin art just for it. Lovely.

Boydell's Snowdonia is also fun, with a lot of points trades to be worked out through progress or development.
I have got Caverna out 5 times now and still never started a game, I got completely bored with Agricola as it's just "build a food engine, grow your family" with very little variation beyond that but the scope of Caverna has scared me into putting it back each time.
Great Fire of London is a superb little pseudo-co-op with hidden victory points. The players work ostensibly together to fight the fire, but have areas they want to protect for final bonuses.
Letters from Whitechapel is a pretty good hidden movement game. A good player will pretty much always win whether he plays the ripper or the police though, and some house rules can balance it.
For people that found Arkham Horror too fiddly and tried Elder Sign because they liked dice, but found THAT too fiddly; the answer is Ancient Terrible Things. Plays like a treat and scratches exactly the same itch.
Cornish Smuggler is potentially great, although the mechanism for recruiting allies feels a bit too unbalanced.
A Study In Emerald could be a great Martin Wallace game, but I haven't played it with enough people to make the hidden victory conditions worthwhile. It's a deckbuilder at heart, but pretends not to be - unlike London, which clearly is a fun deckbuilder and none the worse for it.
Compounded is a really fun little set collection game.
Finally got around to Stone Age which seemed a little to basic of a worker placement for me these days tbh.
Unlike Viticulture, which is a great worker placement game and about to be expanded.
I finally got around to Forbidden Desert and it's much harder than Forbidden Island, it's killed us every time thus far.