Hmmm...looks highly based off of Betrayal on Haunted Hill but with a ton of stuff/rules added on.
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New Board Gaming |OT2| On Tables, Off Topic
- Thread starter Karkador
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Hmmm...looks highly based off of Betrayal on Haunted Hill but with a ton of stuff/rules added on.
Now that it's out, has anyone tried the final Machi Koro expansion, Millionaire's Row? Reading over some comments it sounds like there are some really powerful cards and some mostly useless cards. It also sounds like it could make things even meaner to other players, which I'm not really a fan of given my sushi bar nightmares.
*edit*
Also, this is news to me. Anyone know whether it might be good? http://www.welovefine.com/feature/portal-board-game.html
*edit*
Also, this is news to me. Anyone know whether it might be good? http://www.welovefine.com/feature/portal-board-game.html
nicoga3000
Saint Nic
Now that it's out, has anyone tried the final Machi Koro expansion, Millionaire's Row? Reading over some comments it sounds like there are some really powerful cards and some mostly useless cards. It also sounds like it could make things even meaner to other players, which I'm not really a fan of given my sushi bar nightmares.
*edit*
Also, this is news to me. Anyone know whether it might be good? http://www.welovefine.com/feature/portal-board-game.html
I demoed it at Gen Con. It was....OK. I somewhat blame the guy giving the demo, as all of the rules were not very clear. I imagine it could be fun with the right group of people.
Gaming Truth
Member
Ha, I thought the same thing when I saw it at GenCon, then looked up to see who was publishing it. I also couldn't tell if the components at GenCon were production-level or demo-level.
Based on the above pic, eww ..,
At least the cake pieces are nice ...
AbsolutBro
Member
My copy of On Her Majesty's Service arrived yesterday! I backed them on Kickstarter and picked up a few extra Ether pieces and the full figures for the Gentlemen. My only complaint is the figure for Parvin Khan transforms her from a young girl with welding goggles and pants, into an old woman with bustle and hat. Not a very good figure, IMO. The rest are fantastic, especially Sir Daniel Home (who seems a little fragile given his detailed base), Mr. Fox and John Brown. Fantastic stuff, and I look forward to giving it a shot soon!
Does anyone know if the setting is based on something else? A comic or an RPG or something? It's vaguely "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen"-ish, but more fantasy than science fiction it seems.
Edit: nevermind, the Kickstarter has a link in the very first sentence.
Edit: nevermind, the Kickstarter has a link in the very first sentence.
Are they bad at designing games?
BattleMonkey
Member
They put out some crappy games, but really they are a publisher. Quality of the game itself is more in the hands of the actual game designer.
They'll make a mediocre game design (like their "Deck Building Game" series), and then repeat it across different licensed IP (DC Comics, Lord of the Rings, Walking Dead, Street Fighter...). I feel like even if you happen to love one of those games, it's apparent that they've taken a pretty cynical approach to just doing the same thing again and again.
By comparison, I think Gale Force 9 does a lot better work with licensed IPs, creating something specific (and rather excellent) for each game. Who would think that games based on flavor-of-the-month TV shows could be good?
Now, thankfully, I just read that the design of the Portal board game was actually done in-house at Valve - now I'm actually really interested.
nicoga3000
Saint Nic
Cryptozoic did a good job with the WoW TCG before Hearthstone came about. I really enjoyed it. That said, Portal just wasn't a ton of fun when I played it. I think my friend is going to buy it, and if he does, I'll get a chance to try it again.
Well they pretty much continued it after Upper Deck lost the WoW Tcg (was that due to Yugioh fiasco? or was it unrelated to that, I kinda forgot).
SwiftDeath
Member
I actually really love DC Deck Builder while at the same time understanding how unbalanced it is.
What's weird is I have played several other deck builders that I know to be considered better and don't enjoy them as much [Star Realms, Legendary, Ascension]
I think I need to play Ascension and Legendary more to get a better handle on them but even so.
Think that might just be a me thing though lol
What's weird is I have played several other deck builders that I know to be considered better and don't enjoy them as much [Star Realms, Legendary, Ascension]
I think I need to play Ascension and Legendary more to get a better handle on them but even so.
Think that might just be a me thing though lol
nicoga3000
Saint Nic
Just about finished my first game of Mage Knight. I am doing the intro mission with no dummy player. I will probably play it again without the dummy player as a way of continuing to familiarize myself with the rules and play order. The rules are VERY heavy and there are a ton of them. The are a lot of things that take place at specific points, but also a bunch of stuff you can do whenever you want. Understanding those things is clutch to playing the game. That said...
The game is amazing. While the rules are daunting and numerous, they make sense and are relatively intuitive. Nothing feels arbitrary - it all feels very deliberate. It's the kind of game that feels like the "real game" starts once you aren't going back and forth to the rulebook every time you play a few cards. There is a ton of strategic play happening every turn, too. It feels pretty fantastic to unload your hand in such a way as to win a super tough combat encounter. It's an exploration based RPG puzzle game. It's so good.
I also received all the Galaxy Defenders stuff last night. I'm just now getting my hands dirty with the rulebook. Anyone who has played it - the book is thick, but how complex are the rules? I know it's no Mage Knight, but I'm curious as to what I'm in for.
The game is amazing. While the rules are daunting and numerous, they make sense and are relatively intuitive. Nothing feels arbitrary - it all feels very deliberate. It's the kind of game that feels like the "real game" starts once you aren't going back and forth to the rulebook every time you play a few cards. There is a ton of strategic play happening every turn, too. It feels pretty fantastic to unload your hand in such a way as to win a super tough combat encounter. It's an exploration based RPG puzzle game. It's so good.
I also received all the Galaxy Defenders stuff last night. I'm just now getting my hands dirty with the rulebook. Anyone who has played it - the book is thick, but how complex are the rules? I know it's no Mage Knight, but I'm curious as to what I'm in for.
Nico the rules are really light to be fair. Still it depends on what your used too though I suppose.
The chits provided for teleports etc have a dashed line around them. They don't block line of sight as I first played it.
They just added it for thematic reasons. The designers acknowledged people's queries as the question arose and provided replacement tokens in the sequel (Which you own).
They didn't have to supply replacements really but they did. Pretty cool.
Edit to add a few reminders.
When HP gets to Zero or even below that your not dead yet. Just bleeding out. Medi kit needed ASAP.
Biotech has lowest HP (8) but a cool ability. When HP gets to zero if you roll a lightning symbol whilst defending he gets 1HP back. (this is after all damage is allocated minus HP too) Basically he can be tough to get taken down. This was confirmed be designer via questions.
Basic and advanced tactics are used once per mission. Unless reset via event cards.
Can't think of much more at the mo.
Just have fun with it.
A really good player aid is included which takes you through all the steps. After MK it will seem simple rules wise.
Last thing. Read mission victory conditions. You don't always have to complete every round. Once you have completed objectives some missions end at that point. Some don't.
The chits provided for teleports etc have a dashed line around them. They don't block line of sight as I first played it.
They just added it for thematic reasons. The designers acknowledged people's queries as the question arose and provided replacement tokens in the sequel (Which you own).
They didn't have to supply replacements really but they did. Pretty cool.
Edit to add a few reminders.
When HP gets to Zero or even below that your not dead yet. Just bleeding out. Medi kit needed ASAP.
Biotech has lowest HP (8) but a cool ability. When HP gets to zero if you roll a lightning symbol whilst defending he gets 1HP back. (this is after all damage is allocated minus HP too) Basically he can be tough to get taken down. This was confirmed be designer via questions.
Basic and advanced tactics are used once per mission. Unless reset via event cards.
Can't think of much more at the mo.
Just have fun with it.
A really good player aid is included which takes you through all the steps. After MK it will seem simple rules wise.
Last thing. Read mission victory conditions. You don't always have to complete every round. Once you have completed objectives some missions end at that point. Some don't.
It took my friend as long to explain that game as it did to play the first round. The game is pretty interesting but the learning curve was rough. I found that putting all the non gallery stuff under the playmat with just the relevant part poking out helps a lot to keep the visual complexity down.
Game sure is pretty though.
What's up with this game? I thought it was supposed to be a streamlined Glory to Rome, which is not Uno, but it's not the hardest teach, either.
I didn't get to play Cyclades this game night, but I did finally win my first game of Istanbul with a random board layout and 5 players. Things seem more chaotic and varied with more than 2 players in that game.
I got through some of the Cyclades rules though, so I'm hoping to try it as a 2-player game soon.
I got through some of the Cyclades rules though, so I'm hoping to try it as a 2-player game soon.
antiquegamer
Member
Mistfall show up last week. I gave solo game a try last night and it was fun but all the iconography just make your head hurt. Also rulebook is terrible. I don't know why at this point that the industry doesn't adopt turn break down on the back page with page number where you can find the detail info inside. It would make playing game with complicated rule and timing a lot less painful.
Game looks great and for small company they did a great job. Cards were nicely pre-sort, numbered and easy to organize. (Unlike Legendary Encounters which are produced by big card company). I enjoy what I play so far but unlike Xenoshyft I don't think I can get my daughter or anyone else to play with, the game is like LOTR LCG and Mage Knight board game have a lovechild.
Does anyone have strong opinions they'd like to share about Sheriff of Nottingham? I thought I had almost everything non-expansion that I might want to pick up, but it looks like an interesting party game to have available.
3-5 is kind of a tight player limit since I'm often 2 or 6+, but it might work.
3-5 is kind of a tight player limit since I'm often 2 or 6+, but it might work.
It's light fun, but the path to victory becomes very clear after just a few plays, so, yeah, not one I'd own.
I finally added 7 Wonders (+Leaders) to my group's playlist this weekend. It was one of the first games we played, which might have been a mistake, because so many others were ignored in favor of another round of 7 Wonders...
One of the best party games I own. Would never get rid of it. Play with the variant that the person who sneaks the least contraband in takes an auto-L and it becomes even better.
There's also enough cards to play more than 5 players if you find any sort of closeable sack/container that would hold a few of the cards.
And suddenly my problem with the game is solved...
Seems to be new version of older game https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/22237/hart-der-grenze what was fun partygame to play for the start of the gamenight
nicoga3000
Saint Nic
More Mage Knight was played last night! What an amazing game. Definitely not for everyone, but what an incredible experience that game can be.
Also, I cancelled my Kingdom Death: Monster preorder. I was all sorts of excited about it at first, but after thinking more about it, $250+shipping on one game is pretty steep. There are other things I can be spending my money on right now. On top of that, with my HUGE Galaxy Defenders order having come in last week, I realized that I don't really need a game like KD:M on my plate right now. Once reviews are in and people have had time with it, I'll make a decision. From what we HAVE seen, I still think the game looks great. But the fact that a LOT of the cost is going to be due to the KD miniatures is a bit of a tough pill to swallow since I got out of miniature painting/modelling and don't really care about that stuff anymore.
Also, I cancelled my Kingdom Death: Monster preorder. I was all sorts of excited about it at first, but after thinking more about it, $250+shipping on one game is pretty steep. There are other things I can be spending my money on right now. On top of that, with my HUGE Galaxy Defenders order having come in last week, I realized that I don't really need a game like KD:M on my plate right now. Once reviews are in and people have had time with it, I'll make a decision. From what we HAVE seen, I still think the game looks great. But the fact that a LOT of the cost is going to be due to the KD miniatures is a bit of a tough pill to swallow since I got out of miniature painting/modelling and don't really care about that stuff anymore.
With all this recent talk about GD I bought my own copy last week via Amazon. Played it this weekend and damn that game is rough. Ran two different groups through the starter scenario and someone died each time. The first game we played wrong with multiple promotions within a game and I had also stopped spawning signals when the original pool ran out so it was a lot easier than it should've been. The second game we did things right and though we got 2 teleporters down, we lost half the crew for the auto-loss.
I feel like there should be more of a penalty for being flanked but I couldn't find anything in the rule book regarding that.
Also got to play mage knight for the first time (it was a long weekend of gaming). Played two incomplete co-op games but stayed up overnight to run a solo conquest when everyone else went to bed. Absolutely love the game and just put in a CSI order for base + two expansions.
What's the average score for completing a solo game? I ended with 190 and ran a second solo game last night when I got home on TTS and also got 190 there.
I feel like there should be more of a penalty for being flanked but I couldn't find anything in the rule book regarding that.
Also got to play mage knight for the first time (it was a long weekend of gaming). Played two incomplete co-op games but stayed up overnight to run a solo conquest when everyone else went to bed. Absolutely love the game and just put in a CSI order for base + two expansions.
What's the average score for completing a solo game? I ended with 190 and ran a second solo game last night when I got home on TTS and also got 190 there.
Full mage night game is on TTS? What other board games are on there?
nicoga3000
Saint Nic
If you played all the rules 100% correctly on your first game AND scored 190, that's QUITE the accomplishment. BGG seems to feel that 150+ is no joke (taking out a level 8 city is a feat).
You should verify that you played out the multiple enemy combats correctly and whatnot. It's SUPER nutty when you start hitting 4+ enemies. If you did, congratulations on a killer score!
It's only the base so no expansions. I don't know what else is there. I ran through the workshop and subbed everything interesting back in December. I just use it for PACG with friends in Dallas atm.
It wasn't 100% correct but it wasn't wrong enough that the outcome would change. First game I played as Goldyx. The last turn involved flying from a city next to a keep so I kept 2 more cards than normal before walking in and burning my crystal bank to destroy the defenders. I ended in round 5 or day of the last day/night cycle so even if I could not in that one go I would have plenty of time to recover and finish the stragglers. Other rules I got wrong were obtaining spells from defeating mage towers (pulled random instead of from offer) and putting elite units on even instead of odd. The biggest thing that helped in the solo play is I counted the dummy as a player so did 4 unit offer and 4 source dice. Units I used in The end were from conquering white city and using influence to generate new ones before assaulting the level 8 red city.
In the second play I caught the mistakes I made because I actually read the rule book instead of going off my friend's teachings so I never benefitted from both city and keep, used 3 dice/units, etc. I played Arythea which was a lot of fun. Getting the use wounds sideways skill for +2 once per turn early was crazy and changed my play style completely. In a clean hand I would intentionally take hits to use them as a +2 counterattack. I kept so many wounds I had 8 at the end of that game for -16 lol. Game 2 took til 7 cards left in the dummy player deck and probably would not have been possible if the dummy was not Goldyx and randoming the flight skill out in the mid game because the core tiles I drew had many swamps. Should also mention that I thought cities were never revealed so I went into every city blind.
Also just learned about immunity to non attack effects for resistant monsters/units but I don't think it affected the games except for me choosing not to buy golems because I thought they would still eat wounds with 8 toughness.
AbsolutBro
Member
All sorts of stuff. Played X-Com with a friend, along with Shadows of Brimstone (running two characters each). Last Night on Earth and Fortune and Glory also.
Also a bunch of stuff for RPGs, which is kind of cool.
nicoga3000
Saint Nic
This is the combat I have to resolve after work. The Draconium (sp?) on the left of the city card is a rampaging enemy that I have to deal with. The 4 units on top are the ones guarding the city. Still trying to decide if I'll actually be able to conquer the city before this third night ends or not.
Combat gets complex when dealing with resists, grouping enemies, combat order, etc.
Yup. I had to overkill the two non fire-resistant enemies with flame wave because I couldn't include either of the other two without losing half damage on the spell when I beat the lvl 8 blue city on arythea. Didn't have enough damage to kill everything so I also had to spend a second turn assaulting to finish off the resistant to everything defenders. Good thing the units don't respawn lol.
That set is pretty nasty though. I would try to range attack the dragon first if you have the time instead of provoking into the city. Catapults would be amazing and let you take out one possibly two of the summoners if you had a supplementary siege attack. Alternatively the dragon is only 3 wounds for you in the late game since it's 12/4. If you can take out the city with your firepower I would ignore the dragon. Need to be able to block the ice dude and any summons that would cause paralysis though, or have units with enough hp to soak their attacks. If you can't in one turn then that dragons needs to be dealt with because the wounds will add up without healing.
A question for the experts in here:
Can anyone recommend games that work for 6-10 year old kids while not being offensively dull for adults as well? I'm thinking there's a bit too much reading for Family Fluxx to work, but I'm currently toying with Dobble, Dixit and maybe No Thanks!
And I might throw in Uno. Because it's Uno.
Anything else I might have overlooked that'd fit the bill?
Can anyone recommend games that work for 6-10 year old kids while not being offensively dull for adults as well? I'm thinking there's a bit too much reading for Family Fluxx to work, but I'm currently toying with Dobble, Dixit and maybe No Thanks!
And I might throw in Uno. Because it's Uno.
Anything else I might have overlooked that'd fit the bill?
Alcotholic
Banned
Snake oil is awesome. It doesn't commit the crimes that cards against humanity and apples to apples do and it's a lot of fun for anyone.
I got two kids in that range. You need games that are easy to explain, potentially not too much reading, and easy to maintain state, in my opinion. Good lookin' pieces & cards help too. Dixit requires a little too much creativitity to work well at that age but YMMV.
The big hits in our house over the past couple of years - all of these are pretty easy to teach & for kids to grasp IMO.
King of Tokyo. "Take That!" gameplay, with the randomness of dice. Some reading on cards, but not too much. Looks great on the table & quick to grasp.
Carcassonne (without farmer rule potentially). The farmer rule is by far the hardest for folk to get to grips with as it requires much more planning ahead & double-checking. So we skip it.
Blokus. Really simple tile laying/area control game, good spatial awareness, really simple rules again, can get cut-throat..
Escape! The Curse of the temple! 15 minute long co-operative dice chucker in an Indiana Jones adventure. Totally different to the others listed, bit more 'state' to check & maintain for younger kids, but it's a great experience, and easy to scale up/down in difficulty.
Hey! That's my fish! Another quick to learn, hard to master game involving fish & penguins that looks good on table & is deceptively tactical & cut-throat when played with adults.
Survive Escape From Atlantis! A classic for a reason. Looks /great/ on the table, has a good mix of co-operation combined with cut throatness - you sometimes need to help other people along the way - and it's pretty easy to explain. My kids love this.
Rhino hero's the current buzz in our house - really simple but fun dexterity game by Haba. Worth a look too, strictly a filler, but fun.
nicoga3000
Saint Nic
The dragon was in such a spot that assaulting the city meant provoking the dragon. So I just went balls wild with it.
I tanked 12 damage from the dragon (gotta love cold fire) and use siege attacks to kill the guy on the top right. I didn't have enough siege damage to kill him and one of the Illusionists (I had a unit that gave me Siege Ice but I needed to use him to get a blue mana token and a blue crystal for the rest of the fight). Because it was a city, I couldn't use any ranged attacks at all against the 4 dudes in the city, so that sucked.
Illusionists summoned a swift dude and a brutal dude. So I ended up having to eat a bunch of wounds from them. The dude on the top left there was a MAJOR bitch. I had to eat 10 damage + the poison. 2 of my units with 4 armor took 2 wounds a piece (1 for the damage and 1 for the poison), that left me with 2 damage. So I took 1 wound + 1 poison wound. Rough.
My attack phase came and I was able to take down the Illusionists as well, but that dude on the top left...Again, 8 physical resistance was WAY too much to deal with. I didn't have enough blue mana available to use my Ice Block 3 skill (it reduces the armor of the enemy 3 to a minimum of 1). Also, I had to use it on the dragon (who has ice resist anyways and wouldn't be affected by the armor reduction).
My end result was that I was only able to conquer the level 5 city (the level 8 had that one guy left and I was out of cards). After subtracting wounds, I ended with 140 points. Had I conquered that last city, I would have been somewhere around 180 or so.
I can see where some people feel combat is a bit fiddly in this game. It's got a LOT of rules and a LOT of nuances. Remember what blocks what, what combines with what, what affects what, etc. can be VERY demanding. Resistance rules, combining blocking/attacking and what impacts that has, wound rules...It's fun, but after 2 games in a row, I am shelving it to start my Shadows of Brimstone adventure. I'm going to run a dungeon of that, finish learning Galaxy Defenders, and then either try another MK conquest or dig into Suburbia.
After getting back into board games, I've found myself caring very little about video games.
Yeah, I'm hoping the artwork will spark the imagination there. We'll see.
I hadn't thought of that; I already have Carcasonne, but while they'd probably be fine with the domino-ness of it, I thought getting them to understand the scoring would be hard. Dropping the farmer rule (so we'd just have cloisters, cities and roads?) would be great.
This one was also mentioned when I asked elsewhere, it does seem like a great choice.
Also noted your other suggestions, there's plenty to muse on.
nicoga3000
Saint Nic
My wife (who is not really a gamer) enjoys Carcasonne without the farmer rule. It makes the game more about "the moment" and less about the "what will happen 10+ turns from now?" To be honest, it's my preferred way to play it at the moment.
Geekway 2016 registration opened this morning. Event is May 19-22 2016, capped at 1600 tickets.
If you can make the midwest, this is the con to go to. Good vibes all around and nothing but board games to play and play and play some more.
http://geekwaytothewest.com/
If you can make the midwest, this is the con to go to. Good vibes all around and nothing but board games to play and play and play some more.
http://geekwaytothewest.com/
Exactly.
I introduced Carc as basically just a relaxing tile builder without any scoring to my kids when they were younger.. It was a good stepping stone to proper rules - "no son, all the sides must match" etc.. It was actually a great way to calm down my rambunctious son at the time - draw a tile, build cities, build roads together.
They definitely enjoy it with scoring too - it's really not hard to grasp "complete a castle to score it", "complete a road to score it", "churches get a point for each tile around it". Farmers just complicate it.
It's not hard to teach, it's just not easy to explain the strategies. It looks like a light came, but every single card can be used a bunch of different ways, and there are a ton of different ways to work towards victory.
Fantastic game though, it's my suprise favorite from all the games I got at Gen Con.
RobotNinjaHornets
Banned
So some of you may remember that I posted here asking for holiday suggestions
I ended up ignoring the advice given
, and getting Battlestar Galactica because my dad wanted to be a Cylon
and Galaxy Trucker + The Big Expansion because a short time after posting I found Shut Up & Sit Down
and they made it look super fun. Which it is.
Since then I've also bought Carcasonne, Mascarade and Cosmic Encounter for similar reasons. And today I bought an expansion for The Resistance.
Oh god it's taking over my life help
I ended up ignoring the advice given
though I did already have The Resistance
we didn't touch it because oh god rules
Matt Lees is rad
Since then I've also bought Carcasonne, Mascarade and Cosmic Encounter for similar reasons. And today I bought an expansion for The Resistance.
Oh god it's taking over my life help
I love that there is a teaser trailer for Pandemic Legacy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwCN-cgMu9k