The Board Game Thread

[Chriskool]

Will WotC license Arkham Horror games and skin them for Shadows Over Innistrad (now that it's confirmed they're parroting Lovecraft's universe for the story)? I hate those... games.

EDIT: Dominant Species is ace. It's a pretty brutal game and learning all of the cards is fairly important to playing at higher levels, but it's thematic and has great territorial control aspects. One of the few games I will set aside time to play when given the chance.

 

[Ferritovore]

Dominant Species really taps into that "playing around the bomb / counterspell you know your opponent has" skill. Except you don't have to guess whether they have it, it's clearly right there on the card row... and anyone might grab it. When a bomb flips out you either ensure that you get first dibs, or you spend the round angling to be a poor target for it. Then you can relax and play a somewhat more euro feeling turn next round.

 

[James Stevenson]

Finally played Dixit the other night. It was great Jason brought me it for Christmas and I hadn't gotten to play till now. After Dixit we played Balderdash, and that was super great! Simple fun games, not overly gamey or strategic. My kind of thing.

 

[Eric Chan]

Balderdash is probably my favourite board game, full stop. It's essentially Creative Writing: The Game, and isn't that from off from Apples to Apples where you get to write-in all of your answers. The better you are at bullshitting, the more rewarding this game gets. I imagine most people on this very forum - by definition, you guys are writing, a lot - would be good at it, and get a kick out of it.

 

[Aston]

I love balderdash too, it's one of the few games that has made me cry with laughter.

 

[FlowerSunRain]

I am generally disinterested in party games, but Balderdash is pretty fun. However, Eat Poop You Cat has replaced it as my party game of choice. Bonus points for being 100% free.

 

[James Stevenson]

I am generally disinterested in party games, but Balderdash is pretty fun. However, Eat Poop You Cat has replaced it as my party game of choice. Bonus points for being 100% free.

Oh my god, this sounds like something I've got to try

 

[Eric Chan]

From the description on boardgamegeek, it sounds like Telestrations? That one's also a hoot, and works really well once you have eight players or more. There's hardly any "game" to be had, but it's not unlike the Draw Something thread we participated in... if you had to base your drawings solely off other people's sketches.

 

[Diakonov]

If you have an Xbox, Playstation, or access to Steam, the Jackbox Party Pack is pretty solid ($12), but one of its games is amazing: Drawful. To give you a quick idea...

1. Each player connects to the game via their smartphone (it's easy to do and works well).
2. The game will send each player a phrase, and the players draw it using their finger.
3. Without fail, the drawings will be extremely poor. There is no eraser.
4. Afterward, the game will randomly choose a player's drawing to display on the main screen, and the other players input into their phone either (A) the phrase that they think was supposed to be the original phrase, or (B) a phrase they think they can fool everyone else with. Which explains the following round...
5. Everyone's responses are shown anonymously on the main screen, along with the correct phrase, and everyone chooses on their phone which one they think is supposed to be correct. If you choose the correct phrase, both you and the drawer get points, but if you choose someone else's phrase, only that player receives points.
6. Repeat Step 4 until all players' pictures have been played.

The game is cruel but hilarious. It will purposely give you phrases that are suited to bad drawings...like "pancake bees." It will also intentionally misspell words to throw people off in the last round.

Also, finally picked up Dominant Species! We played one 3-player game and were so enamored that we immediately played again with 4-players.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I love the intentional misspelling

 

[Meltyman]

Finally played Dixit the other night. It was great Jason brought me it for Christmas and I hadn't gotten to play till now. After Dixit we played Balderdash, and that was super great! Simple fun games, not overly gamey or strategic. My kind of thing.

You might wanna try codenames also, it's really addictive and simple.
Lay out 25 words in a 5x5 grid and make two teams.
One captain for each team.
Then take a card that represents the grid you just made. This card has colors for each team and neutral which ain't points for either team and one assassin.
Then taking turns the captain gives a one word hint and a number.
The aim is to say a word that relates to many of the words in your teams color, for instance if the grid has bone and food in your teams color, you could say "dog 2".
Then your teammates would put a finger on a word and if it's right you get a point, and they can pick another word.
If they picked the opponent teams color the opponent would get a point and the turn ends.
If they pick a neutral color the turn just passes, and if they picked the assassin your team would lose.

Confusing to explain without the actual cards in front of us, but it is really easy to learn and REALLY addicting, i have never had a bad time with that game.
Finnish language is a bit easy compared to English, because we can put many words in a word.
Something like "koiranputkipistooli" (a plant that is made into a gun) means "dog","tube","pistol" , so it's quite easy to give additional hints

 

[James Stevenson]

You might wanna try codenames also, it's really addictive and simple.
Lay out 25 words in a 5x5 grid and make two teams.
One captain for each team.
Then take a card that represents the grid you just made. This card has colors for each team and neutral which ain't points for either team and one assassin.
Then taking turns the captain gives a one word hint and a number.
The aim is to say a word that relates to many of the words in your teams color, for instance if the grid has bone and food in your teams color, you could say "dog 2".
Then your teammates would put a finger on a word and if it's right you get a point, and they can pick another word.
If they picked the opponent teams color the opponent would get a point and the turn ends.
If they pick a neutral color the turn just passes, and if they picked the assassin your team would lose.

Confusing to explain without the actual cards in front of us, but it is really easy to learn and REALLY addicting, i have never had a bad time with that game.
Finnish language is a bit easy compared to English, because we can put many words in a word.
Something like "koiranputkipistooli" (a plant that is made into a gun) means "dog","tube","pistol" , so it's quite easy to give additional hints

This sounds cool!

 

[FlowerSunRain]

If you've ever wondered about the question: "How much does a game's theme matter?" I suggested you look into the game Weiss Schwarz. As someone who is really into games, I find this title strangely jarring.

If you've never heard of it, Weiss Schwarz is a CCG. The premise is that you make a deck filled with characters from various Japanese games/comics/cartoons and face off against your friend. This game seems like it would be theme central, but its completely the opposite. The mechanics of the game are so abstract, they don't seem to be representing anything at all. This is further compounded by fact that the mechanics of the cards don't in any way represent who the characters depicted on them are.

The reason for this seems to be so that you can make a deck made completely of different versions of your favorite character, but this comes at the expense of the fact that as far as the game is concerned, who your character is means basically nothing. Further, this is done so that characters from drastically different fictional worlds with vastly different types of conflicts can be in the same game. However, this level of abstraction means that there is really no narrative going on at all. The only interest being derived from the game comes purely from the mechanical interactions. As a lover of games with boring/irrelevant/non-existent themes, this shouldn't bother me, but the key piece of attraction of this game is the artwork and subject material, so it makes me strangely uncomfortable. In a game marketed in this way, the theme should matter. Its not even like its just a few cases where some characters were cludged to fit a mechanical niche, since the mechanics don't seem to represent anything at all, its impossible for a card to "feel" right. They all leave a vague sense of "why does this card do this?" Add to this that the same character will often have 10 different cards all of which are just gridfilling deck slots and you've got a game that means nothing.

The mechanics are actually pretty interesting, if a little light, so its not that I'm disappointed by the quality of the product. Instead I feel like I've been lied to, in a way, although no promise was actually made that it would make sense. The premise itself didn't make sense, so I shouldn't feel let down. But I do anyway. I'm strangely appreciative, now, that in MTG dragons fly, lightning bolts kill grizzly bears, tutors teach you spells, and elves are connected to the land.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Ok, I had to look up how the game is played. Seems pretty convoluted, but the level mechanic is actually a neat way to catch up, as the person on the back foot will level first and thus play his better cards at an earlier stage in the game. I swear though, I lose it every time I see a card game which measures power in the 1000's o_O

 

[Meltyman]

If you've ever wondered about the question: "How much does a game's theme matter?" I suggested you look into the game Weiss Schwarz. As someone who is really into games, I find this title strangely jarring.

If you are really into games i would imagine you have tried Dominion.
How do you find that title?
It lacks the theme but the game play is really awesome (with 2 players).

 

[FlowerSunRain]

I've played a lot of Dominion and its a decent game. Its not my usual type of game, but its very playable. I can usually stand 3 or 4 hands before I get bored. They key difference between Dominion's lack of theme and Weiss Schwarz lack of theme is that Dominion presents it theme as being irrelevant, while Weiss Schwarz presents its theme as its biggest selling point. I'd also note that Dominion cards have better mechanics/theme integration then WS: Pirates Ships steal treasure and bury it for later, Witches curse people, the Swindler makes people take cards they don't want, etc. There are plenty of "mechanical gridfiller" cards in Dominion too, but many of the cards manage to mechanically portray what they represent.

 

[Aston]

Have any of you guys seen Codex? It's a new game being kickstartered by David Sirlin, of Yomi/Puzzle Strike/Pandante fame. It looks pretty interesting in that it combines the deck construction of MTG with the deckbuilding of Dominion - your starting deck is 10 cards and you have a sideboard of 72, of which you can add 2 to your discard pile per turn. There are a few things I don't love about it but that central mechanic looks super cool.

 

[safra]

Have any of you guys seen Codex?

I haven't until now, but that sounds really cool.

 

[Diakonov]

Personally, I love Dominion, but I played a shitload on isotropic back when it existed, so the game for me has mostly evolved to "assess the best combination at the beginning of the game, then see how it pans out." Depending on certain setups it could change and become more dynamic, but it seems to mostly be about who can assess the board better initially. I'm OK with this: if you have an experienced opponent the games go quick. A 4-player game would add dynamics, but I'd likely become impatient.

I have an unopened Weiss Schwarz deck from a Magic prerelease raffle years ago. It's worth a solid $30 now. I should probably eBay it soon.

I think I've crossed the event horizon on board game acquisition. I've purchased 12 games in the last month : /

 

[Jonas]

I feel like Dominion mostly plays out like a solitaire game, and Star Realms, Ascension and Legendary are more interesting deckbuilders for me.

Confusing to explain without the actual cards in front of us, but it is really easy to learn and REALLY addicting, i have never had a bad time with that game.
Finnish language is a bit easy compared to English, because we can put many words in a word.
Something like "koiranputkipistooli" (a plant that is made into a gun) means "dog","tube","pistol" , so it's quite easy to give additional hints

It's the same in swedish, we've come to the conclusion to either only use english clues, or make swedish cards. Or not being allowed to use multiple words together when you make your clue, since it kinda defeats the purpose.

 

[Eric Chan]

Dominion was one of our groups' board games of choice back in the day, and we like that games played out really quickly, which was a welcome change from its contemporaries, like Settlers of Catan, Power Grid, or Agricola, that could easily eat 2.5 hours at a time. I agree with Jonas that Dominion leans more toward the solitaire end of the spectrum, but we still got a lot out of Dominion and its expansions. As far as newer, better deckbuilding games go: I've never played a physical copy of the game, but I like Ascension on the iPad a lot - it solves the lack of player interaction but giving players two primary routes to victory, both of which are randomized and on a central 'board'. This allows perceptive players to deny their opponents key cards by either taking them for themselves, or simply exiling them using special abilities.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Ascension has very little player interaction, even less than Dominion actually, but I really like it anyway. It's a little lighter than Dominion, but the thing I like most about it is that it doesn't really matter what you or your opponent is doing, so you can chat away while you are playing. During most games people stop talking to focus on the game, not here. The original base game and the earlier expansions got the ratio between rune cards and monsters wrong though, so I'ld start with one of the later base games. Rise of Vigil is a good one imo.

 

[Jonas]

Good to know. Like Eric, I've only played Ascension on the ipad, but it felt like you actually had to think a bit on ehat cards you allowed your opponents to take.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Good to know. Like Eric, I've only played Ascension on the ipad, but it felt like you actually had to think a bit on ehat cards you allowed your opponents to take.

Oh, certainly. I mean, you do try to banish / defeat / acquire cards in the center row that would be interesting for your opponent, but not at the cost of your own deck. There are pretty good rewards for drafting synergies, so if I'm Mechana, for example, I'm going to buy that Mechana construct rather than sniping that Lifebound card that is important for you. I feel you get the most interaction from banishing effects, because that's when it pays off if you kept track of who's ahead and what card would be best for them, so you can banish that card. At the same time, because it's basically a random stack, you never know what will turn up instead, and you can't interact with your opponent on their turn, so the impact your actions have on your opponents are still relatively small. Which I like. I actually take out the few monsters that allow you to steal a card from your opponent, because the game isn't about that, and that moment when your hard earned six rune card gets stolen causes real feel bad moments.

 

[Jonas]

Have any of you guys seen Codex? It's a new game being kickstartered by David Sirlin, of Yomi/Puzzle Strike/Pandante fame. It looks pretty interesting in that it combines the deck construction of MTG with the deckbuilding of Dominion - your starting deck is 10 cards and you have a sideboard of 72, of which you can add 2 to your discard pile per turn. There are a few things I don't love about it but that central mechanic looks super cool.

I agree that it looks really cool, but I'm kinda allergic to thinly veiled 'homages' to other games. I kinda wanna back it, though. I have a kickstarter problem.

Oh, certainly. I mean, you do try to banish / defeat / acquire cards in the center row that would be interesting for your opponent, but not at the cost of your own deck. There are pretty good rewards for drafting synergies, so if I'm Mechana, for example, I'm going to buy that Mechana construct rather than sniping that Lifebound card that is important for you. I feel you get the most interaction from banishing effects, because that's when it pays off if you kept track of who's ahead and what card would be best for them, so you can banish that card. At the same time, because it's basically a random stack, you never know what will turn up instead, and you can't interact with your opponent on their turn, so the impact your actions have on your opponents are still relatively small. Which I like. I actually take out the few monsters that allow you to steal a card from your opponent, because the game isn't about that, and that moment when your hard earned six rune card gets stolen causes real feel bad moments.

I see what you mean, and understand it. I can really see taking out the stealing monsters, that's just bad form.