Main Menu

The Board Game Thread

Started by radiator, 21 February, 2014, 03:13:04 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

radiator

My local book/board game shop is having a crazy sale today - 30% off everything in-store, so I nabbed copies of Dead of Winter, Catan (finally!) and Star Realms for an absolute steal. Had to restrain myself or else I would have bought several more games.

I'm going on a cabin weekend with a group of friends in a couple of weeks time, so have been picking up a few large group/party style games on the off chance they might deign to play something other than Cards Against Humanity for once - The Resistance (the team deduction/secret identities game which sounds like fantastic fun - if the group are into it), a cool-looking simple bluffing game called Skulls and Monikers, a modern spin on 'Celebrity' or 'Time's Up!' which sounds like it could be a hoot.




ThryllSeekyr

I know lil-Bub. Kind of sick when they do that to a kitten.

Emp

The Red Dragon Inn....if you like fucking yer mates up in a fantasy setting this is the game for you. Original game is for 4 but expansions allow you to add to the players. The idea of the game is to bankrupt other payers or make them pass out after a hard days dungeon crawl. As is usual D&D, the usual suspects are available, the rogue, the wizard and so on, each with their own abilities.

Satanist

Just got the Mrs Ticket to Ride for Mothers day so looking forward to a game with the family on Sunday. Never played it but have only heard good reports.
Hmm, just pretend I wrote something witty eh?

CalHab

Quote from: Satanist on 04 March, 2016, 01:01:19 PM
Just got the Mrs Ticket to Ride for Mothers day so looking forward to a game with the family on Sunday. Never played it but have only heard good reports.

There's an app version of Ticket to Ride, which is good for learning the rules as well as being an enjoyable game itself.

Satanist

Cheers bud I'll check that out, and I've just ordered the Ghostbusters board game for the kids birthdays. This will be our first co-op game so should stop/increase the complaints when someone loses.
Hmm, just pretend I wrote something witty eh?

Keef Monkey

Have ordered the XCOM board game (I wasn't going to buy any more games this year, but managed to get a great deal on it through work so would have been silly not to), it looks very swish and very cool. Hopefully I'll be better at it than I am at the videogame because I suuuuuuuuck at that.

Having a bit of a board game night with the missus tonight because she hasn't had a chance to get her Carcassonne out of the box yet and wants to give it a spin. Have only played the videogame version but at least that means we'll have a rough idea what's going on! Hoping to squeeze in a game of Pandemic Legacy too if time allows. Board games are great.

It's nice that Videogaiden have board game reviews in their new series, always really enjoyed Rab Florence's board game reviews online so is a nice addition - https://youtu.be/ecVDzKzLrhk?t=917

radiator

#397
QuoteThere's an app version of Ticket to Ride, which is good for learning the rules as well as being an enjoyable game itself.

Yep - I almost always buy the app versions of games I have, mainly for the tutorial feature. Most games are really simple but sound incredibly complicated in written rules form (TtR and Catan are examples of this - so beautifully simple in practice but reading the rules make them seem like you're studying for an exam!). Interactive tutorials are far more preferable.

I also highly recommend Youtube videos that explain the rules or even have a demonstration playthrough - Dice Tower/Tabletop/Shut Up & Sit Down etc etc. I regularly have them on in the background while I work and find its by far the best way to get the gist of how a game plays.

Let us know how you get on with TtR, Satanist - it's a really fun game. My family love it. There's a UK map pack now too.

QuoteHave only played the videogame version but at least that means we'll have a rough idea what's going on!

My advice would be to play without using 'farmers' to begin with - in my experience they are the one aspect of the game that is a little tricky for new players to grasp (it seems I'm not alone in this as the new edition of Carc lists farmers as an optional feature - along with River and Abbot - in the rulebook rather than as part of the 'core' rules).

I remember a mate telling me about a bad experience he had once when trying to introduce a friend of his to Carcassonne - apparently she was a notoriously bad loser, and when she lost the game promptly flipped out, said the rules were 'broken' and then demanded they all play another game using her 'better' rules (whereby each sort of tile was distributed equally to each player to form a hand, totally removing the core blind-drawing mechanic of the game). What a nightmare!  :lol:

Timothy

But farmers are the best part of the game! There's big points in them thar fields!

TordelBack

Yep, our games usually come down to a death struggle over farms between the missus and me, all our meeples lying prone as we try to join up our fields while the Boy racks up cheap city and road points with his ambulant army. Definitely the most fun part of the game.

ThryllSeekyr

#400
I went to a friends house for little birthday get together. Same bloke who drove me to school reunion back in August 17, 2013. There were other old school aquaintences. They didn't bring their wives & children, (Because I was there?) except for the one having the birthday who holding the get together at there house. Three people I haven't seen since that reunion. One person I haven't seen in ten years, and another in almost 20 years.

We ate lots of expensive cheese that is shaped like a cake and hard to spell properly and drank gallons of honey beer and then there was pizza.

First we played poker, which I only had inkling of understanding through past experience with Red Dead Redemption. At first, it was only Black Jack that I was more familiar with from that very same game, but I soon could recall having to beat a certain identity at a certain location to obtain a certain piece of outfitting and this did happen only after fluking the win.

I still don't understand Poker enough to make a living at the Treasury Casino, but I played enough last night to perhaps getting me interested in learning better online.

Then we played[ Cards Against Humanity....funny stuff. There was one more memorable stage of that game where the question about -words to the effect- Bruce Willis police detective character learn in that M. Night Shyalaman's film about what it was about himself all along. One answer, two cards, chosen by the young progeny of the one who invited me. It said something about saxophone solo which I and everyone else thought was amazing and I wanted to add this was like that part from the original Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy where a ship wrecked Ford & Arthur were trying to finally get the ultimate answer to life the universe & everything using early man & home made scramble board & tiles with every letter of the alphabet scratched on to them. Not that I'm comparing the boy to caveman, but all of us really.

I tried to explain the last bit while everybody burst out laughing when the Bruce Willis/Saxophone related card was read. About how I found that answer and the whole card game related to finding out that 7 times 8 is 48 (Or something like that!), but I couldn't get a word in edge wise because they all do talk a lot, but in a more academically based, but drunken manner.

Can you imagine that much more than one, but more schooled versions of myself on this message board.

Lastly, before the others arrived, as the inviter, had to pick me up from my abode first. We played some board game that reminded me of cross between Risk and Civilisation (If the latter was ever a  board game!). I forge that name, but there was a opportunity to play through several epoch's. I was the Egyptian, they were the Persians & the Greeks & Iberians.

One of them won by points and I won by world domination, but the game was mostly over my head. Beginners luck.

For a present, I gave them one of my spare game manuals the latest edition of Werewolf the Apocalypse. His boy, seemed interested and I hope the book never finds it way into their fireplace.

TordelBack

Damnit but that sounds like an arsom evening. We all need more of that in our lives.

radiator


Quote from: Tordelback on 05 March, 2016, 09:01:54 AM
Yep, our games usually come down to a death struggle over farms between the missus and me, all our meeples lying prone as we try to join up our fields while the Boy racks up cheap city and road points with his ambulant army. Definitely the most fun part of the game.

Yeah, but they're also a bit hard to explain and take the game from a casual game that anyone can pick up in five minutes to something a bit more complicated. People always seem to think I'm cheating when I play a farmer!

Just back from my weekend away. Skull was great fun, a really neat little game, but the big winner was Monikers, which went down an absolute storm. If you're after a raucous party game for a large-ish group, I can't recommend this game enough, it had everyone howling with laughter - it actually seems designed to foster running jokes amongst the group and forces you to think on your feet. Cannot wait to play it again.

ThryllSeekyr

Quote from: Tordelback on 06 March, 2016, 09:38:54 AM
Damnit but that sounds like an arsom evening. We all need more of that in our lives.

While it good to see them face to face, I wouldn't go so far as to say it was arsom. Just a break in my regularity.

TordelBack

If I could gather up all my old gaming pals and have an evening of beer and games I would count it arsom indeed. We haven't done it in more than 20 years, and while we do get together in various combinations every year or so, it's usually for drink and moaning about politics local and global, and those damn kids with their hair and that noise they like.  And yet when one or two of us do end up in a game together in some other context, it's always great fun.

Long afternoons of dice and digression seem impossible when the 7 of us live on three different continents rather than a 15 minute walk apart, and are pulled hither and thither by jobs, partners and kids. Ah, saudade! (who says comics aren't educational?).