Board Game Night!

[NeoMagicWarrior]

Played the Resident Evil card game this weekend. Also, sounds like we're picking up 7 Wonders and Dominion some time soon.

Dominion is really good. optimum for groups of 3-4 players, but with expansions, we've played 7-8.

Actually sat down and played dominion all day yesterday, with a game of Catan to end the night

[phoenix1967]

Played the Resident Evil card game this weekend. Also, sounds like we're picking up 7 Wonders and Dominion some time soon.

Dominion is really good. optimum for groups of 3-4 players, but with expansions, we've played 7-8.

Actually sat down and played dominion all day yesterday, with a game of Catan to end the night

I have Dominion and all the expansions. It's also a great 2-player game.

Not a fan of Catan. I've never been able to figure out how to strategize in that game other than trying to get on a 6 or 8 (and having no one roll a 6 or 8 for 50 turns!) or trying to get longest road (only to get overtaken a turn or 2 before the end). And I suck at games that involve trading goods with other players.

[wildbil52]

Played a couple new games last Wednesday and I loved them both. 

The first game was Penny Arcade Rumble in R'lyeh.  It's a deck building game that is similar to Dominion and Ascension but with a much lighter feel.  I'm not a regular Penny Arcade reader like some of my friends are but that didn't take away from my enjoyment of the game.  If you like deck builders, I'm sure you would enjoy it.  One of the players had never played a deck builder and it was easy enough for him to catch on within about a half dozen turns.

The other game I played was Survive.  this game has been around for a LONG time but I had never heard of it.  The large square board is covered in hexes and three types of tiles are placed randomly within the center of the board.  Players then place their meeples on all the tiles and 5 sea monsters are placed in pre-determined spots on the board.  Then each player may place one boat on the edge of the land tiles they just placed in clockwise order until all boats are placed.  There is an island on each corner of the board and the idea is to get your meeples safely to one of the islands.  At the end of every turn, each player removes one land tile (displacing the meeple onto in into the water if there is a person on that tile.  The tile will either be an action that happens right away like a shark, whale, sea monster, etc, or it will be a tile that the player can keep and use at a later time like a dolphin that moves one swimmer 3 spaces or a card that protects you from a whale attack (I call this the Get out of Whale Free Card).

I loved both games and I would recommend them to anyone.

[phoenix1967]

Played and really enjoyed King of Tokyo, Power Grid: The First Sparks, and Alien Frontiers. I played all 3 in Columbus at the Origins Game Fair a few weeks ago. I bought King of Tokyo and went online to order Alien Frontiers. I'm going to wait on Power Grid: The First Sparks until I know I can get it with a batch of games through Thoughthammer & take advantage of free shipping (King of Tokyo and Alien Frontiers have been on back-order for MONTHS at Thoughthammer!).

King of Tokyo plays out like a Yahtzee king-of-the-hill type of game. Up to 6 players choose fictional Godzilla-type characters and battle with dice and can buy cards to gain points and control of Tokyo. Last man standing or the 1st player to 20 points wins. It was designed by Richard Garfield and it shows! Great party game.

Alien Frontiers is a dice-placement game similar to Kingsburg, but is much more dynamic and there's no direct path do victory (like I've heard as the major complaint of Kingsburg). The basic objective is to build up colonies and take over territory bonuses on a small moon. An excellent game, but takes longer to play (about an hour - 90mins), so it may not be for everyone.

PG: The First Sparks is an excellent gateway game into the Power Grid universe. Players try to expand their tribes and gain tools & technology to do so the first. You have to feed your tribe, though, otherwise you'll start losing ground quickly! And like true Power Grid, the later you are to a territory (where you can obtain resources), the more expensive it is to get there. This one takes about an hour to play, and after you've taught it to a group of players, it seems like it's a game that you'd want to play again right away.

All are recommended!

[wildbil52]

Played 2 new games last night.  Well, new to me.

The first game we played was a card game called Fluxx.  There are many different versions or themes of Fluxx and they all work pretty much the same way.  There is Space Fluxx, Zombie Fluxx, Stoner Fluxx, Family Fluxx, Pirate Fluxx, etc.  We played Monty Python Fluxx.

Each player starts with 3 cards and the rules are: Draw one card, play one card.  Simple, right?  What makes it complex is that there are "New Rule" cards that players can play to alter the game.  Each New Rule card is ADDED to the list of rules unless it is a rule of the same kind.  So if someone has played a "New Rule:Draw 5" card and someone plays a "New Rule:Draw 3" card, it replaces the previous card of the same rule but there can be several other New Rules that stay in play like Draw 5 instead of 1, Play 4 instead of 1, Treat any 3 on any card as a 5, and Sing a Monty Python song to draw 1 additional card (draw 2 cards if it's a song no one has sang yet).

You don't really need to learn how to play because the cards you get in your hand explain what they do.  There is also always a "Goal" card on the table and as soon as any player satisfies the conditions of the goal card, they win.  Of course, new goal cards can replace the current one at any time.

It's a pretty good icebreaker and the Monty Python theme added a few laughs (and songs).  

Also played a very short game of Munchkin just to learn the mechanics.  I don't know enough about it yet to comment so I'll wait for another day.

[Shadow Kisuragi]

Own Fluxx and Munchkin, but I've yet to play Munchkin.

[wildbil52]

Own Fluxx and Munchkin, but I've yet to play Munchkin.

It's not the type of game I'm usually in to.  I've never been a fan of the "stab your friend in the back" mechanic but it's a super popular game and a friend has been asking me to play for a while so we gave it a shot.

[wildbil52]

Another quick board game note, the amazing Le Havre is out on iOS today.

[wildbil52]

Had some friends over yesterday for a small pool party and ended up playing a few games.  Taught them Puerto Rico and we also played Fluxx and Red Dragon Inn.

[wildbil52]

I really should try to take more pictures when I play games.  I'll make an effort to do that from now on.

Played just 1 game last night.  Miskatonic School for Girls.  It's loosely based on HP Lovecraft lore, Cthulus and all.  You play as a "house" in the Miskatonic school for girls where you are trying to hold onto your sanity because the faculty are monsters, literally.  

It's a deck building game where you purchase girls for your house and faculty to add to your enemies decks for them to fight on future turns.  Each turn consists of purchasing a girl, purchasing a faculty member for the player on your left, fighting the faculty in your hand, and losing some of your sanity if you can't defeat them.

It's an interesting premise for a deck builder but it breaks one of my cardinal rules for what makes a great game: Winning this game is based WAY more on luck than skill.  For me, winning is not the most important thing.  If I have fun playing the game, that's usually good enough.  It's just a shame that the player who makes the best decisions is almost never the one who wins.

The artwork is FANTASTIC.  I met the game's artist at PAX East and she was nice enough to sign a few cards for us to put in our game box.  This was a kickstarted game that can be found at many retail game stores now.  I do feel like there are better deck builders out there for $50 like Dominion and Penny Arcade, but if the premise sounds interesting and you can appreciate excellent artwork, it's worth a try.

Ordering Power Grid right now.  I'll take some pics and maybe even do a full write up once I've played it a few times.

[wildbil52]

Played the Resident Evil card game this weekend. Also, sounds like we're picking up 7 Wonders and Dominion some time soon.

Pick these or anything up yet?

[Shadow Kisuragi]

Unfortunately, no - been broke as of late. However, my roommates played some of the expansions for Cosmic Encounters and were raving about the new races. We also played an expansion for Resident Evil, which added the ability to play with partners, which was awesome.

[wildbil52]

Unfortunately, no - been broke as of late. However, my roommates played some of the expansions for Cosmic Encounters and were raving about the new races. We also played an expansion for Resident Evil, which added the ability to play with partners, which was awesome.

Nice,  I've heard good things about Resident Evil.  I was going to buy Power Grid this week, but decided to save some cash.  We have plenty of games to play already, I just love learning new ones.

[wildbil52]

I broke down and bought Power Grid.  Played a "learning the game" game with my wife and it was pretty cool.  I do not recommend playing with two players, but we do have a better understanding of the game now.

[img width=700 height=700]http://i1129.photobucket.com/albums/m503/wildbil52/RFGen/IMG_1061.jpg[/img]

It's a train game, but it's way more complex than Ticket to Ride.  It's very math heavy.  If you are good with numbers or an accountant, you will be comfortable.

Each player represents a different power company.  You buy power plants at auction and you buy resources for the plants to produce energy.  You earn money by producing energy and then can expand your power network to more cities and buy more efficient power plants. 

The auction phase was pretty lackluster with just 2 players, but I imagine that with 4-6 players, the auction phase could end up wiping out a few players' money.  I'll see if I can get a group of people to play on Wednesday and give another verdict then.

[wildbil52]

Been a while since I posted in here.  Haven't been going to bard game night recently, preparing for the move and all, but I have been mildly obsessed with Eclipse lately.  I don't even own the game yet, I just keep reading the manual! Hopefully I can grab it next month.

Played my first game of Settlers of Catan.  It was very cool. Easy to see why it's a staple in so many collections.