Tag Archives: Board Games

Games

A Christmas Shopping Games Post

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Seems like it's the right time of year to put up a games post, and with Beau's recent inquiry into Dungeons & Dragons, this seemed especially ripe for a full post.

And if you have game recommendations (of any type - video, table top, role playing, card), please drop 'em below.

Dungeons & Dragons
So Beau asked about D&D, and where a person might get started. First, the preliminaries: A middle-school aged youth can probably handle D&D on their own, so long as they are simplifiying things. Anyone younger likely needs an adult to guide them through a game. Additionally, D&D is best with an appropriately-sized group. Ideally 3 - 5 players and a DM (dungeon master) running the game. It can be done one-on-one, but the best challenges are group-oriented. That all said, just inventing characters and campaigns is a lot of fun.

The most essential tools for getting started with D&D are a full set of dice (D4 - D20), and the Player's Handbook. That's how a player is going to create their character and advance through the various levels as they go. After you have your character, you need a campaign - the scenarios and conflicts that make up the story where you character actually gets to do something. This is where all of the other books come in, as they provide tons and tons of ways to run a campaign, pre-made events, extra foes, fully drawn out worlds, etc. The most important book for running a campaign as a DM is, in my mind, the Monster Manual. The Dungeon Master's Guide is a pretty key book too, if you've never played, but if you have some experience I think you can get along without it.

Part of the fun, in my opinion, is making whatever adjustments you need. Don't want to wait to level up a character? Just jump them a couple levels so you can have that next adventure that you want to get to. Don't have enough people? Play multiple characters who have a reason to be together. Don't want to worry about alignments and dieties and stuff? Just don't. Can that monster attack 3 times on a turn? Sure, but that'll kill your player. So make the monster weaker. Especially for beginners, these kinds of adjustments can really improve the game experience.

So, all that said, if you're looking to run a campaign for your kids, you could probably get by with dice, and 2 books (Player's Handbook, Monster Manual).

Board Games

I recently (finally) got Wingspan. Which is beautiful and brilliant and despite seeming overwhelming, is pretty easy to learn. In fact, they usesd this brilliant idea where they literally walk you through the first 4 turns of the game your first time (or more than first, if you want the guide), and that really helps you learn it. Highly recommend for people who like strategy games.

Parks - Not Trekking the National Parks, which is different. Anyway, I got this one for Christmas last year, and it is another incredibly pretty game, with a lot of fun pieces. Right in the same vein as Wingspan, but maybe a little quicker to pick up.

Sushi Go and Love Letters. These quick card games have been getting a ton of play at our house lately. Sushi Go can be played by our 2nd grader without any trouble, so it's good because she can be included. She's not quite there on Love Letters yet, but the 4th grader and up all play that one. Again, super highly recommend these games for families. They're quick, easy, and a fun to replay.

Alpha - A decent strategy game that's way more casual than most strategy games. You control a wolf pack and get to hunt various wildlife (or livestock!). Random luck makes up a big part of the game, so results don't always reflect strategy, but that's fine because it's casual. This was an easy one to get a lot of people playing at Thanksgiving.

Doomlings - A silly card game that feels different every time you play it. Always reasonably paced and quick, with lots of fun cards and random effects. The randomness might drive some people crazy, but I enjoy it.

Games

Games: Post-2017-Holiday Edition

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Been a while since we've had a games post, and, like I'm assuming many (some?) of you, I recently had a chance to play some games with family. Holidays are good for that. Some quick rundowns:

CHILDREN'S GAMES

Outfoxed - Someone 'round these parts recommended this one last year, but it was out of stock. I kept it in my Amazon wishlist for a year and we bought it for the kids this year. A good logic mystery solver game for kids. Almost like "Guess Who" but racing against a board and not quite so lame. Too easy for the 8 year old, but still fun for him, and right about perfect for the younger ones.

Memory - It's an old standby, but I've played so much of a PJ Masks version of it lately, and my kids enjoy it, so it gets a mention.

Pokemon - The 8-year-old has gotten really into Pokemon lately, and it's a perfectly fine card game for that age. Every game is different, the characters are fun, luck plays a big role, but not too big, and the amount of variables are enormous. I'm sure we'll be playing this for years, and Aquinas enjoys just collecting the cards too. He also got a DS with a Pokemon game from his godfather. At least it also came with Mario Kart so I'm entertained.

NON-CHILDREN DIVISION

Dice City - My b-i-l's new game. Only played it one time, but it certainly seemed like it could stand a few replays. I think who you play against would probably make a lot of difference. Roll 1 die for each of 5 sections of the board, and the die determines which action you can take. Give up some actions to take other ones. Gain resources from the rolls, use those resources to buy things or build things or attack people. Use those things you bought or built or attacked to gain victory points. I kept to the straight-forward strategy and aimed for the highest value options and won handily while the others playing tried different approaches. If the game is really balanced, replay value could be high. If it's not... much less so.

Betrayal at House on the Hill - One of the more fun games I've played in a while. Starts as cooperative, with everyone picking a character and then exploring a haunted house while various events, items, and omens act upon you (either increasing or decreasing your character's base stats). Die rolls based on your character's stats affect your progress and performance (this sounds more dungeons and dragons-y than it is). All the while, you keep moving closer to the moment when someone in your group betrays you, and then the game becomes that person vs. the rest of the group, in one of 50 different scenarios (chosen based on what triggered the betrayal). You never know who will be the one betraying you, so that adds a nice surprise element. Plus, the betrayer usually gets to control monsters, and both sides have specific goals that are at odds with each other, with secret information that only their side possesses. I am amazed at the replay value here, and I can't wait to try it out again (we played 3 games of it, and I'd happily play all 3 of the specific scenarios again).

I Should Have Known That - Trivia game. As the name implies, general knowledge stuff that everyone *should* know. You get 1 point for each right answer and somewhere between -3 and -8 for each wrong answer. I finished in the positives 1 time out of the 4 we played (and at 0 another time), and I'm probably fair+ at trivia. A worth entry into trivia games, and it moves quickly (4 questions on a card, each person in the game takes 1 turn reading a card, and then you're done, and can move onto another game).

Linkee - Each card has 4 trivia questions. The 4 answers are all related in some way. It may be super obvious or more attenuated. Buzz in whenever you think you know the relationship, because that's the only answer that really matters, but if you get it wrong you don't get another shot at that round. It was okay, but I've played better.

One Night Werewolf - This was a blast. Would love to try it with more people than we had (7) and mix up the roles more than we did. Short version: lots of werewolf roles that you know and love and the others, all of which take night actions in order (as directed by the phone app that auto mods the game for you), and then you have to find a wolf the next day. If you succeed, village wins, if not, wolves win. Some players try to get themselves lynched, some players switch the roles of other players (so can accidentally switch who the wolves are, for example... you can end up being a wolf and not knowing it), etc. 5 minute rounds (plus ~1 minute for night actions), and huge replay-ability. Highly recommend. This would even be the thing that would get me to get a smart phone.

So what did you play over the holiday? What new games did you get? Who wants to come down here and have a game night with me?

Games

The Games We Play: Christmas Wrap Up

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Did everyone give new games for Christmas? Did everyone get new games for Christmas? Games were popular in our household, so I thought a rundown might be appropriate.

Kids Division:

Connect Four - My kids got it from someone. It's a classic at that age for a reason. Simple, but the game holds up, and they're loving it.

Race To The Treasure - DG shared this one during the last Games post, and I'd like to echo his recommendation. My kids have enjoyed this game immensely. The mechanic is simple - draw a tile, place it on the board, build a path that collects the required keys and get to the end before you draw too many troll tiles. I was worried the game would be too easy - and it borders on that - but we've just made it more difficult by requiring 4 keys instead of 3. Aquinas has played the game a number of times on his own too, and has made variations as he sees fit. I can't recommend this one highly enough.

Outfoxed - RPZ recommend this one. When I looked (a week-and-a-half out or more)I couldn't find it anywhere that would get it delivered before Christmas, so we didn't get it, and haven't played it. But I read up on it, and it seems strong enough that I'm excited to chase it down in the future.

Grown Ups Division

King Of Tokyo - Highest recommendation for this game, particularly for more casual gamers. Simple mechanics (roll dice, pick the ones you want to keep), multiple ways to win (smash other players, gain points), multiple ways to accomplish those tasks (roll dice, buy cards, hold the city), and cards you can buy during the game that effectively make each game significantly different. Aquinas is 7 and loves the game. He's not the greatest at it all the time, but once or twice he has come up with fantastic strategies that I didn't see, and won the game with them. So it's easy enough, but complex enough to be enjoyable many times over. Also, by Richard Garfield, the same guy what made Magic: The Gathering.

Hanabi - A simple cooperative card game that is incredibly difficult to win. There are 5 colors and 5 numbers. The goal is to create a pile of each color, in numbered order (Blue 1 - 5, Red 1 - 5, etc.). You play with your cards facing away from you, so all the others can see them but you can't. You then move around the circle either playing cards from you hand (if it's the next card on the stack, you can play it, if it's wrong, you discard it) or giving hints to other players. There are only a few of each card number though, and you can run out of hints to give, so you need to be very careful about your path forward. I played this with some darn intelligent folks and we never won (though we found out we were handcuffing ourselves a little bit, which might have changed 1 out of like 4 results... Maybe.). A great challenge.

500 - Look, it's a classic, and we played a bunch of it.

Adult Division

Cards Against Humanity - I'm well aware that I'm late to the party on this one, but I've played it now, and yes, it was fun and funny and awful. There were a number of things that I needed to avoid googling. So I felt good about that?

Codenames: After Dark - A slightly racier, more scatological take on the original, which is a great party game. Basically, the clue givers give a single word clue and how many cards on a common board that the clue applies to. They can't say anything more or otherwise hint in any way. The trick is that some of those words on the common board belong to the other team, and one is an assassin, so you need to be careful in your clues, and good luck in your guesses. The After Dark variant sets it up so that the clue givers are often in the position of saying things like "boob" or "poop." It's not really particularly adult, but it tries to be. Still a very fun game, and I recommend any version of it.

So what did you get? What did you give? What did you play? What are you excited to try?

Games

The Games We Play: PunMan Goes to Geekway

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Geekway to the West is a 4-day Board Game Convention held in St. Louis around the middle of May.   This year I got to go for my second time in three years.  I logged in playing 16 amazing games over a three day span (I didn't stay Sunday).  I wanted to give a quick rundown on the games, along with a few good stories.

Thursday:

Forbidden Stars -  Shouldn't have started with this one.  Very complicated.  Ended up stopping early.

XCOM: The Board Game - Neat cooperative game controlled by an app.  Dug this one, would like to play it again.

Medieval Academy - Dull card drafting game where you are trying to be ahead of everyone else on a number of tracks.

Boomtown Bandits - My biggest surprise.  Western Themed game where you are trying to rob different locations.  You roll dice in place of gunfights.

Good Cop, Bad Cop - Fun, quick little hidden role deduction game.

Viticulture - Incredible worker placement game about building a winery.  Love this game.

Commissioned - Cooperative game where you play one of the apostles spreading the gospel throughout the Mediterranean.  Much better than you'd imagine a Bible game to be.

Friday:

Twilight Imperium - Supersized complex 4x game (explore, expand, exploit, exterminate).  We played 6 hours and didn't finish.

Mysterium - Dixit meets Clue.  One player is the ghost trying to give the other players clues as to whodunit.

Euphoria: Build a Better Dystopia - A touch of dark humor surrounds this worker placement game.

Codenames - Party style game where two teams compete to see who can find their agents (with clues given by the spymaster) first.

Spyfall - Party style game where most of the players are trying to find the spy, and the spy's trying to figure out just where he is.

Scythe - Favorite game of the con.  Not yet released.  Another 4x ish game set in alternate universe 1920's Europe.  Incredibly intricate with neat components and interesting mechanics.

Tsuro - Simple game about staying on a path longer than your opponents.

Saturday:

La Granja - A mix of Agricola and Stefen Feld.  You're a farmer looking to create the best farm.  Neatest part is the cards which each have four possible purposes.

Blood Rage - War, confrontational game set in the last days of humanity in Norse Mythology.  Fun albeit imbalanced.

Notes: 

Scythe was the most sought after game of Geekway.  The kickstarter was last fall and it's due to be out this summer.  They were giving away one copy in the Play and Win contest.  However, EVERYONE wanted to play this game.  There was a sign up sheet, and it's only by the grace of my friend getting there early on Thursday that we got on the list high enough to get a chance to play.  The bummer is that the friend who got us on the list, didn't get to actually play the game.  Highlight of the game was the main creator of the game (Jamey Stegmaier) coming by to ask how we liked the game and if we had any questions.

The game plays on a set map, there's five factions that all have a specific starting space.  The map is a hex grid and the hexes have different resources like wood, metal, oil and food.  There's also villages that help you produce more workers.  You have a character piece that can engage in battle, visit the factory (which gives you some extra abilities) and have encounters (which give you a choice between three different benefits.)  There are also mechs that you can deploy that also help in battle and carry workers to different locations.  The action is dictated by the player boards, all of which are different for each player.  (All players have the same actions though, it's just different how they work together).  The board is split into 4 sections, each section with a top action and a bottom action.  The top typically give some benefit, whereas the bottom allows to you to a special action using one of the four resources.  The goal is to end the game with the most money.  The game ends when someone has played 6 stars on the accomplishment board.  There are several different ways to get a star, including winning combat, completing an objective, achieving maximum popularity or power, and deploying all your mechs, among others.

Now, it could be all the hype.  This game has been pretty hyped up for a while, ever since the box art was released.  So there are some pretty high expectations.  However, I loved playing this game and have not been able to stop thinking about it since.  The world created here is really cool, and the mechanics of the game all work together in such an intricate way.  I want to play all the different factions and I even want to try the solo player automa version.  I'm kicking myself for not backing the Kickstarter campaign, as all of the Collector's Editions are sold out.  I'll take the base version at this point.  I'm even considering doing the print and play to get to play it sooner (yes, there is a free print and play version linked on the Stonemaier website).  I predict that this game will be on many "Best of 2016" board gaming lists.

One other quick funny story happened when we were playiing Spyfall.  In the game, there is one spy, and the rest of the players have a card with the name of a location.  The spy is trying to figure out the location, the others are trying to find the spy.  This is done by asking questions.  My friend asked me the first question in one game, "How did you get here?"  I answered "I drove." He immediately called me out as the spy because the location was the Holy Crusades.

The con was a great time of board games, friends, and fun.  The Play and Win gave us motivation to try lots of new games, and everyone was super friendly, especially the people who came and taught us Twilight Imperium and Scythe.

If you haven't been to a gaming con, I highly recommend them.  If you're in ST. Louis (Rhu) I definitely recommend Geekway, and get your tickets early.  There's also the ever popular Gen Con in Indy, Origins in Ohio, BGG.Con in Dallas, and many many others.

What have YOU been playing lately?

My GeekwayTop 10:

  1. Scythe
  2. Viticulture
  3. La Granja
  4. Boomtown Bandits
  5. Mysterium
  6. Blood Rage
  7. Euphoria
  8. XCOM
  9. Commissioned
  10. Good Cop Bad Cop
Games

The Games We Play – Summer Rollin’

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So, after going for a couple months with barely playing any games, I've been rollin' in games the last couple weeks.

No Thanks - This is a pretty simple card game. There are numbered cards ranging from 3 to 35.  Nine are randomly taken out of the deck.  The rest are placed face down.  Everyone gets 11 tokens.  From the face down deck, one card is laid face up.  The starting player decides whether they want to take the card, or say "no thanks" and put a token into the pot.  The goal is to end up with the least points. Tokens work as negative points.  Eventually, there are enough tokens in the center to make it worth taking the card, or someone runs out of tokens and HAS to take the card.  It's a fun, simple quick game.

Dread Pirate - Now, I know the name sounds great for this game, but it's painfully dull.  It's a roll-n-move game, where the goal is to get the most loot from four different ports and a center island called Dread Island.  There's not a whole lot of depth to this, but the components were awesome.  It had a cloth map as the player board, and heavy pewter ships to sail around on it.

Love Letter - quick short game that sounds girlier than it is.  Goal is to end up with the highest numbered card.  Each card has some text to determine what you do.  Pretty quick and fun.  Excited to try out the Batman version someday.

Trajan - This has been by far the heaviest game I've played lately.  By designer Stefan Feld (his games have somewhat of a cult following).  This game uses a mancala mechanism to determine what action you take on your turn.  There are six different action types, and the way you weave them all together can get you points in a variety of ways.  This has really climbed up my favorites list.  I bought it used on BoardGameGeek, but I also play it on boiteajeux.net.

Agricola - I recently got this game used, and I've gotten it to the table 4 times in the last month.  I've heard that you either love this game or hate this game.  It's a worker placement game where the goal is to build the best farm.  You can build up your home, build pastures, plow and sow fields and grow crops.  There are also occupation cards and minor improvement cards, but I haven't gotten around to introducing those to the kids yet.  I also play this occasionally on boiteajeux.net.

La Isla - I got this game for Christmas.  On Father's Day, I finally got enough pull to get this to the table.  It's another Feld (like Trajan), but the theme and mechanics are a mismatch.  The theme is very light - it's all about capturing long extinct animals on a mysterious island - appeals very well to kids.  The mechanics are complicated enough that kids either don't get it, or it just isn't fun.

 

I'm starting to get into a groove.  It feels good.  I just found another game group that meets on Fridays.  They do mostly D&D type stuff, but the last Friday is always board games.  I'm anxious to try it out next week.  I've also been hitting a Wed lunchtime group at work that plays mainly 7 Wonders, but is open to other games as well.

In the meantime, when I can't get to the table I also tend to play a lot of games online.

boiteajeux.net - Quite a variety of games.  The ones I play most often are Castles of Burgundy, Trajan, Alhambra, and Agricola.  It has a ton of other games too.

yucata.de - Similar to boite, this one has quite a few games, some of them simple abstract type games, but there are a couple bigger, weighier games on it.  My favorites are Russian Railroads, Castles of Burgundy (I play on both sites), Can't Stop, Way of the Dragon, Stone Age, and Just For Fun

My username on both sites is "joepunman" in case anyone is interested in starting a game with me.  Both sites are primarily correspondence type sites, where you make a couple moves a day, and just take your turn when you get a chance.  You can play live, but I rarely do.

So, if you get bored watching the Twins or got voted out of Survivor, come try  your hand at an online board game.  Or let me know what else you've been playing lately!

Games

The Games We Play

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To be honest, I didn't like the name "Getting Dicey."  Going with this much simpler, to-the-point title this time.

So, I have not played many games this last month.  Weird.  It's like I had something else occupying all my time.  Not sure what that was, but it may be the subject of my Father Knows Best coming next month.

Anyway, I wanted to share a little bit about Gaming Conventions.  Last year I went to my first gaming convention: Geekway To The West in St. Louis, MO.  IT. WAS. AWESOME!!!

I've been getting heavy into board gaming over the last 2-3 years, ever since my friends introduced me to games like Ticket To Ride, Shadows Over Camelot and Talisman.  When they told me about Geekway last year, I thought it sounded like a lot of fun.  It was.  I played so many new games like Euphoria (Build a Better Dystopia), Coal Baron (great worker placement game), Firefly (based on the TV show - shiny!), and also got to play a 60 player game of Werewolf.

This year, I'm going again, but I it's different for a number of reasons.  First, I know what to expect.  Last year, I really didn't know how to get into games when I didn't know anyone around.  This year, I not only know how to use the Meeple "Players Wanted" signs, but I also know a bunch more people going.  Also, after listening to several episodes of The Dice Tower over the last year, I'm aware of many of the latest games to get a lot of buzz.  Games like Mysterium, Dead of Winter, and XCOM the Board Game.

My favorite part of the convention is the Play and Win.  There are about 50 games (3 copies of each) that you can play throughout the weekend, when you do, you put your name into a drawing to win a copy of that game.  Last year I won a copy of Tzolkin: The Mayan Calendar and its expansion.  I already had the base game, so I sold the base for cash and bought Terra Mystica instead.  Oh... and you get a free game just for registering.  Last year I got a roll-and-move game called Bakong that I thought was mediocre, but my son sure liked it.  They did have some gems last year, and this year I'm hoping to get King of Tokyo of Sons of Anarchy.

If you love Board Games, Conventions are a great way to try a bunch of new stuff out, or get to those long drawn out games that you have a hard time getting to the table.  Conventions are becoming more and more popular.  To find one near you, I suggest looking here, or try Board Game Geek.

What have you been playing lately?