[Khellendros]

Tattersail_, on 20 November 2020 - 02:13 PM, said:

I'll read this thread later, I'll be looking for family board games to play over Christmas new year, 7 adults playing. Any recommendations?

We enjoyed codenames last year, have many games banked as well like balderdash, ticket to ride, Ramble etc

Haha, I assume you never did manage to get 7 adults to play over Christmas considering the last-minute U-turn on that policy!


I know I'm late to the party on this, but we recently got Azul and have been really enjoying it. Simple in principle yet surprisingly strategic, and takes just the right amount of time to play.

[Morgoth]

I'm very happy about my first round of Tainted Grail, and I've already started painting the relatively modest amount of miniatures. Looking forwards to game two.

[Morgoth]

I figured I'd just expand a little on my experience with this game: To me, this is as close as you can get to a board game representation of a good RPG. Gloomhaven does something similar, but there the focus is on the mechanics of combat, it's a boardgamers introduction to RPGs. Tainted Grail on the other hand, though it too has a perfectly decent system for combat and diplomacy, is much more focused on the story and exploration aspects of a classic RPG. The storytelling takes front and center, and it is good, at least so far. I am genuinely exited to explore further, and to learn more of what is going on and what happened. The characters feel fleshed out and unique, and it feels natural to role play your choices rather than trying some form of power gaming. Not knowing the consequences of your choices in advance makes it much more interesting in that regard. The app is also excellent, and gives you a professional voice actor reading all the happenings, rather than having to read it to your friends yourself - and avoiding the risk of spoiling yourself by glancing at the wrong place on the page in the process.

[Tapper]

Morgoth, on 21 January 2021 - 12:24 PM, said:

I figured I'd just expand a little on my experience with this game: To me, this is as close as you can get to a board game representation of a good RPG. Gloomhaven does something similar, but there the focus is on the mechanics of combat, it's a boardgamers introduction to RPGs. Tainted Grail on the other hand, though it too has a perfectly decent system for combat and diplomacy, is much more focused on the story and exploration aspects of a classic RPG. The storytelling takes front and center, and it is good, at least so far. I am genuinely exited to explore further, and to learn more of what is going on and what happened. The characters feel fleshed out and unique, and it feels natural to role play your choices rather than trying some form of power gaming. Not knowing the consequences of your choices in advance makes it much more interesting in that regard. The app is also excellent, and gives you a professional voice actor reading all the happenings, rather than having to read it to your friends yourself - and avoiding the risk of spoiling yourself by glancing at the wrong place on the page in the process.

Thank you! I guess I might open my copy then My wife was not convinced by Etherfields after 2 sessions, so it's been relegated to the Play Solo Shelf.

I love Etherfields' ideas and especially the art (the brutality of Tainted Grail's shown artwork I like far less) but I have to admit it is sometimes clunky and stodgy - albeit far less so than reviews like the one from Shut Up and Sit Down suggest.

[Morgoth]

Got to the end of the 3rd chapter yesterday. This game is imaginative. All these places and events and nightmares and everything feels fresh and new. There's no sense of repetition or padding. It's kind of amazing.

We've still got 13 chapters to go though, so it remains to be seen how long it stays fresh and fun. Hopefully to the end but you never know.

[Macros]

Played Skull at the weekend with the wife and folks.

It's a fun little game, fairly simple mechanics to figure out. My mum is a maniacal genius bluffer it seems

[Morgoth]

Macros, on 01 February 2021 - 08:15 AM, said:

Played Skull at the weekend with the wife and folks.

It's a fun little game, fairly simple mechanics to figure out. My mum is a maniacal genius bluffer it seems

it's somewhat disturbing to realise your mother is a monster. I had the same realization a few years back when we played the Resistance. My mum twisted everyone around her little finger, and whenever she was the traitor she turned the whole table on me. Every time!

two of my friends and I did a round of Dune Imperial, and a chapter in the new Bloodborne game. Both were very enjoyable. Different games obviously, Dune is a worker placement / deck building game, whereas Bloodborne is a cooperative dungeon crawler of sorts. Still, both were great, and I look forwards to trying again!

[Macros]

Ordered Carcassonne the other day, it arrived today.

Very fun game, really happy with the purchased. So far I'll put it en par with 7 wonders duel for how much we enjoyed playing it.

Also picked up Unstable Unicorns last week. Average I'd say as a two player, probably a lot more fun in a higher group

[Gorefest]

Macros, on 15 April 2021 - 10:35 PM, said:

Ordered Carcassonne the other day, it arrived today.

Very fun game, really happy with the purchased. So far I'll put it en par with 7 wonders duel for how much we enjoyed playing it.

Also picked up Unstable Unicorns last week. Average I'd say as a two player, probably a lot more fun in a higher group

If you like unstable unicorns (indeed works better with a bigger group), definitely give Exploding Kittens a try.

[Gorefest]

Great HumbleBundle sale on this week: Asmodee games. Online versions of a.o.:

- Ticket to ride (plus most expansions)
- Scythe (big personal recommend, digital version works a treat)
- Smallworld
- Carcassonne
- Pandemic
- Love letter
- Game of Thrones - the boardgame

and several others. Currently at £9.30 for the whole lot (23 items). Insanely good bargain, definite recommend.

[Imperial Historian]

Gorefest, on 11 October 2021 - 10:56 AM, said:

Great HumbleBundle sale on this week: Asmodee games. Online versions of a.o.:

- Ticket to ride (plus most expansions)
- Scythe (big personal recommend, digital version works a treat)
- Smallworld
- Carcassonne
- Pandemic
- Love letter
- Game of Thrones - the boardgame

and several others. Currently at £9.30 for the whole lot (23 items). Insanely good bargain, definite recommend.

Also terraforming mars. Can confirm most of these adaptions (apart from carcassonne) are good and if you are at all interested in playing boardgames online it's worth a purchase.

[Gorefest]

And Splendor. Only one that doesn't really play too well digitally is indded Carcasonne, as IH already highlighted. Okay if you just want a little tablet game to pass the time, but the mechanics are a bit clunky.

Scythe is a blast (unfortunately this sale doesn't have the Invaders from Afar expansion), Ticket to ride works very well, same with splendor and smallworld. Just buying a digital copy of Scythe on its own would normally cost you over £20, so very good value for money.

Unfortunately despite several attempts I still cannot get my head around terraforming Mars, so I just need someone to talk me through the physical boardgame sometime. My brother-in-law has it, I think.

[Imperial Historian]

If you are looking for a good Carcassonne adaption to play multiplayer the one on board game arena is great. The app adaption was pretty poor multiplayer.

I'm a big fan of terraforming mars, but it's one of those that's much easier to learn with the physical pieces.

[Gorefest]

Yeah, my brother-in-law and his wife are always raving about it as well, so we were planning to do a board game round sometime. Seems a better way of getting to grips with the whole layout. The digital version just looks like a confusing mess of random cards and fields.

[Macros]

Gorefest, on 16 April 2021 - 11:16 AM, said:

Macros, on 15 April 2021 - 10:35 PM, said:

Ordered Carcassonne the other day, it arrived today.

Very fun game, really happy with the purchased. So far I'll put it en par with 7 wonders duel for how much we enjoyed playing it.

Also picked up Unstable Unicorns last week. Average I'd say as a two player, probably a lot more fun in a higher group

If you like unstable unicorns (indeed works better with a bigger group), definitely give Exploding Kittens a try.

Prefer exploding kittens, but I'm also a huge Matt Inman fan so probably hideously biased on that one

[Macros]

Gorefest, on 11 October 2021 - 10:56 AM, said:

Great HumbleBundle sale on this week: Asmodee games. Online versions of a.o.:

- Ticket to ride (plus most expansions)
- Scythe (big personal recommend, digital version works a treat)
- Smallworld
- Carcassonne
- Pandemic
- Love letter
- Game of Thrones - the boardgame

and several others. Currently at £9.30 for the whole lot (23 items). Insanely good bargain, definite recommend.

missed this for some reason.

where or what is the best platform to buy games t play digitally?
and further to that do they work remotely, example If I buy the game, can I play it with people around the world or do they all have to have it?
our game of diplomacy took 7 months over whatsapp and it kind of burned the group out a bit, looking for something a bit more shot term and silly fun to put over the group. players spread over several continents

[James Hutton]

Macros, on 01 December 2021 - 09:12 AM, said:

Gorefest, on 11 October 2021 - 10:56 AM, said:

Great HumbleBundle sale on this week: Asmodee games. Online versions of a.o.:

- Ticket to ride (plus most expansions)
- Scythe (big personal recommend, digital version works a treat)
- Smallworld
- Carcassonne
- Pandemic
- Love letter
- Game of Thrones - the boardgame

and several others. Currently at £9.30 for the whole lot (23 items). Insanely good bargain, definite recommend.

missed this for some reason.

where or what is the best platform to buy games t play digitally?
and further to that do they work remotely, example If I buy the game, can I play it with people around the world or do they all have to have it?
our game of diplomacy took 7 months over whatsapp and it kind of burned the group out a bit, looking for something a bit more shot term and silly fun to put over the group. players spread over several continents

It's on sale more often in such a package. I got a roughly similar one, but that was a few months (?) earlier.
I added mine to Steam, told all the board-game homies to buy the same bundle, and now we can play over Steam whenever we want (Steam Friendslist helps with setting up a private game invitation only). So yes, everybody needs to own the game you want to play.

[Macros]

that's probably the kicker.
Diplomacy suited due to its long turn nature with a lot of them not having steam and with disparate timezones etc we aren't likely to get to sit down and play a game real time.

I'm going to run a game of RAF for them, but what other games would work via whatsapp? any games that I can join in as well (again diplomacy worked using webdiplomacy as the adjudicator)

[Gorefest]

Alternatively, you could play the free offers on boardgamearena or tabletop simulator. Or one of you could pay for an account on there and then you and your mates can play everything on offer.

[Gorefest]

HumbleBundle are running a deal again on online board games from Asmodee: https://www.humblebu...tasmodee_bundle

Some really nice items in there, e.g. Ticket to ride, splendor, smallworld, terraforming Mars. Defo worth it if you don't have these already (sadly I got all of them). Currently going for less than £10.