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Fun nerdy dice,card and board games Yes, a non-videogame thread

#81 User is offline   Messremb 

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Posted 15 June 2013 - 06:26 PM

View PostCause, on 13 June 2013 - 10:29 AM, said:

View PostNumbstrike, on 06 March 2013 - 11:50 AM, said:

Munchkin.


+1


Holy crap yes. Introduced to Munchkin Booty by old uni friends a month or two ago, I've now picked up the original and a few expansions and my other half has Bites. Now we just need to convince more people to play.
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#82 User is offline   D'rek 

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Posted 29 July 2013 - 08:55 PM

This weekend I got to play Shadows over Camelot, a cooperative+traitor card (that apparently came out before coop+traitor games were a thing). You play as the knights of the round table and must acquire white swords by completing various quests, while avoiding accumulating black swords from failed quests, losing so much health you die or too many catapults being setup around Camelot that the city is destroyed. And one of you is an evil Traitor who must try to sabotage your efforts. The hard part is that there are 6 quests happening simultaneously, and most cannot be completed by one person on their own. So there was a lot of strategizing and discussion, deciding to abandon quests that we were already losing in order to rally everyone to quests we could quickly win. It is hard! Not like Pandemic-with-2-people hard, but still pretty hard! We beat the black knight and a couple Saxon/Pict war quests, and then tried putting everything into the Holy Grail quest but kept pulling evil grail cards, until the dragon quest ended unopposed and nearly murdered us all, letting the traitor add more catapults to Camelot until it exploded. It was fun, but I think after a handful of plays you'd have a pretty solid idea of the best strategy and it would lose some replay value.

There's also a 2-player game I've played a few times now called Hive. It boils down to each player alternately taking turns and on each turn you can either place a bug or move one of your bugs. There's different kinds of bugs with different move rules, but they all have to stay connected in one big "hive". When you surround the opponent's queen, you win. It's a nice little short and simple that takes only 5 minutes to explain and 15 minutes to play, but still has a fair bit of depth and strategy.

View Postworrywort, on 14 September 2012 - 08:07 PM, said:

I kinda love it when D'rek unleashes her nerd wrath, as I knew she would here. Sorry innocent bystanders, but someone's gotta be the kindling.
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#83 User is offline   Mentalist 

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Posted 30 July 2013 - 01:27 AM

me and my group of friends recently joined the ranks of Catan affictionados. running with the Knights+Merchants expansion, a epic 6-hour session is pretty much a staple of a Sunday evening. We moved on to Catan from Risk.

When I was in Uni one of my fellow supervisors was a huge boardgaming fan. played all kinds of stuff over at his place. really liked "war on terror". Similar to the "presidente" game ST dscribes, except instead of the shades you'd be wearing a balaclava if you were the Evil Empire. Led to some truly hilarious moments.
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View PostJump Around, on 23 October 2011 - 11:04 AM, said:

And I want to state that Ment has out-weaseled me by far in this game.
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#84 User is offline   Raymond Luxury Yacht 

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Posted 31 July 2013 - 07:00 PM

It all comes back to Catan every time for me. we have a regular game night with some people who love to buy new games all the time. We mostly end up just playing Catan again. I love that game. I got my parents to play it with me when they were visiting, that was interesting.
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#85 User is offline   D'rek 

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Posted 16 August 2013 - 03:28 PM

Tried some new things over the past little while:

Roborally - I wasn't really a fan of this one. Maybe it's because we were just doing the beginner board with only 4 people but it didn't seem all that exciting. One person had a great first hand to get ahead and stayed ahead the whole game.

Small World - This one was a lot of fun, though almost everyone was playing it for the first time and it took us a little bit to realize that we weren't supposed to keep the same race going for more than maybe 2/3 turns at the absolute most. It does seem a bit long though, going through all 9 rounds with each player going one at a time, since there's not a whole lot of variety in the mechanics.

7 Wonders - Played this for the first time with people who knew it quite well, so no surprise I didn't end up doing very well, but it was still fun and I really like some of the interactions and the passing cards. I definitely want to play it some more.

Munchkin - Like 7 wonders I played this with people who already knew it, but that worked out well as they all ended up going for each others' throats and ignoring me so I won! I like the humour style and the chaotic-ness of the game, but the whole thing doesn't seem very intuitive... even with just the basic deck we were haggling about interpretations of the way the cards' wording changes the rules.

Defenders of the Realm/Pandemic - Pandemic seems to be pretty popular but I don't recall it being mentioned in this thread yet. It's a co-operative game with a map where diseases get put on locations (represented by cubes) and you need to try and both remove the cubes by moving to them and spending actions on them, as well as research permanent cures to each of the 4 disease types while more disease cubes keep getting added. Defenders of the Realm isn't as popular and is very similar but with a fantasy theme. Instead of fighting diseases there's 4 types of evil dudes spawning around the map. Unlike Pandemic the different minion types have special strengths and there's added mechanics like player health, quests and battling the minions instead of just auto-removing disease blocks. Instead of curing the diseases by collecting cards each minion type has a giant boss (in some cases quite literally - the dragon boss figure is probably at least 10cm tall) that you can fight to stop that minion type from spawning (but you generally need to gang up on the bosses to win it seems). So Pandemic is the "lighter" one but they're both a lot of fun and I really like the theming in both, too - fighting disease is a pretty unique theme for a board game, while DotR has a very 60s fantasy/DND style (the classes are stuff like Dwarf, Ranger, Eagle Rider, Knight, Sorceress, etc).

View Postworrywort, on 14 September 2012 - 08:07 PM, said:

I kinda love it when D'rek unleashes her nerd wrath, as I knew she would here. Sorry innocent bystanders, but someone's gotta be the kindling.
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#86 User is offline   Raymond Luxury Yacht 

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Posted 28 October 2013 - 05:16 AM

There is a rule in munchkin that whoever owns the game is the final judge in rule disputes. Use it, it really cuts down on the amount of time wasted arguing.
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#87 User is offline   Wolfy 

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Posted 28 October 2013 - 07:17 AM

View PostD, on 16 August 2013 - 03:28 PM, said:

Small World - This one was a lot of fun, though almost everyone was playing it for the first time and it took us a little bit to realize that we weren't supposed to keep the same race going for more than maybe 2/3 turns at the absolute most. It does seem a bit long though, going through all 9 rounds with each player going one at a time, since there's not a whole lot of variety in the mechanics.


Seconding this Small World is great fun once you adjust to the playstyle of rapid expansion points grabbing and then declining your race over the usual defensive territory hold.


Smash Up! - Is a really fun 1-4 player deck building game where you shuffle together two themed decks per player (zombies, aliens, pirates, ninjas, tricksters, wizards, robots & dinosaurs) and battle over 'base' cards to score points. It has some amazing depth and balance to the deck combinations and has proven to be great fun with my local gaming friends both casual and strategic thinkers alike :rant:
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#88 User is offline   Kanubis 

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Posted 28 October 2013 - 07:41 AM

My group has played seven wonders so much now that it's changed from the 'main' game of the evening to the quick-fire one we use to end the night. It's amazing how fast you can play it when you get used to it.

I don't tend to get too involved in gaming discussions though as I hate Ticket to Ride, which seems to mark me as some kind of deviant freak.
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#89 User is offline   Tapper 

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Posted 28 October 2013 - 07:52 AM

View PostKanubis, on 28 October 2013 - 07:41 AM, said:

My group has played seven wonders so much now that it's changed from the 'main' game of the evening to the quick-fire one we use to end the night. It's amazing how fast you can play it when you get used to it.

I don't tend to get too involved in gaming discussions though as I hate Ticket to Ride, which seems to mark me as some kind of deviant freak.

Heh. Ticket to Ride is the GFs favorite game and I can't understand why. It is a fun game but by no means a real challenge in difficulty or strategy, too luck dependant.
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#90 User is offline   D'rek 

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Posted 28 October 2013 - 01:29 PM

View PostTapper, on 28 October 2013 - 07:52 AM, said:

View PostKanubis, on 28 October 2013 - 07:41 AM, said:

My group has played seven wonders so much now that it's changed from the 'main' game of the evening to the quick-fire one we use to end the night. It's amazing how fast you can play it when you get used to it.

I don't tend to get too involved in gaming discussions though as I hate Ticket to Ride, which seems to mark me as some kind of deviant freak.

Heh. Ticket to Ride is the GFs favorite game and I can't understand why. It is a fun game but by no means a real challenge in difficulty or strategy, too luck dependant.


It's not my favourite but I could understand why. Not everyone necessarily wants to have a big challenge or have to strategize a lot in their favourite game. Ticket to Ride hits a certain sweet spot of some luck and some strategy but not too much, plus options to screw each other over (but not too many such options) and fun components and mechanics that are easy to remember, plus quick gameplay, too.

I've finally tried the North America Ticket to Ride, now, too. I like the Europe one better!


I've also played Puerto Rico for the first time since last posting here. That's a fun game, and I liked that it ends on certain conditions instead of arbitrarily after a fixed number of turns unlike so many other games of that multi-path, heavy strategy sort of genre. Only one person in our group had played it before, and she only once, so we all sort of didn't know what we were doing though. I imagine a repeat would be much more tense.

This post has been edited by D'rek: 28 October 2013 - 01:30 PM

View Postworrywort, on 14 September 2012 - 08:07 PM, said:

I kinda love it when D'rek unleashes her nerd wrath, as I knew she would here. Sorry innocent bystanders, but someone's gotta be the kindling.
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#91 User is offline   Messremb 

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Posted 21 April 2014 - 05:48 PM

Bit of minor thread necro;

Marrying Mr Darcy. Backed it on kickstarter as a present for my other half and is actually pretty entertaining. Bit of light strategy and nothing complicated so works well for the whole family. I've won every game we've played so far so need to rapidly figure out how to lose.
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#92 User is offline   D'rek 

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Posted 21 April 2014 - 07:39 PM

View PostMessremb, on 21 April 2014 - 05:48 PM, said:

Bit of minor thread necro;

Marrying Mr Darcy. Backed it on kickstarter as a present for my other half and is actually pretty entertaining. Bit of light strategy and nothing complicated so works well for the whole family. I've won every game we've played so far so need to rapidly figure out how to lose.


Austen has been boardgameized? Oh dear. Does everyone have to speak in awful faux-olde-english accents while you play?


I've gotten the chance to try a lot of new games since I last posted here, but all I can think about is Space Alert. It is simply fantastic. It probably depends a fair bit on what sort of people are playing, but it was perfect for the group I played with. Usually we try to play a few different games in one night and then about a week later someone starts vaguely planning the next game night. This time we played nothing but Space Alert all night long and before anyone left we picked a date for the next game night, intending to again play only Space Alert!!!

View Postworrywort, on 14 September 2012 - 08:07 PM, said:

I kinda love it when D'rek unleashes her nerd wrath, as I knew she would here. Sorry innocent bystanders, but someone's gotta be the kindling.
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#93 User is offline   Gabriel Chase 

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Posted 22 April 2014 - 07:42 PM

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#94 User is offline   Imperial Historian 

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Posted 23 April 2014 - 10:06 AM

View PostD, on 21 April 2014 - 07:39 PM, said:

View PostMessremb, on 21 April 2014 - 05:48 PM, said:

Bit of minor thread necro;

Marrying Mr Darcy. Backed it on kickstarter as a present for my other half and is actually pretty entertaining. Bit of light strategy and nothing complicated so works well for the whole family. I've won every game we've played so far so need to rapidly figure out how to lose.


Austen has been boardgameized? Oh dear. Does everyone have to speak in awful faux-olde-english accents while you play?


I've gotten the chance to try a lot of new games since I last posted here, but all I can think about is Space Alert. It is simply fantastic. It probably depends a fair bit on what sort of people are playing, but it was perfect for the group I played with. Usually we try to play a few different games in one night and then about a week later someone starts vaguely planning the next game night. This time we played nothing but Space Alert all night long and before anyone left we picked a date for the next game night, intending to again play only Space Alert!!!


Space alert looks like a hell of a lot of fun, think I might be picking it up at some point. Not played boardgames for a while, but out recent sessions got partially taken over by the game space team, which sounds like a much sillier and more basic android version of this game.
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#95 User is offline   Morgoth 

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Posted 23 April 2014 - 10:47 AM

A friend of mine swears to Space Alert. Never tried it myself, mainly because I am inherently sceptical to games of cooperation rather than direct conflict, but I cede that this has more to do with my specific preference rather than quality.

I played Game of Thrones for the first time, recently. Twas a lot of fun, though I got my ass handed to me by the more experienced players.
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#96 User is offline   Imperial Historian 

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Posted 23 April 2014 - 01:10 PM

Yeah I'm also more into the conflict and backstabbing variety of games, but having looked into it space alert is definitely a game I'm going to try.
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#97 User is offline   Kanubis 

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Posted 23 April 2014 - 01:14 PM

Space Alert will cause more conflict than any normal game. When you get to the final bit and find out that some idiot played a bad movement, you'll hate them far more than when they nick ahead in the scoring right a the end of 7 Wonders.
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#98 User is offline   D'rek 

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Posted 23 April 2014 - 04:05 PM

View PostMorgoth, on 23 April 2014 - 10:47 AM, said:

A friend of mine swears to Space Alert. Never tried it myself, mainly because I am inherently sceptical to games of cooperation rather than direct conflict, but I cede that this has more to do with my specific preference rather than quality.


A lot of cooperative games give all the players the same information and the only unknowns are random card flips, so it becomes very easy for the players to stop and plan out a big strategy ahead of time. It also allows the most experienced player to tell everyone else what the best moves are, which especially gets boring for the others.**

Space Alert fixes all of that by simply not giving you enough time to coordinate long-term plans or for anyone to explain much of anything. If you take too much time planning and discussing, more threats pile up and you have more things to manage. On the other hand, if you discuss too little you end up with two people trying to use an elevator at the same time, or everyone thinking someone else will take care of moving the ship's computer's mouse (the computer going to screensaver is pretty much the worst thing that can happen to you). Finding that perfect blend of discussing things just enough to time multiple actions together but not so much you are scrambling to lay down actions as time runs out is not easy! And when you do talk too much or too little and mess it up, you can see at the end what went wrong - and your first impulse will be to try again!

I'm not sure if you would like it or not. It is definitely all about cooperation, the only conflict is the players versus the game itself, but the difference in pacing and style from most other cooperative games might be enough that you enjoy it despite not being able to backstab people.



**Traitor games like Battlestar help alleviate this somewhat by making the players suspicious of each other, but you still get the same general effect (ie a cylon in Battlestar with piloting skills isn't going to refuse to go fight enemy ships, because then they'd obviously be revealed, and at the same time there's no way for them to secretly lose against the enemy ships on purpose).

This post has been edited by D'rek: 23 April 2014 - 04:08 PM

View Postworrywort, on 14 September 2012 - 08:07 PM, said:

I kinda love it when D'rek unleashes her nerd wrath, as I knew she would here. Sorry innocent bystanders, but someone's gotta be the kindling.
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#99 User is offline   Morgoth 

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Posted 24 April 2014 - 06:07 AM

Alright, that does sound a lot more intriguing.
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#100 User is offline   Sir Thursday 

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Posted 07 May 2014 - 11:53 AM

I've been playing quite a bit of Hanabi, recently. It's a cooperative card-game with a unique twist - you don't get to look at your own cards, only everyone else's! You have to work together to try to play the cards in sequence - you're allowed to give limited clues to your teammates to help them out. Really good fun, especially once you've played a few games with the same group and figured out how they think. Takes 2-5 players. I'd highly recommend it if you've got some people who are willing to put some thought into things.

A few other ones I've tried recently (it seems as though I've been playing slightly more casual games than before, looking through the list):

Love Letter - Very casual card game for 2-4 players (works best with 4). It's easy to pick up and play, so ideal for teaching to people who just don't get those crazy board/card games they always see you playing. There's a heavy degree of randomness, but the right amount of skill involved that it feels as though you can influence the outcome in your favour. There's a lot of targeting other players and it's almost designed to have a sort of rubber-band mechanic built in. Makes for an entertaining half an hour or so.

Lost Cities - Two player card game. Very quick to play, easy to learn the rules but takes a while to figure out how to play it well. Only takes 10-15 minutes to play a game once you know what you're doing. Might be a good one if you've got an SO you want to play something with.

Mr. Jack - Victorian London themed two-player game. It's a hunter/hunted game (eg. in the same vein as Scotland Yard, if you've ever played that), but with some interesting mechanics about how the 'hunting' part happens. Very tactical, takes a few plays to get the hang of (probably about 45min duration, maybe a little longer). I've quite enjoyed this whenever I've played it.

Escape: The Curse of the Temple - This only takes 10 minutes to play, but it'll have your heart pounding. It comes with a soundtrack you play the game to. You are explorers in an ancient ruin and your aim is to find all the gemstones inside and then escape before you are trapped forever. Each player has a set of dice that you can roll as often as you like to achieve this. You have to work as a team - either you all make it out and you win, or one or more of you is stuck and you all lose. The result is a lot of very frantic dice rolling as the music can make you a bit panicky. Very good fun (although this game is more on the 'light' end of the scale in that there's not a whole lot of strategy involved). Takes up to 5 players.

King of Tokyo - You play a monster trying to assert dominance over Tokyo! Takes up to 6 players. In practice it's like a cross between King of the Hill and Yahtzee. You attack other monsters and either try to amass enough points (either by being King of the Hill for a long time or by other methods) or kill all your opponents to win. It's good fun (there are powerup cards that add some spice) although I would say that with a lot of players it suffers slightly from the fact that it's possible to be knocked out and have to sit around waiting for the game to finish.

Tzolkin - This one is a bit more serious/intensive. It's a worker-placement type game with a Mayan theme. Unique selling point - the board has gears on it that turn and stuff! Definitely one of the best boards of any game I've played. And it's probably one of my favourite boardgames overall, actually. You put workers on the gears and they rotate to different actions, then you take them off at the optimum moment to do what you need. There's a lot of planning involved, but there are multiple paths to victory that all feel refreshingly distinct. I always enjoy this whenever I play it. Takes 2-4 players, probably 90 minutes to 2 hours play time.

ST

This post has been edited by Sir Thursday: 07 May 2014 - 11:57 AM

Don't look now, but I think there's something weird attached to the bottom of my posts.
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