One Night Werewolf, Imperial Settlers, Red7, Sheriff of Nottingham, Concept, Glass Road, Battlestar Galactica, Exploding Kittens, Johann Sebastian Joust, AquaSphere, Two Rooms and a Boom, Pairs, Lost Legacy, Dixit, Story Wars, The Resistance, Rock Band, Fantasy Life
I have been away on a cruise! A hip cruise, named after a guy with long, puffy hair, so it's okay, I'm not a huge nerd. That's not what this cruise is about, despite the insistence of literally everyone else I was with on the boat.
ANYWAY, this trip was mainly about playing board games in the best game room on the high seas. New games, old games, any game! That's why I went, for the great game room and maybe for some showing off. So let's go through what I played over the long week, possibly in alphabetical order.
AquaSphere - There a few new experiences in which I just tried a game that I've heard some things about, and AquaSphere was middling at best. It's still a good game, but it's JUST a good worker placement game with some interesting mechanics. Moving around the Aquasphere is interesting, the dealing with octopods is kinda fun, the "time" mechanic is a bit insane. It's very competent, if very heavy on iconography. The best thing it has is theme and that ends up being paperthin. Still, I'd play it again, I just wouldn't purchase it, because it's not that great.
Battlestar Galactica - Ohhhhhh son! It has been so long, and it was pretty fun, but only because I was ended up being a Cylon and ended up being completely ignored after Baltar viewed my card and outed me. The humans just...kinda forgot to brig me. I even pointed out that it would be so so easy, but nope, they just forgot to, and I got to tank an essential crisis to win the game! I kinda don't like the Earth scenario, because it practically requires using the special mission deck, and that's no fun. But who cares! Woo! I'm a Cylon!
Concept - There was a night where everyone just randomly decided that Concept was the game. Concept was described as "charades, but with this weird board." One or two players are given a card with a number of topics, chooses one, and then places cubes and tokens on a board full of various icons to try to get all the other players to guess what the word or phrase was. It's very interesting where people start, how they manipulate the board, and how nuts some of the suggested topics are. I somehow saw someone guess "Luke, I am your father", which was insane, and I made a huge gambit to try to get the other players to guess "Richard Hatch," which was probably the worst idea I've had in a while. I mean, I completely forgot about the Richard Hatch on the Survivor. How did I forget that? Anyway, interesting game, glad to see it get some play.
Dixit - I guess I played Dixit? It felt like all games of Dixit. "Oh, the art is really good. Wait, what is going on? Um...Truman Show reference." Anyway, Dixit.
Exploding Kittens - So the Oatmeal guy was on the cruise, and he brought the prototype of that Kickstarter game that he is currently working on, which society has decided is worth $6 million, and I HATE IT. The game is awful. It's a press-your-luck game, only without the press. You draw a card, and if you draw the explosion card, you lose. THAT'S IT! There are cards that let you skip your turn, or force someone to take extra turns, but the majority of the deck is stupid garbage cards that you need to collect sets of to get an effect, and it's fine, but it is not SIX MILLION DOLLARS fine. I just am DONE with the Internet and its stupid insistence that cats are goddamn hilarious by default, and also the Oatmeal sucks and is terrible. The end.
Fantasy Life - So anytime I was not feeling like talking to people, I hid in my room and played Fantasy Life, and this game is goddamn amazing. I just get so drawn in by the endless cycle of goals it sets for you. There is always another Life you could level up more, or a rare resource you could hunt down, or a table you can craft. It's amazing. I wish the storyline wasn't so predictable, but it also makes it easy to skip through without really reading, and I look forward to getting to the endgame to see how insane that gets. Some guy on a bridge told me to kill a dragon. I gotta go do that.
Glass Road - I got drawn into a game of Glass Road, and it ended up being weird? Like, a player got mad at a person for asking about the game and deciding not to play? And then she just...quit playing during the final round? I'm confused about that player's priorities? But Glass Road is a really fun "build up your board" game, Uwe Rosenberg, y'all, and I enjoyed it. I also won by a mile, because I knew what I was doing. I like Glass Road's kinda dickish "haha, me too!" mechanic, in which you get to tag on to another player's action if you happen to have it in your hand. It's pretty good!
Johann Sebastian Joust - I ACCIDENTALLY BECAME FAMOUS. It was weird, and I almost didn't like it, but I eventually started rolling with it. In case you don't know, Johann Sebastian Joust is a tactile game in which each player has a wand with an accelerometer. You can only move the wand so much (based on the speed of the music) before it "explodes" and you are eliminated. So each player is trying to force the other players out, via pushing, pulling, and fakeouts. The last one to be eliminated is the winner. I played a fair number of games, and because of my superior sense of balance (which I developed because I'm slightly bow-legged), low center of gravity, and strategic arm placement, I was difficult to tag out. I had one incident where a player pushed me with all his strength TWICE, and I still stayed in the game, keeping my wand at hip level and staying steady. I won a couple of games, NBD, but as the week wore on, people were approaching me while I walked around the ship and asked me if I played Joust that day, or congratulated me for my performance. It was totally bizarre! It's weird being famous!
Imperial Settlers - Of all the "new" games I played, Imperial Settlers was the best. It's a civilization game based on decks of cards, with each player having a personal deck, but also a common deck that provides some basic abilities. You've got to manage your resources and figure out how best to gain victory points. It's got a good arc, with a quick first round that builds to a tense fifth round in which you try to squeeze all the blood from the stone of your small civilization. Really smart, and apparently based on a card game that I've tried to play in the past that I just didn't understand. I really didn't like the first iteration, so it's very cool that they cleaned up all the rules to make it, frankly, playable. I might pick this up, if the planned expansions start playing out like I hope.
Lost Legacy - Lost Legacy is an iteration on Love Letter, in which it's less important to have the best card, and instead know where the best card is. There's also a lot less player elimination, which is nice. I played lots of games of it, because it's quick and easy.
One Night Werewolf - One Night Werewolf is a bluffing game in which you have the various typical werewolf roles, except it's paced so that everyone gets to play and there's a fair amount of mystery. In each game, there are three more roles than players, and there's a night phase in which each role gets to gather their relevant info or just completely screw things up (there is a role that intentionally changes people's roles without them knowing). Then everyone discusses who they were, who they might be, and who they should lynch. If a werewolf is lynched, the village wins, otherwise the werewolves win. It's a pretty clever iteration of Werewolf, and I played a lot of games. I didn't play particularly well though; as long as a fair number of villagers are willing to tell the truth, it's hard for the werewolves to hide. I was playing as a special werewolf who could view someone's role, and decided to let that player know I knew his role immediately, hoping he thought I was the seer. But...no. They didn't fall for it. But I like One Night Werewolf a lot, so I'm glad I got to play a lot of games of it.
Pairs - I had heard a lot about Pairs, which was Kickstarted for what felt like a ton of money with a ton of different decks. Each Pairs deck contains cards numbered 1-10, with as many copies of each card as their number. One 1, two 2's, etc. You have a discard pile, and you can either draw a card or take a face-up card as points. If you draw a copy of a card you already have in your discard pile, you score it as points. Points are bad, and whoever gets to a set number of points loses. There are also a ton of variants, and it's a pretty clever idea overall. I ended up liking it a lot, and I'll probably pick up a deck here for another quick filler game, because my life is apparently now filler card games.
Red7 - Oh speaking of filler card games. I've already told you about Red7, but I finally got to play the advanced rules, and I don't like it? It makes the game a bit too difficult, as 7's suddenly become a huge liability rather than a surefire play. I guess that's good, but it's also kinda not fun when someone with 7's in their hand can't get ahead. I think I'll stick with the basic game, because it's fun enough.
The Resistance - I played a couple of games of The Resistance with the Hunter variant, which is pretty fun. It just makes the game's metagame so much more intriguing. Our second game I found the spy chief on round 2, which gave me a ton of information that I could use. Then came the most elaborate play I've ever seen, with a spy spending a good fifteen minutes selecting his team to fool everyone at the table into thinking he was resistance. It was a good play, but HOLY CHRIST it was irritating in retrospect. He milked it for all it was worth and completely fooled me and it was masterful. Unfortunately, the resistance still won, because we had the best info. The hunter variant does suffer from being a bit luck-driven, but I still like it.
Rock Band - I got to play Rock Band! Have you heard of it? It's been a while. There were a lot of people who were asking for specific songs and we had to tell them "no, sorry, if it's been released in the last two years we probably don't have it," but I got to do "I Get By" again, which is just so cathartic. I haven't even thought about the reason I love that song in months!
Sheriff of Nottingham - Hey look another bluffing game. This one involves choosing a number of goods from your hand and trying to trick the sheriff (which changes each round), that you are just trying to get your pile of legal goods to your cart. They can choose to let you through, try to get a bribe from you, or search your stack. If you were lying about the contents of you bag, you pay a penalty, otherwise, he does. It's alright. The deck of goods is way too big to even consider counting, and it's mostly about playing to the whims of the current judge, but still an interesting play. Plus it comes with little bags!
Story Wars - Then this dumb game. In each game, there's a judge, and then two different teams who select champions, and come with creative reasons why their champion should win the current challenge. It's kinda stupid, but it involves being creative, which is nice, I guess, if the people you are playing with match your general rhetoric. If they don't (as was the case here), it just feels...dumb. I was judging a round in which an elf was defending a castle against a rose chariot and I was just bored. But hey, it's an alright game if you don't play with strangers, I bet.
Two Rooms and a Boom - Why what a coincidence that the best game I played would be last! I made a print-and-play copy of Two Rooms and a Boom because I still don't have my retail copy (current bets are August...we'll see), and set up a couple of times on the official cruise app to play it. The first session was pretty okay, in which a reasonable crowd of about 15 or so showed up to play, and we played a few games with basic roles, basically growing in difficulty, and then everyone disappeared when a conflicting event was much more popular than I would have anticipated. A bit sad, but there was enough interest that it inspired me to set up a second event.
The second event started with maybe six people, which is just barely enough, and I was disappointed while I set up a small game with a few weird roles, and as I started to build a new set, I suddenly turned around and there were 25 people in the room. I have absolutely no idea what happened, but as I frantically tried to build an interesting set, someone asked that there be a neutral party one could go to in case of confusion, and I switched from player to moderator, which turned out to be everything I wanted. The 26 player game was just the right amount of insane chaos I wanted, with ambassadors, spies, a good handful of greys, and enough damn insanity to make a very fun game. The next game with the crowd was a bit small and a bit more anti-climatic, as I accidentally put in a couple of roles that kinda made things too infuriating, but it was still interest, especially with the sniper trio doing their little thing. Then a small but still substantial group of us had to move to the top deck of the boat, and we played two games that involved me traveling back and forth across a goddamn bridge, which was both intriguing and exhausting. But it made me realized that I kinda love moderating games, and I kinda want to do this thing for a living, if I can. It was pretty eye-opening, and felt very rewarding. People kept thanking me. I loved it. I've got another upcoming event in which I might be able to moderate a game again for work, and I think I'm going to get in contact with the Tuesday Knight people and see if they need someone to circulate the cons near me. We'll see.
So that's the cruise! I took a couple of days just recollecting myself, so...consider this post valid up to Tuesday. I'll get back into the groove here shortly. Because man this post took forever to write.
I have been away on a cruise! A hip cruise, named after a guy with long, puffy hair, so it's okay, I'm not a huge nerd. That's not what this cruise is about, despite the insistence of literally everyone else I was with on the boat.
ANYWAY, this trip was mainly about playing board games in the best game room on the high seas. New games, old games, any game! That's why I went, for the great game room and maybe for some showing off. So let's go through what I played over the long week, possibly in alphabetical order.
AquaSphere - There a few new experiences in which I just tried a game that I've heard some things about, and AquaSphere was middling at best. It's still a good game, but it's JUST a good worker placement game with some interesting mechanics. Moving around the Aquasphere is interesting, the dealing with octopods is kinda fun, the "time" mechanic is a bit insane. It's very competent, if very heavy on iconography. The best thing it has is theme and that ends up being paperthin. Still, I'd play it again, I just wouldn't purchase it, because it's not that great.
Battlestar Galactica - Ohhhhhh son! It has been so long, and it was pretty fun, but only because I was ended up being a Cylon and ended up being completely ignored after Baltar viewed my card and outed me. The humans just...kinda forgot to brig me. I even pointed out that it would be so so easy, but nope, they just forgot to, and I got to tank an essential crisis to win the game! I kinda don't like the Earth scenario, because it practically requires using the special mission deck, and that's no fun. But who cares! Woo! I'm a Cylon!
Concept - There was a night where everyone just randomly decided that Concept was the game. Concept was described as "charades, but with this weird board." One or two players are given a card with a number of topics, chooses one, and then places cubes and tokens on a board full of various icons to try to get all the other players to guess what the word or phrase was. It's very interesting where people start, how they manipulate the board, and how nuts some of the suggested topics are. I somehow saw someone guess "Luke, I am your father", which was insane, and I made a huge gambit to try to get the other players to guess "Richard Hatch," which was probably the worst idea I've had in a while. I mean, I completely forgot about the Richard Hatch on the Survivor. How did I forget that? Anyway, interesting game, glad to see it get some play.
Dixit - I guess I played Dixit? It felt like all games of Dixit. "Oh, the art is really good. Wait, what is going on? Um...Truman Show reference." Anyway, Dixit.
Exploding Kittens - So the Oatmeal guy was on the cruise, and he brought the prototype of that Kickstarter game that he is currently working on, which society has decided is worth $6 million, and I HATE IT. The game is awful. It's a press-your-luck game, only without the press. You draw a card, and if you draw the explosion card, you lose. THAT'S IT! There are cards that let you skip your turn, or force someone to take extra turns, but the majority of the deck is stupid garbage cards that you need to collect sets of to get an effect, and it's fine, but it is not SIX MILLION DOLLARS fine. I just am DONE with the Internet and its stupid insistence that cats are goddamn hilarious by default, and also the Oatmeal sucks and is terrible. The end.
Fantasy Life - So anytime I was not feeling like talking to people, I hid in my room and played Fantasy Life, and this game is goddamn amazing. I just get so drawn in by the endless cycle of goals it sets for you. There is always another Life you could level up more, or a rare resource you could hunt down, or a table you can craft. It's amazing. I wish the storyline wasn't so predictable, but it also makes it easy to skip through without really reading, and I look forward to getting to the endgame to see how insane that gets. Some guy on a bridge told me to kill a dragon. I gotta go do that.
Glass Road - I got drawn into a game of Glass Road, and it ended up being weird? Like, a player got mad at a person for asking about the game and deciding not to play? And then she just...quit playing during the final round? I'm confused about that player's priorities? But Glass Road is a really fun "build up your board" game, Uwe Rosenberg, y'all, and I enjoyed it. I also won by a mile, because I knew what I was doing. I like Glass Road's kinda dickish "haha, me too!" mechanic, in which you get to tag on to another player's action if you happen to have it in your hand. It's pretty good!
Johann Sebastian Joust - I ACCIDENTALLY BECAME FAMOUS. It was weird, and I almost didn't like it, but I eventually started rolling with it. In case you don't know, Johann Sebastian Joust is a tactile game in which each player has a wand with an accelerometer. You can only move the wand so much (based on the speed of the music) before it "explodes" and you are eliminated. So each player is trying to force the other players out, via pushing, pulling, and fakeouts. The last one to be eliminated is the winner. I played a fair number of games, and because of my superior sense of balance (which I developed because I'm slightly bow-legged), low center of gravity, and strategic arm placement, I was difficult to tag out. I had one incident where a player pushed me with all his strength TWICE, and I still stayed in the game, keeping my wand at hip level and staying steady. I won a couple of games, NBD, but as the week wore on, people were approaching me while I walked around the ship and asked me if I played Joust that day, or congratulated me for my performance. It was totally bizarre! It's weird being famous!
Imperial Settlers - Of all the "new" games I played, Imperial Settlers was the best. It's a civilization game based on decks of cards, with each player having a personal deck, but also a common deck that provides some basic abilities. You've got to manage your resources and figure out how best to gain victory points. It's got a good arc, with a quick first round that builds to a tense fifth round in which you try to squeeze all the blood from the stone of your small civilization. Really smart, and apparently based on a card game that I've tried to play in the past that I just didn't understand. I really didn't like the first iteration, so it's very cool that they cleaned up all the rules to make it, frankly, playable. I might pick this up, if the planned expansions start playing out like I hope.
Lost Legacy - Lost Legacy is an iteration on Love Letter, in which it's less important to have the best card, and instead know where the best card is. There's also a lot less player elimination, which is nice. I played lots of games of it, because it's quick and easy.
One Night Werewolf - One Night Werewolf is a bluffing game in which you have the various typical werewolf roles, except it's paced so that everyone gets to play and there's a fair amount of mystery. In each game, there are three more roles than players, and there's a night phase in which each role gets to gather their relevant info or just completely screw things up (there is a role that intentionally changes people's roles without them knowing). Then everyone discusses who they were, who they might be, and who they should lynch. If a werewolf is lynched, the village wins, otherwise the werewolves win. It's a pretty clever iteration of Werewolf, and I played a lot of games. I didn't play particularly well though; as long as a fair number of villagers are willing to tell the truth, it's hard for the werewolves to hide. I was playing as a special werewolf who could view someone's role, and decided to let that player know I knew his role immediately, hoping he thought I was the seer. But...no. They didn't fall for it. But I like One Night Werewolf a lot, so I'm glad I got to play a lot of games of it.
Pairs - I had heard a lot about Pairs, which was Kickstarted for what felt like a ton of money with a ton of different decks. Each Pairs deck contains cards numbered 1-10, with as many copies of each card as their number. One 1, two 2's, etc. You have a discard pile, and you can either draw a card or take a face-up card as points. If you draw a copy of a card you already have in your discard pile, you score it as points. Points are bad, and whoever gets to a set number of points loses. There are also a ton of variants, and it's a pretty clever idea overall. I ended up liking it a lot, and I'll probably pick up a deck here for another quick filler game, because my life is apparently now filler card games.
Red7 - Oh speaking of filler card games. I've already told you about Red7, but I finally got to play the advanced rules, and I don't like it? It makes the game a bit too difficult, as 7's suddenly become a huge liability rather than a surefire play. I guess that's good, but it's also kinda not fun when someone with 7's in their hand can't get ahead. I think I'll stick with the basic game, because it's fun enough.
The Resistance - I played a couple of games of The Resistance with the Hunter variant, which is pretty fun. It just makes the game's metagame so much more intriguing. Our second game I found the spy chief on round 2, which gave me a ton of information that I could use. Then came the most elaborate play I've ever seen, with a spy spending a good fifteen minutes selecting his team to fool everyone at the table into thinking he was resistance. It was a good play, but HOLY CHRIST it was irritating in retrospect. He milked it for all it was worth and completely fooled me and it was masterful. Unfortunately, the resistance still won, because we had the best info. The hunter variant does suffer from being a bit luck-driven, but I still like it.
Rock Band - I got to play Rock Band! Have you heard of it? It's been a while. There were a lot of people who were asking for specific songs and we had to tell them "no, sorry, if it's been released in the last two years we probably don't have it," but I got to do "I Get By" again, which is just so cathartic. I haven't even thought about the reason I love that song in months!
Sheriff of Nottingham - Hey look another bluffing game. This one involves choosing a number of goods from your hand and trying to trick the sheriff (which changes each round), that you are just trying to get your pile of legal goods to your cart. They can choose to let you through, try to get a bribe from you, or search your stack. If you were lying about the contents of you bag, you pay a penalty, otherwise, he does. It's alright. The deck of goods is way too big to even consider counting, and it's mostly about playing to the whims of the current judge, but still an interesting play. Plus it comes with little bags!
Story Wars - Then this dumb game. In each game, there's a judge, and then two different teams who select champions, and come with creative reasons why their champion should win the current challenge. It's kinda stupid, but it involves being creative, which is nice, I guess, if the people you are playing with match your general rhetoric. If they don't (as was the case here), it just feels...dumb. I was judging a round in which an elf was defending a castle against a rose chariot and I was just bored. But hey, it's an alright game if you don't play with strangers, I bet.
Two Rooms and a Boom - Why what a coincidence that the best game I played would be last! I made a print-and-play copy of Two Rooms and a Boom because I still don't have my retail copy (current bets are August...we'll see), and set up a couple of times on the official cruise app to play it. The first session was pretty okay, in which a reasonable crowd of about 15 or so showed up to play, and we played a few games with basic roles, basically growing in difficulty, and then everyone disappeared when a conflicting event was much more popular than I would have anticipated. A bit sad, but there was enough interest that it inspired me to set up a second event.
The second event started with maybe six people, which is just barely enough, and I was disappointed while I set up a small game with a few weird roles, and as I started to build a new set, I suddenly turned around and there were 25 people in the room. I have absolutely no idea what happened, but as I frantically tried to build an interesting set, someone asked that there be a neutral party one could go to in case of confusion, and I switched from player to moderator, which turned out to be everything I wanted. The 26 player game was just the right amount of insane chaos I wanted, with ambassadors, spies, a good handful of greys, and enough damn insanity to make a very fun game. The next game with the crowd was a bit small and a bit more anti-climatic, as I accidentally put in a couple of roles that kinda made things too infuriating, but it was still interest, especially with the sniper trio doing their little thing. Then a small but still substantial group of us had to move to the top deck of the boat, and we played two games that involved me traveling back and forth across a goddamn bridge, which was both intriguing and exhausting. But it made me realized that I kinda love moderating games, and I kinda want to do this thing for a living, if I can. It was pretty eye-opening, and felt very rewarding. People kept thanking me. I loved it. I've got another upcoming event in which I might be able to moderate a game again for work, and I think I'm going to get in contact with the Tuesday Knight people and see if they need someone to circulate the cons near me. We'll see.
So that's the cruise! I took a couple of days just recollecting myself, so...consider this post valid up to Tuesday. I'll get back into the groove here shortly. Because man this post took forever to write.
No comments:
Post a Comment