What Board Game Are You Currently Playing?

[Hahma]

Tonight I played:

Kokoro - Different kind of game where everyone has a dry erase board that is gridded with a bunch of squares. Some squares are blank, some have some flowers in them and some have seahorses or a combination of both. There are some that have a building in it with a letter. A card is flipped over to tell you what building will score that round, then from another deck a card is flipped over and it will have a number 1-6. Each number has a corresponding symbol for a path you mark on a square that isn't already marked. So there will be a straight vertical line, a straight horizontal line, one and 4 that will be elbows that enter from one side of the square and go off at a 90 degree angle in one of the 4 directions. So basically you have to try to have a path connecting to a building that will score at the end of the round, and you get a point for each flower or seahorse in the path that connects to that building. Cards continue to be drawn until the 4th yellow one is drawn. Then you score that lettered building. The trick though, is that each subsequent score must be higher than the previous one and if it isn't, then you get 0 points for that round and a -5 at the end of the game for each 0 point round. There are other things, but that's the gist of it. It was ok.

Sheriff of Nottingham - Been a couple years since playing this one. Basically players take turns being the sheriff and the players that aren't the sheriff try to smuggle goods and contraband past the sheriff, in the form of cards they put in a sealed pouch. The players announce the number of cards in their pouch and what goods are in it. The sheriff can give back the pouch and the player gets to keep all the cards in it, or he can open the pouch. If he opens it and the cards are what the player said they where, then the sheriff owes that player money for each card. If the player lied, he owes the sheriff money for each card. Any player can try to bribe the sheriff to not open their pouch or to open someone else's. Fun light game.

Marvel Codenames- I just got this tonight and opened and played it. It was certainly difficult because it's hard to know what other people know about the Marvel universe, and even with that, how much is from the comics or movies. Very fun 5 vs 5 game. Can't wait to play it again.

[chas]

Am just finishing up my 25th game of the new Tricorne, (C&C by Richard Borg) whereupon I will have played, with FTF or solitaire, both factions of each of the 12 core game scenarios. Of course, I especially love the two Battle of Brooklyn (aka "Battle of Long Island") ones which took place just a few miles down the road from here! I love this game.

Meanwhile, The Great War has its new Kickstarter up (mentioned in the thread on that) for The French Army Expansion. Answering fan desires, they have made the French Heavy Tanks available as well ahead of their original publishing schedule as add ons, and scenarios for them as stretch goals, as well as the new 10 kinds of Special Personnel Figures the French will introduce, with a card retrofitting them back to the older scenarios, for both the British and Germans in a new, softer plastic that will replace the old harder plastic in the new "Centenary Editions," as their supply of old core games is now gone. You can also get the new larger cards as an add on. Whew!

[Agent Minivann]

My sister in law brought over What Do You Meme and we played after Thanksgiving dinner. There are a lot of not for kids cards in there. Probably a lot of not for civilized human beings cards in there. It's another in the Apples to Apples style of party game. The judge shows a picture from a meme, everyone puts in their card to provide text for the meme, judge picks the winner. I think the text cards are from memes as well. I didn't win, but I got the Joe Biden meme picture, so I feel like I'm really the winner.

[Hahma]

Yesterday after Thanksgiving dinner, my nephew Tyler, who is going to be 22 in a few days and in his 4th year at Purdue University, asked me to playtest a game he and his group designed.

At my oldest daughter's wedding at the end of September, Tyler had been able to break from school to travel out to Albany, NY to attend. He used to be my Heroscape and many other games buddy before he got to busy in H.S., but he knows I game a lot with my group. So he asked me some questions about games and mechanics, as he was going to do something with it for a business class. Well yesterday, he actually had a prototype of a game he and his team put together, with some decent cards components and some 3D printed pieces. So after dinner, me, my 14 year old twin daughters and my brother-in-law's nephew who is 17 played.

It was a really fun game and pretty well designed. We gave feedback, but I especially gave him a lot of suggestions and ideas. Even though his business class is ending in a few weeks, he and his buddy are forming a company and are planning on putting their game up on Kickstarter in the spring. He seems a little apprehensive as for whether it will get funded or not, but I told him that I thought it could.

He's pretty business savvy and has already been researching kickstarters and has already contacted a company to produce the game. He asked my sister and brother-in-law for a production copy of the game for Christmas, as it will cost $150. I told him to get me a prototype copy and I will take it to my group and get some more testing done, so he'll bring another copy up when he comes home again from Purdue around Christmas.

There is a local convention on March 3rd, called ArctiCon. It took last year off but had been going strong for like 8 years and being held at Valparaiso University, about 40 minutes from me. This year they are having it in Merillville, IN and less than 30 minutes from me. I did work the one 2 years ago, demoing The Great War game, as did my game group demoing other games. We are working it again and I plan to demo The Walking Dead All Out War miniatures game.

So last night, I reached out to the convention organizer and asked about my nephew being able to demo his game there. He said to have Tyler contact him and he'll see to his needs and help advertise it. Way cool. I texted Tyler and told him and he was excited. Sure I could demo it for him, but he should do so himself and get his name and face out there. He's a great kid (almost 22) and everyone loves him, he's got that something about him.

I am so excited for him. Heck, I was thinking of stuff for his game while laying awake in bed trying to get to sleep.

[chas]

Best of luck to him!

[Tornado]

Sounds exciting Hahma. Best of luck to him!

[Hahma]

This morning, while on my way to may group's all day Black Friday gaming event, I called my nephew and asked if he would want me go pay for a 2nd production copy of his game ($150) for his birthday (he'll be 22 on the 28th of this month) and Christmas present. He didn't want anything, but I'm not going to "not" get him something. He said that he really wants one production copy initially (that his parents are paying for), just to have something to film some videos and promo stuff with, as it's not likely going to be 100% finished and whatnot as far as the nitty gritty of rules and such, so no need to waste money on a 2nd copy. But he did say that if I wanted, I could buy it off Kickstarter when the time comes. Well, I'll buy plenty then as that will be his B-Day/Christmas gift. It will help get the funding going, and I think there are some others going to buy copies as well.

He's already asking about demoing it at GenCon, as they can $1,000 to rent a booth that new games people can demo their games. So that would be post Kickstarter and be part of a marketing thing for the retail phase. I told him to slow his roll a little bit. He'd be better off knowing if the Kickstarter funded for one thing, and then if so, then how much are in sales and profits. Then if it does fund, figure out the best way to reinvest profits, because $1,000 is one thing to demo at GenCon, but you also have hotel and food costs etc. He'd also have to consider if he is going to get extra copies produced from the Kickstarter to have on hand to sell at conventions and such. Does he spend the money to have people review his game? Does he take up an add on BGG? But he is a business guy, so that stuff is his forte, though he still will need some guidance.



Today at game day, I played:

Kingdomino - fun little tile laying game with a neat player order system from round to round. Short and light.

Medici - fun bidding and set collection game. There are 5 different types of goods and scoring track for each that you can move up on based on how many of their corresponding cards you collect on your boat during the round. A player reveals 1-3 cards and the player to the left can bid or pass, and that goes around the table until it gets back to the dealer, who has the final bid. You bid with your VP's, so you have to be careful to be able to get a return on your bid. Dealer moves to the left after the revealed ones are bid on. You can only have 5 cards on your ship, so that gets tricky as far as when you can or can't bid. Several different ways to get points.

Between Two Cities- another tile laying game, where you and the player to the left are working on building a 4x4 grid of tiles of different city planning types, and you are doing the same with the player to your right. So each player is helping build 2 cities so to speak. At the end of the game, the tiles are scored for each city, with each player having 2 scoring markers, that they share with the neighbor they built each city with. The lower of your 2 scores is the one that gets counted, that way you can't concentrate on only helping build a great city with one of your neighbors and not caring about the other one. I won this one, and both of my markers were on the highest score on the board, so my lowest was also my highest. Fun game that accommodates a good number of players and is quick and lite.

Okanagan - Yet another tile laying game. Kind of like a more complicated game of Carcassonne. Similar to Carc in some ways, but you have secret objective cards that you try to score by collecting the sets on them. Whenever a terrain type gets closed out, then people with influence in that area can get some tokens that can be used to complete objectives. It was okay, though I think some objective cards are a lot easier to score than others, and make it easier to score them multiple times with multiple required tokes or sets of tokens.

Guild Ball - Fantasy sports game of sorts, where you can get points for scoring goals, but also for knocking out opponent figures. I had the Brewers, which are the painted models, while my friend Steve had his yet to be painted Blacksmiths. We are still new to the game, so it took a while. It's not complicated really, but each team has 6 players that have different stats and abilities and synergies etc. Also, each team plays very differently and there are a lot of things that change from one activation to the other, so while you may plan something on you next model's activation, something your opponent did can alter what you were planning on doing. So that lends to some AP for newbs, as then you have to figure out what best way to go. Each model gets assigned influence tokens based on how many you want to give them (up to their max allowable, which is different for many of them), and those influence tokens are spent when that model gets its activation. Different things have costs to do, with different types of movement, attacks and special abilities. We each had 4 points from knocking enemy models out (though they an re-enter on the next round with less health), as you get 2 points for each knockout. Then I was able to maneuver around with my striker Friday, and she has a great movement value and shot range. It helped when she used her "I Shoot Better After a Beer" Heroic Play, to be able to roll an extra die and have more range for her goal shot. She made it and it was a walk off goal for 4 more points to bring me to 8 for the win. We just played to 8, though you can play to 12 as well. Steve's friend George was sitting to my left and watching, as he is into this game as well.

[Yodaking]

Played 3 games of Blood Rage today. Good times.

[chas]

YK,

My fantasy is to some day play a game of Blood Rage followed with a game of Rising Sun. It will get harder to play the series once the third game comes out, though...that will be a long day!

[Yodaking]

I kickstarted Rising Sun, hoping it is as good as Blood Rage turned out to be. We have a Black Friday tradition of board gaming while everyone else is out shopping, it gives us a good solid 8 hours of gaming once per year. So perhaps one day we will play the two games back to back.

[Gurei-Ornery]

Originally Posted by Hahma

Guild Ball

I got a chance to try Guild Ball this weekend also. Everyone that played said they preferred it to Blood Bowl, although imo they aren't really similar enough to compare. I am willing to play any sport themed game, so I am hoping we can get a league started.

Also, played Aristeia! with some of the same people and most would have chosen it over Guild Ball. I find it sad that Aristeia is basically draft Heroscape with a bunch of condition tokens thrown in and Imperial Assault command cards. Infinity players have already downed the Koolaid and are eagerly waiting on expansions. I think if I ran a Heroscape tournament at the store, they would all be bummed they couldn't buy it.

Finally opened and played Vinhos to compare it to Viticulture. Interesting and really different take on the wine making theme. Need a few more plays of each to figure out which one I like more. I find it funny that I absolutely abhor wine, but these are 2 of my favorites right now.

Also played Le Havre, Village, and Dogs with my daughter. She is the best to game with because while she wants to win, she just has a blast playing anything. When I say a game is difficult, she doesn't even flinch. She knows she probably doesn't have a chance to win (just turned 11), especially a first game when I have already played a few times, but just enjoys the challenge. I am thankful for her (she is a much better sport than I) and should tell her more often.

[Hahma]

Originally Posted by Gurei-Ornery

I got a chance to try Guild Ball this weekend also. Everyone that played said they preferred it to Blood Bowl, although imo they aren't really similar enough to compare. I am willing to play any sport themed game, so I am hoping we can get a league started.

Also, played Aristeia! with some of the same people and most would have chosen it over Guild Ball. I find it sad that Aristeia is basically draft Heroscape with a bunch of condition tokens thrown in and Imperial Assault command cards. Infinity players have already downed the Koolaid and are eagerly waiting on expansions. I think if I ran a Heroscape tournament at the store, they would all be bummed they couldn't buy it.

Finally opened and played Vinhos to compare it to Viticulture. Interesting and really different take on the wine making theme. Need a few more plays of each to figure out which one I like more. I find it funny that I absolutely abhor wine, but these are 2 of my favorites right now.

Also played Le Havre, Village, and Dogs with my daughter. She is the best to game with because while she wants to win, she just has a blast playing anything. When I say a game is difficult, she doesn't even flinch. She knows she probably doesn't have a chance to win (just turned 11), especially a first game when I have already played a few times, but just enjoys the challenge. I am thankful for her (she is a much better sport than I) and should tell her more often.

Yeah GO, while I might be interested in Aristeia at some point, I worry that it would kill Guild Ball for me. Fortunately I don't have a ton invested in Guild Ball, as I only have the Kickoff set that ran me a little over $50. Though I did invest a decent amount of time in painting both teams. So if necessary, I could sell it pretty easy and at least get my money back because of the painted minis, and actually make money on it. But even if I did get Aristeia, it would be worth keeping my Guild Ball stuff.

I can see why people at your store would like Aristeia over Guild Ball, as it seems more basic and faster to play. While the mechanics of Guild Ball aren't difficult, learning your team and all the different things it can do takes time, and since every team plays differently, you also have to adjust based on what team you are playing. There are also a lot more decisions in how to allocate influence and how to spend it, as well as which playbook results to apply at certain times.

The interesting thing about Aristeia, is that there aren't point costs for the units, you can have any 4. The hexes make it easier since you don't have to measure anything. The LoS seems a little tricky, but I imagine it just takes a little getting used to.

I'm sure people would dig Heroscape too, though for some, the building the map part of it would be a turnoff.