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Board Gaming Era |OT| (Mostly) Unplugged Gaming
- Thread starter XShagrath
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Thanks for all the info! I need all the prep I can get. I'm so bad at stickers and cutting stuff straight
This is how mine ended up looking:
That looks perfect! Come do mine
I'm awful with a sharpie! lol
For somebody that has the skills to make it look good, yeah sure!
But for 2 bucks this sticker was really worth it for me!
Speaking of Tapestry, I need to play a bit more before crystallizing my thoughts about it (I only played 4 times), but I just saw this video and I think it summarizes a lot of my thoughts about the game so far:
This is a great video, I highly recommend it (as well as the whole video series for that matter). It's not specifically about Tapestry, but it uses the game heavily to illustrate his points. And I definitely agree with most of them.
It's very true that there are a lot of discussions around the balance of Tapestry. Such or such tapestry cards are too strong, or such or such civilizations are way better, this track is so much better to pursue, etc. Especially on BGG... omg, BGG's Tapestry board is such a mess right now. You go in there, and this game is either the best thing to come out since sliced bread, or the worst crime that has ever been committed against the board gaming community. What a waste of time.
But the truth is, "balance" hasn't been an issue that I have experienced with this game. Quite the contrary, actually. Or to be clearer, to me this game is a puzzle about figuring out how to do the best with the bunch of crap you've been dealt. No games I've played were ever the same. Each time, the winning strategy was dramatically different. Same thing about "luck". From what I experienced, luck hasn't been a big factor for anybody that won the game. But the ability to adapt was.
That's a very fascinating game. I actually never played something like this before. There are many things that can potentially score points, and so many different strategies that someone can pursue depending on the situation... There's something very unique going on with Tapestry. I'm really looking forward in playing more.
This is a great video, I highly recommend it (as well as the whole video series for that matter). It's not specifically about Tapestry, but it uses the game heavily to illustrate his points. And I definitely agree with most of them.
It's very true that there are a lot of discussions around the balance of Tapestry. Such or such tapestry cards are too strong, or such or such civilizations are way better, this track is so much better to pursue, etc. Especially on BGG... omg, BGG's Tapestry board is such a mess right now. You go in there, and this game is either the best thing to come out since sliced bread, or the worst crime that has ever been committed against the board gaming community. What a waste of time.
But the truth is, "balance" hasn't been an issue that I have experienced with this game. Quite the contrary, actually. Or to be clearer, to me this game is a puzzle about figuring out how to do the best with the bunch of crap you've been dealt. No games I've played were ever the same. Each time, the winning strategy was dramatically different. Same thing about "luck". From what I experienced, luck hasn't been a big factor for anybody that won the game. But the ability to adapt was.
That's a very fascinating game. I actually never played something like this before. There are many things that can potentially score points, and so many different strategies that someone can pursue depending on the situation... There's something very unique going on with Tapestry. I'm really looking forward in playing more.
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What, you don't want to pledge 240$ just to have access to the vault without waiting 48 hrs for everything to be out of stock?
I wanted Rising Sun. Bummer, it was gone so fast. Literally nothing else from CMON is interesting to me. Except Bloodborne which I'll get anyway.
BUT...that leaves me money for Oathsworn. Very interested in this one.
Also who doesn't want to listen to this guy?
Got Tapestry tonight along with the tile fix. I got box 572 so yay for low number, whatever that means. Also the little tile fix was easier than I was anticipating. The top part was a little tricky to keep it stuck. I recommend pulling the tape up from the bottom and pressing down the top of the icon as you pull the tape up.
Love Rodney's table talk videos.
I agree with with his view player's create the imbalance due to their own skill level or biases towards style of play.
Though I don't want to put it all on the player. The designer is only human, and games are designed on a spreadsheet, though they are play tested, it doesn't mean they cover every style of play. And a runaway leader doesn't mean the game is inbalanced.
One thing I want to add, is that depth of gameplay might just not be there. It might just not be as deep strategically as people expect. Let's not forget Tapestry (the game in question) is a light-mid euro game. Give the game to 10 year olds, they might play it 50 times before they work out the strategy. Give it to heavy boardgamers they may take a lot less plays to 'work' out dominant strategies.
Also can i say how well shot Rodney's videos. Great lighting and videography. I take it he's a one man show, he does a great job.
I don't care how unbalanced a game is as long as I'm having fun. I think good game design obscures imbalance more than it tries to eliminate it entirely.
OP
OP
Completely unrelated to his board gaming stuff, he has a VLOG channel about his life, which is extremely well-shot and edited. He has some great insights and thoughts about life, and seems like an all-around great guy.
Anyone who owns Quacks of Quedlinburg, BGG has the GeekBits back is the expansion bits. They are worth every penny
Ordered the base and expansion bits. Expensive, but Quacks is great, so I'm sure it's worth it. Also got my Tapestry shipping email, and Wyrmwood Tabletop Tiles are also shipping soon. I'm excited :D
The bits are so great. I have the base ones and even though they cost me more than the game, it was worth it. I grabbed expansion ones today to be ready
I googled those tiles . Wtf???? Those are incredible I need them ahhhh
Wyrmwood will probably start selling them when they've finished delivering all their kickstarter waves. I hope they're as cool and useful as they look.
Post your impressions when they come, lemme know if it's worth it! They look beautiful
I've played it 3 times. Not enough to form a complete opinion, but I own it and it will be hitting my table a lot next month. I've loved every playthrough so far. I like the tension that's created by the kill order betting, and chucking dice always feels good. The player interaction is also great, limiting "attacky" actions to one single card chosen as a group makes it feel more fair than a lot of games with similar mechanics - like Munchkin for instance. It's not an amazingly deep game, but I think it works really well and it's a lot of fun.
I decided to late back the Underground expansion along with the upgrades for the original game, and I don't think I'll be regretting that decision.
Oh, I forgot: the theme does so much for me, it was what drew me in, but it also works really well with the gameplay. That's a huge plus for me.
Nice review! I really love the theme and think my wife would enjoy it. She loves horror and stuff.
Is it co-op? Hard to tell from videos. Everyone vs the humans?
Nah, it's strictly competitive. Each player bets on the order they think the victims will die and they each choose a favorite meal - the victim they want to kill personally. For each victim you guess correctly, you get points, if you kill your favorite meal you get points.
The catch is that the victims aren't always helpless. As you're searching for them room by room, you're building a hand of cards. Monsters can't play cards directly on each other, but when another monster decides to attack a victim, that's when the cards come in to play. If you decide that the victim can't die right now, let's say you bet on them to die later, and another player agrees, you will work together to pick a single item to give the victim - through loose table talk like "I can add 2 dice" or "I have a bonus against mummies" - the players must agree on a single item, and if they don't, the monster goes ahead and attacks the helpless victim.
The monster family with the most points at the end of the game is the winner. The game lasts like 8 rounds iirc.
This sounds really freakin fun. A bit pricey but I may need to grab it
Thanks for all your input!
The box is big and is the board itself. Minis have nice detail and comes with an insert so theoretically painters could do their thing. I say theoretically cause they can bounce around in their insert.
It is pretty fun and lighthearted. Only tried one scenario and a couple things were not fully explained like player elimination.
Bought Horrified on a complete whim because I'm a sucker for Halloween and keep hearing the name come up in this thread, plus my friends love co-op stuff.
I know literally nothing about it other than reading the back of the box. Hope I made a good choice!
I know literally nothing about it other than reading the back of the box. Hope I made a good choice!
Do you mean the scenario didn't explain player elimination? because the standard game mode does not have player elimination.
I was curious about this myself. The game gets really good reviews. The expansions seem to be pretty deep. It's also cool that one is a full expansion and the other is mods. The production quality also seems to be great. But.. I've read on Board Game Geek that people are pretty down on Dan Yarrington and his publishing companies, which includes Starling Games. I don't know all the details, but I guess people have not gotten what they were promised, to the point where he was even sued by Zman games, and Zman won. And unfortunately, this does sound like one of those "too good to be true" sets compared to the retail price.
That's the cost of 3-5 more established and better-rated worker placement games imo
So abomination got pushed to Oct 12th now. Except it's in stock at every Barnes and Nobel by me. Frustrating because I have it paid and preordered elsewhere
Correct. It was a scenario where you keep playing until all teens are dead or there is only one monster family left? It just didn't seem completely clear on some of the details. Need to try other ones.
I found the base game very average. Feast for Odin + Norwegians is my favorite worker placement still, maybe that helps.
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My copy of Tapestry is out for delivery today :) I'll get in at least a play against the automa this weekend.
EDIT: Just got delivery notification from Canada Post, so I'll likely be doing a solo play tonight.
EDIT: Just got delivery notification from Canada Post, so I'll likely be doing a solo play tonight.
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Thanks I was doing some research and found a lot of similar opinions. Great presentation and components game is decent not amazing. I think it's best to hold off given this. Can get better games for much less.
It is pretty. Very striking. I think because I love Root so much and it's wonderful art, I was really bummed that Everdell didn't really hold my interest.
I can attest that A Feast for Odin is fantastic. I didn't try the Norwegians expansion yet, though. Still waiting for it to be available again.
Feast for Odin is regarded more as a better worker placement game, but it looks like shit and boring.
I know this isn't the general response from around here but I have and will continue to buy and enjoy "Lesser" games with more appealing visuals and gameplay than the more heavy/mechanical games
that said, $220 for Everdell and everything included is a lot
What's a "Lesser" game you enjoy instead, for example's sake?
Why does it look like shit? I love the art. The theme is very strong. It fits together. I will say Odin is not a super heavy game. It's fairly easy to learn, I love how much freedom there is to play how you want and the spatial puzzle. I love Rosenberg games too.
But yes, can you give examples?
The first example that comes to mind is probably
I know Dominion is the "King" of all deck builders and is the most pure and all that but i'll play just about any deck builder over it because Dominion is incredibly dry in theme to me
or like, i'd play and buy viticulture, champions of midgard, everdell, or any number of worker placement games before going to feast for odin (not to dunk on feast for odin its just a good example here)
some of that can be with our group too and knowing what will get played.
all the 18xx games and historical settings aren't for us
If offered i'd definitely check out Empyreal as a train game though just because I like the art and theme, even if its not as good at being about trains or whatever
I went and looked at Feast again and while not actually ugly (I was thinking of something else) I definitely dont care for the art very much (what i'm assuming are the player boards look like that old NES game, rampart, and whatever this is
the grid part is a big no no in my "what I like about things"
also looking at this
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is the kind of thing that would give 3 of our regular group anxiety attacks. It's just SO MUCH stuff, regardless of what it adds to the game at some point it's just too much
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Dominion is just the first deck builder. Very few people think it's the best or most-mechanically sound example of the genre.
The first example that comes to mind is probably
I know Dominion is the "King" of all deck builders and is the most pure and all that but i'll play just about any deck builder over it because Dominion is incredibly dry in theme to me
or like, i'd play and buy viticulture, champions of midgard, everdell, or any number of worker placement games before going to feast for odin (not to dunk on feast for odin its just a good example here)
some of that can be with our group too and knowing what will get played.
all the 18xx games and historical settings aren't for us
If offered i'd definitely check out Empyreal as a train game though just because I like the art and theme, even if its not as good at being about trains or whatever
I went and looked at Feast again and while not actually ugly (I was thinking of something else) I definitely dont care for the art very much (what i'm assuming are the player boards look like that old NES game, rampart, and whatever this is
the grid part is a big no no in my "what I like about things"
also looking at this
is the kind of thing that would give 3 of our regular group anxiety attacks. It's just SO MUCH stuff, regardless of what it adds to the game at some point it's just too much
You need a NSFW tag on there buddy, I'm browsing at work.
Seriously, though, A Feast for Odin is probably my favorite game. I feel like it has enough theming for my liking, and that it looks pretty good.
I recognize it's not for everybody. Maybe try Nusfjord, instead, it's a bit lighter (and can also handle a 5th person).
However I'm with you on Dominion, Shift+1...I'd rather play pretty much any other deck builder, although for me it's because I don't like deck building on it's own. I think it goes well coupled with another mechanic. Quest for El Dorado (and the recently released Extraordinary Adventures: Pirates) are both racing games with a deck building mechanic for movement. If I have to play a straight deck builder, I'll still opt for something like Mystic Vale, which at least adds in a modular component to your cards as well as a push your luck element.
I find, for me at least, there's the push/pull of A) I really like the longer involved games, but B) playing the shorter ones means you can get more of them played in a given game session. In practice I try to aim for one session being one or two big games, and the next being a bunch of little ones.
For example, I've taken all of my Roll & Write games and the ones that don't have their own dry erase boards, I laminated a bunch of score cards, picked up some dry erase markers, and put all of the needed components out of their original boxes and into one catch all plastic box that's about the size of a standard deluxe board game box. That plastic box represents about 7 or 8 roll and writes and there's room for more in there. I save those for filler, and for a night of rapid fire gaming with maybe one or two hour long games and then a bunch of short ones.
As a quick thought/edit: The most recent really long games we played were our first run of a standard 3 player game of CloudSpire and our first run of Nations (It was a 5 player game to boot). Cloudspire is a beast to learn. It took us about 5 hours our first time. We could probably play a second game in half that with one guy knowing the rules really well now, and the other two of us having played a full game.
Nations is, on the whole, not terribly difficult rules wise, but it is long (our game took 3.5 hours). We enjoyed it (and really liked the difficulty mechanic in the game), but it's long enough I don't know when we'll play it again.
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Got my pax coins today. Those will be nice
My Quacks Herbs bits shipped. Doesn't look like game will be out for a few more weeks though
I need to convince my wife to let me get another kallax. I'm full. And have like 8 more games this year oh boy
My Quacks Herbs bits shipped. Doesn't look like game will be out for a few more weeks though
I need to convince my wife to let me get another kallax. I'm full. And have like 8 more games this year oh boy
How many board games do you have in you collection so far? It seems theres always a constant deluge of new games going your way! lol! :p
This is the last pic I have (badly cropped to hide dog toys all over). Probably in the middle of collectors. Not small but not like some I've seen
This is the last pic I have (badly cropped to hide dog toys all over). Probably in the middle of collectors. Not small but not like some I've seen
This is a very nice looking collection! Lots of great games!
How do you find Nusfjord? It's probably the WP i'm most interested in at the moment.