Board Games

[eyebooger]

Been posting these on POG, but I’ll crosspost my review of my local board game convention here in case anyone cares:

2017 report
2018 report
2019 report
2021 report
2023 report

Thursday:

Got there a day early and played some stuff with the group I was sharing a room with again. It was Halloween, so some people brought some games with that in mind.

Zombie Fluxx (BGG link) – It’s Fluxx, but with zombies. The game is meh to begin with and I’m not sure the zombies haven’t made it worse. I guess it’s fine, but only because it was Halloween. First impression: C-

Dead of Winter (BGG link) - One of my roommates was hosting this the next day, plus it was Halloween, so definitely seemed appropriate to play. More fun that I was anticipating, because storytelling games aren’t really my thing. Survive, kill zombies, hope there isn’t a traitor, meet your personal goal. First impression: B

Also played Betrayal on the House on the Hill (again, because Halloween). Gave this a B- last year, which seems about right.

Friday:

Official start of the convention and on to stuff I actually signed up for.

Forest Shuffle (BGG link)- A cute set collection game about building a forest. Plant trees and put animals in them to score points. The unique element is that the animal cards have a left and right half or a top and bottom half, of which you can only play one side of that. Quick little game that shouldn’t take more than 45 minutes, but still felt like it had strategic depth. I don’t usually care about this kind of stuff, but the artwork on this game is incredible. First impression: [COLOR=“Red”]A- [/COLOR]

Sea Salt & Paper (BGG link) – Because Forest Shuffle is a relatively short game, he made it a twofer with this one. Another set collection game, but this one feels more like rummy. It’s a fine filler game, but certainly nothing more. First impression: C+

Heat: Pedal to the Medal (BGG link) – Every year, there is some game that seems to be the big sexy thing of that year with multiple people hosting. Last year it was Earth. This year it was Heat. It’s a racing game, but at it’s heart, it’s a deck builder. You play cards every turn that dictate how many spaces you advance. More cards sound great, but you can only go around corners so fast. Otherwise you get “heat” (trash cards). You can get rid of them, but only if you play fewer cards when you move your care. We had a group of 7 (somehow I won despite the fact that I was one of the only first timers). I’m really glad we had that big group. This was loads of fun, but I’m not sure I’d feel that way with fewer people. First impression: A

Cascadia (BGG link) – Some people were starting this after I had finished Heat. It’s a game from about 3 years ago that had a lot of hype. The hype is justified. Using hex tiles, build an environment and place appropriate animals in there. Each of the five animals has one of four cards that determines scoring, along with how well you build your terrain. A simple game that seems to have a ton of strategic possibilities. I really wish this was on Board Game Arena. First impression: A+

Saturday:

Apiary (BGG link) – A worker placement game from the creator of Wyrmspan, which is fine I guess. This is much better. Bees in space. You go to areas to explore planets, improve your hive, obtain resources…all the normal stuff that you do in a worker placement game. Every time another player takes the spot you are on, your bee upgrades and can do better things. Another game with fantastic artwork First impression: A

Container (BGG link) – An economic game that I was really excited to play, since it’s out of print and this may be the only time I’ll ever get a chance. It has a very weird mechanic that somehow works. You produce things and also ship out the other player’s goods to an island for auction. Unfortunately the host messed up little portions of the rules, but I’m not sure it made the game unfair. Would love to try it again. First impression: A-

Clank in Space (BGG link) – An offshoot of Clank, which I’ve never played, but apparently this is basically the same thing. It’s a deck builder where you travel around a spaceship and steal things. There’s a push your luck element, because the goodies that are deep into the ship are better, but eventually you have to run away and escape the ship. I can’t really identify anything specifically wrong with it, but it didn’t blow me away either.First impression: C+

Railways of the World (BGG link) – The Saturday night slot had really slim pickings for some reason. This seemed like the most promising of a whole bunch of games that had me shouting “meh”. Maybe these sorts of games aren’t my thing, but I’m not ever sure this reached “meh” level. A route builder where you take out loans to expand your network. Our host was not the best at explaining things, so I might not be being completely fair in my judgment here, but I would not feel like my life was incomplete if I never play this again. First impression: D+

Canvas (BGG link) – Found some people I know that were trying this out. A light game where you take 3 transparent slides and make a work of art. The art is just glorified flavor text, as each panel has information at the bottom that tells you how it scores. Mechanism is creative and is simple enough for children to enjoy. A fun filler game. First impression: B

Sunday:

Dune: Imperium - Uprising (BGG link) – This is a standalone sequel to a 2020 Dune game. In preparation for this, I watched the movies, but you don’t need to know anything about the Dune universe. It’s a worker placement plus deck builder. You place your workers (as long as you have a card that says you can go there, and as long as no one else is there or you have a spy), execute the action and finally buy things. At the end of each round, there is a fight for a prize. The original is a top 10 BGG game and one of the other players said this was even better. I can’t judge that, as I’ve never played the original, but I can say that this one is outstanding. Seems well balanced too. If you go first, you have first pick of locations. If you go last, you get to see how the fight is developing. It fits the theme really well, although part of me wishes it wasn’t associated with Dune, as that makes it basically hopeless of ever getting on Board Game Arena. First impression: A+

Rats of Wistar (BGG link) – While we were waiting for a convention ending raffle that my ride was participating in, someone was setting up this game and asked if we wanted to give it a shot. It looks like a kids game but is clearly way heavier than that. You send your mice out into a farm in search of goodies. Seems promising, but the person explaining was SO SLOW at both explaining and playing that we just had to bail. I’d try this again, but JFC not with that host. First impression: Incomplete

And that ended my convention. Had a fun time and am looking forward to next year, which is thankfully the weekend before Halloween.

[dogsballs]

Grunching to the wrong crowd prolly, cos not for hardcore board-gamers - but for family get togethers w younger kids (8+) & a mix of olders, Jamaica is great! Fun w great quality of board/pieces.
Basically you race pirate ships around Jamaica by rolling dice and picking up gold and treasure. Enuf luck to be fun and enuf strategy to keep adults interested.
Had it for 10+ yrs and it keeps getting trotted out since the kids were small; and everyone still enjoys it.

The great thing about Jamaica is that everyone’s always involved; it’s not just waiting for your own turn. (So the kids don’t get bored waiting for their turn).

You take turns rolling the dice, but everyone gets to play those numbers. The roller has an advantage because they choose which order, depending on the pirate cards they have in their hand. But everyone plays every roll.

[Cornboy]

Some friends bought Cascadia, we’ve played it twice, I’m a fan, too.

I actually just borrowed Clank! the original from them. I thought my kid might like it, and there’s a Legacy version of it. She loved the Ticket to Ride Legacy. A lot easier to schedule these Legacy games if everyone lives in your house.

Glad to see your review of Heat with a big group. We play occasional games with a friend and his two kids, so it’s a big group and I’ve read Heat is terrific. I think I’ll pick it up.

[kerowo]

The group I play with have at least 2 people who can’t plan ahead or whose process is so slow as to make the games much more tedious than they need to be. Games like Terraforming Mars take long enough without two players having to go in the tank for every damn move.

[eyebooger]

That shit drives me up a wall. Yeah, there are of course spots where the person in front of you unexpectedly messed up your move and now you have to think of something else, but those times should be rare.

It’s why my goal when I’m learning a game is not to win - it’s to not be the slowest player. Sure, I try to win. But I’m not going to worry about it if I make a suboptimal move. Just do something and move on. Figure out later what you would do differently next game.

[Krayz]

People who play slow are the bane of games. In Magic, it tilts me so much playing against slow players.

[eyebooger]

Phase 10 got inducted into the Toy Hall of Fame today.

LOL

[Krayz]

@eyebooger

Phase 10 got inducted into the Toy Hall of Fame today.

LOL

legalized weed in NY has hit Rochester hard I see

[Huehuecoyotl]

Glued my first minuture. Did an OK job. Lots of glue showing and I didn’t check for mold lines, but got to start somewhere

[kerowo]

I always thought they should start a line of figs that were Star Wars figurine sized and call them “Figs for Old Eyes.” “Always” being about 15 years ago when I stopped seeing so good.

[Cornboy]

@eyebooger

Heat: Pedal to the Medal (BGG link) – Every year, there is some game that seems to be the big sexy thing of that year with multiple people hosting. Last year it was Earth. This year it was Heat. It’s a racing game, but at it’s heart, it’s a deck builder. You play cards every turn that dictate how many spaces you advance. More cards sound great, but you can only go around corners so fast. Otherwise you get “heat” (trash cards). You can get rid of them, but only if you play fewer cards when you move your care. We had a group of 7 (somehow I won despite the fact that I was one of the only first timers). I’m really glad we had that big group. This was loads of fun, but I’m not sure I’d feel that way with fewer people. First impression: A

Bought this, played it with 6 players. Lot of fun. Played OK with 3 players, too, but definitely agree it’s better with a large group - lot more shifting around of positions. Felt like a good mix of strategy and luck - in the last game we played I thought I played near perfect strategy - used up all my heat before a bunch of sharp turns on the France map, planned to downshift and then discard all the Heat, but I never drew any! Luck of the draw stuffed it all at the bottom of the reshuffled deck and it cooked me. Not a criticism - I liked that bit of luck being included.

[Cornboy]

I also bought Clank! Legacy. My kid loved the base game.

She’s been dying to play more of the Legacy scenarios - we’ve only played 2. They each took 2.5+ hours, lot of reading, stickering, etc.

Very small spoiler:

Before game 2, we each got to add a unique starting card to our deck - I won game 1 so I got to pick first. One of the cards seemed way overpowered, and I didn’t want to take it because I thought it would mean I’d destroy the other players. My kid took it, and it absolutely won her the second game - she got something like 24 victory points off of it. The other cards aren’t nearly as valuable. We may have to ban that card and make her select again, hah. The rules did reference we’ll be able to swap cards in the future.

[nonfiction]

Any suggestions for younger kids? My almost-5 year old has started getting into a few basic boardgames like guess who so I might be getting ahead of myself but i’m pumped for bigger and better games as he gets older.

[kerowo]

I think I was playing stuff like Parcheesi and Yahtzee at that age. Not so much strategy as randomly moving around a board to see who finishes first.

[Cornboy]

@nonfiction

Any suggestions for younger kids?

• Sleeping Queens - this is a card game, builds some simple math skills, too. I think we started playing this around age 6. We’ll still randomly play this even now.
• Whoowasit - this is a cooperative game where you work together to find a missing ring and ID a thief. We liked it. Cooperative can be good for that age. Edited to add - Whoowasit has this gimmick where adults aren’t supposed to be able to hear the clues. Only kids can talk to the animals.
• Camel Up - This might be aged slightly higher, but I think younger kids can handle it - there’s also ways to make it a little easier. Basically, Camels race their way around the table. You have little control over how the Camels perform, you’re betting on which ones will come in first / last. A nice thing about this is you’ll never age out of it - it’s just a good game.
• Spot It - definitely get a copy of this if you haven’t. There’s a few different modes to play, but the most basic one is two cards get flipped over. There’s one matching image on both cards, the first one to find it wins that card. Then a new one is flipped over - there will be another matching image. Kids get better at this than adults, your 6 year old will eventually spank you at this. It’s also small, so easy to take with you, play in a restaurant, etc. Same with Sleeping Queens.
• Carcassone - tile laying game. I think a 6 year old can handle it, with a little bit of help maybe. My kid always wanted to save her Meeples. Just take the points, kid! Don’t play with the optional Farmers rules to start, kids have a tough time wrapping their mind around that. As they get more comfortable with the base game, there are expansions that can be added. There’s enough luck in this game that a kid can win. My kid always drew a lot of monasteries.
• King of Tokyo - 6 might be slightly early, but I think this is a good game for young kids. Everyone takes control of a different monster trying take control of Tokyo (think Godzilla). You can either kill all the other monsters, or become the most famous monster to win. Has cool monster art, and kids get to roll a bunch of dice, so they tend to like it.
• Keys to the Castle - this might be slightly older, but not much. Basically you each are trying to escape a castle, unlock doors, lock other players doors. Kids like to block adults. You can take it easy on them to make it winnable for them.
• Qwirkle - this is a tile laying game where you try to match colors/shapes.
• Mole Rats in Space - this is another cooperative game, where you work to collect supplies and get off a space station that is infested with snakes.
• Rhino Hero - this is kind of like Jenga. You each take turns playing cards that build up a building, with a small Rhinocerous moving up as well.
• Quick Cups - this is different, and kids can get better at it than adults. Every player has a set of 5 different colored cups (I think it’s 5). A card is flipped over and you have to be the first to order your cups in the order of the colors shown on the card. Then ring a like desk bell.

We still play a bunch of these occasionally even though the kid is 13 now. Carcassone (we love that one), Camel Up, King of Tokyo, Keys to the Castle.

[Cornboy]

This is too much for a 5 year old, but when I wrote about Sleeping Queens being good for math - we also had a lot of luck with this card game Proof! Really tricks the kid into improving their math skills. She’s in advanced math now, and I think games like this helped. Probably best for age 8 or older. Keep it in mind for the future.

[nonfiction]

Thanks, great list. King of Tokyo I have and play with his older cousins but he is a bit too young. Def will have to check out the rest

[Huehuecoyotl]

Hedbanz is a good game. We played it last night with our 6 and 8 year olds last night

[DrChesspain]

@nonfiction

Any suggestions for younger kids? My almost-5 year old has started getting into a few basic boardgames like guess who so I might be getting ahead of myself but i’m pumped for bigger and better games as he gets older.

I’d definitely include chess in the mix, unless you don’t play chess.

[kerowo]

I think the thing that helped me most at math at that age was keeping score when we went bowling.