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Ah, I didn't realize that bit about time eating into other player's turns.  Interesting.  I'm not particularly interested in it being accessible.  The people I usually play tabletop games with are all deeply experienced, and when we've got novices, we have other more accessible games we can play with them.  What I want is a co-op game that is actually challenging for a group of experienced gamers, without needing to fall back on heavily modified rules (which is what we do for Arkham Horror now). 

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Ah, I didn't realize that bit about time eating into other player's turns.  Interesting.  I'm not particularly interested in it being accessible.  The people I usually play tabletop games with are all deeply experienced, and when we've got novices, we have other more accessible games we can play with them.  What I want is a co-op game that is actually challenging for a group of experienced gamers, without needing to fall back on heavily modified rules (which is what we do for Arkham Horrow now). 

 

We were in danger of losing in a few turns when we won the game on the tutorial setting. I can imagine that on Hard the game will be challenge enough. The game looks intimidating, but having split roles really helps with the complexity of the game. Since all you have to manage is two or three tasks, with three other players it becomes more about working together to not constantly go over budget or have your base explode, rather than trying to figure out what to do next, or wrangling with the rules.

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I played my first game of Archipelago last night after a very informative tutorial my friend gave me. Boy is it a complex game. Hopefully that means more to dive into as the game group keeps playing it.

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Tried Kingsport Festival last night. I'd rather just play Kingsburg, it just has way more polish and is a much tighter and enjoyable game.

 

Kingsport hardly even takes advantage of its theme it feels like. It's just there in the background, not really effecting things aside from names.

 

Basically, it doesn't need to exist.

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Played Buffalo: The Name Dropping game with my gf last night after seeing Mary Flanagan's Indiecade East closing Keynote. Pretty good! I'm pretty terrible. I have a slow brain when attempting to recall famous people and characters. Excited to try it with more than 2 players, though.

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I'd be interested in hearing your report on the experience of playing more Buffalo. I had it demoed to me at GDC last year and almost picked it up before deciding my gaming group probably wouldn't get into it, I think a lot of them being sort of anti pop culture.

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Played Buffalo: The Name Dropping game with my gf last night after seeing Mary Flanagan's Indiecade East closing Keynote. Pretty good! I'm pretty terrible. I have a slow brain when attempting to recall famous people and characters. Excited to try it with more than 2 players, though.

 

That looks like a pretty awesome game, will have to look out for it.

 

I picked up Dead of Winter a few days ago, looking forward to cracking it open. Seems like a cool combo of co-op and betrayal type games.

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Last night, I played Dead of Winter with a friend for the first time. I was tired so I don't think I fully understood some of the more strategic decisions in there, such as when to build barricades, when to rummage noisily, when to hoard items instead of giving them up etc., but I did have a great time playing it. It's phenomenally well presented and every aspect of it (that I could see) served both a narrative and mechanical function. It was tough and our team didn't win, despite not playing with a betrayer at all, but it was nail-biting stuff and I can't wait to play again.

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This was a couple of months ago, but I had a chance to play Nuns on the Run. It's a write-your-turns-down-on-a-piece-of-paper type stealth game so it's a little bit fiddly, but I had a great time with it.

 

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Nuns on the run is great fun with a full group. The only time I've run into trouble with it is if people plot the wrong moves and avoid detection when they shouldn't have.

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Last night, I played Dead of Winter with a friend for the first time. I was tired so I don't think I fully understood some of the more strategic decisions in there, such as when to build barricades, when to rummage noisily, when to hoard items instead of giving them up etc., but I did have a great time playing it. It's phenomenally well presented and every aspect of it (that I could see) served both a narrative and mechanical function. It was tough and our team didn't win, despite not playing with a betrayer at all, but it was nail-biting stuff and I can't wait to play again.

 

You weren't just tired - it is not the most mechanically tight game. I'm especially not sure about the balance with a betrayer. But, it is a nice experience generator a la Tales of the Arabian Nights. Comparing it to that game, it's weird that you read out the results of each decision on the crossroads(?) cards before you choose one. It makes it more about the mechanics than the narrative choice the group is making, which does not play into the game's strengths.

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I'd be interested in hearing your report on the experience of playing more Buffalo. I had it demoed to me at GDC last year and almost picked it up before deciding my gaming group probably wouldn't get into it, I think a lot of them being sort of anti pop culture.

 

Playing it with a group Thursday. Will report back. A lot of the cards call for historical figures, scientists, poets, etc. apart from more poppy things. You can answer them with characters or real people. It's fun learning about people from friends. And some interesting conversations arise in the form of disputes over adjectives, whether or not an orange card applies to someone's answer for example.

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You weren't just tired - it is not the most mechanically tight game. I'm especially not sure about the balance with a betrayer. But, it is a nice experience generator a la Tales of the Arabian Nights. Comparing it to that game, it's weird that you read out the results of each decision on the crossroads(?) cards before you choose one. It makes it more about the mechanics than the narrative choice the group is making, which does not play into the game's strengths.

Agreed. I haven't played Tales, though I'm passingly familiar with it, but that aspect of Dead of Winter struck me as really odd.

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Last night, I played Dead of Winter with a friend for the first time. I was tired so I don't think I fully understood some of the more strategic decisions in there, such as when to build barricades, when to rummage noisily, when to hoard items instead of giving them up etc., but I did have a great time playing it. It's phenomenally well presented and every aspect of it (that I could see) served both a narrative and mechanical function. It was tough and our team didn't win, despite not playing with a betrayer at all, but it was nail-biting stuff and I can't wait to play again.

You weren't just tired - it is not the most mechanically tight game. I'm especially not sure about the balance with a betrayer. But, it is a nice experience generator a la Tales of the Arabian Nights. Comparing it to that game, it's weird that you read out the results of each decision on the crossroads(?) cards before you choose one. It makes it more about the mechanics than the narrative choice the group is making, which does not play into the game's strengths.

 

From the half-dozen games I've played, Dead of Winter has really similar tuning to Ghost Stories, another co-op game that is thematic in appearance but not in practice. Both are designed to be effectively unbeatable without full awareness of all the game's systems, and even then the advantage is with the traitor in Dead of Winter. For the traitor to win, only they have to understand the systems and have their shit together, but for the rest of the group to win, they all have to understand the systems, have their shit together, and not be seduced by putting their personal goals too far ahead of the group goal. Myself, I've never had the survivors win once. I'm wondering if our group needed to be more aggressive about exiling, but actions are valuable enough that an early exile without some proof is just stupid and I was never able to make happen later in the interval between having the suspicion and the game going past the point of no return. That makes it feel like a tacked-on system in the way that Battlestar's brig is not. Throwing someone in the brig is the core part of every single game of Battlestar, but it doesn't feel remotely as crucial to Dead of Winter, probably becomes it's an irrevocable and potentially disastrous decision for a given player, so you only do it if you're positive that someone's actively ruining your game.

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I played my first game of Archipelago last night after a very informative tutorial my friend gave me. Boy is it a complex game. Hopefully that means more to dive into as the game group keeps playing it.

 

We've played Archipelago a few times now and were pretty overwhelmed in the beginning. We couldn't even finish our first short game before people had to go home. It has loads of different mechanics but each one is super simple by itself and our second game went pretty smoothly already. 
There's still some stuff that's a bit confusing (like does the worker building a building occupy it after it's finished) and the manual could be better written but overall it's a pretty accessible game in the end.
 
If you don't have it already, consider getting the War and Peace expansion. It's just 40 evolution card so it's cheap and small and some of the cards are pretty amazing if you want a more confrontational/chaotic game. And you can mix them with the default cards in whatever proportion or replace the default deck entirely.
 
Also, 27 pages of board game talk and not a single mention of the best Civilization game? 
Bruce Geryk already said everything about it better than I ever could a few weeks ago: http://www.quartertothree.com/fp/2015/02/09/will-real-civilization-please-stand/
It's really good but takes a lot of time. A few house rules (time limits to trade turns and simulateneous turns when all parties agree) speed it up a bit though.

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I got the new Dungeon Lords Anniversary Edition and the box insert is far and away the greatest thing I've ever seen in the world. Everything fits perfectly and in a thoughtful, organized way. Its so fucking good.

Also got a copy of Tash Kalar and String Railway, both of which are comparatively lacking in the "good use of box space" department. Good thing I have a shit ton of various sized zip lock bags!

All of these seem like winners to me, though I'm kind of concerned about not being able to get Dungeon Lords to the table as much as I'd like.

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I just learned Dungeon Lords with my copy of the anniversary edition. Excellent game, but overall structure of the game can be a little hard to grasp at first when just reading the rulebook. This Flash version is super ugly, but it was useful for making sure I had the broad strokes of the rules straight: http://www.dungeonlords.ukfun.com

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I got the new Dungeon Lords Anniversary Edition and the box insert is far and away the greatest thing I've ever seen in the world. Everything fits perfectly and in a thoughtful, organized way. Its so fucking good.

Also got a copy of Tash Kalar and String Railway, both of which are comparatively lacking in the "good use of box space" department. Good thing I have a shit ton of various sized zip lock bags!

All of these seem like winners to me, though I'm kind of concerned about not being able to get Dungeon Lords to the table as much as I'd like.

 

Nice, looking at the insert and that looks pretty great! That is one thing I think a lot of boardgames are missing, are well thought out inserts. I loved Lords of Waterdeep for that. 

 

How does everyone store their games? I am at the point where I have squeezed all I can out of my current book case, I am not sure to either abandon the boxes and just rock custom inserts or just have a dedicated board game shelving unit. Leaning towards the latter, cuz dat art. 

 

CoY2eKw.jpg

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The Waterdeep insert is amazing, but unfortunately doesn't work with how people store their games. It needs to be flat for everything to stay put, which is annoying.

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So have I mentioned Hanabi?

 

It's crazy: you're trying to build a set of five suits, laid on the table in ascending order. Problem is, everyone but you can see your cards. You hold them face backward. A turn consists of telling another player where their greens or their 5 or what have you are in their hand, giving them just enough information to go on, but not so much information that you blow your time resources. You get back time resources by discarding cards, but discarding cards is dangerous because there's only so many identical cards to go around and if you discard a 5, or too many of the lower cards, you can't win.

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Hanabi is great, but the last several times I've played everyone is giving hints beyond those that fit the rules, and it's made it considerably less fun.

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Hanabi is my favourite co-op game and one of my favourite games ever.

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Hanabi is great, but the last several times I've played everyone is giving hints beyond those that fit the rules, and it's made it considerably less fun.

We usually have accidental cheating in Hanabi, and when that happens the person is lightly ridiculed by the rest of the group and we move on, and over time we learned how to not accidentally state things that give anything away. Does your group just not care about rule-breaking? Learning how to succeed as a group despite limited communication is kind of the whole reason to play Hanabi.

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We usually have accidental cheating in Hanabi, and when that happens the person is lightly ridiculed by the rest of the group and we move on, and over time we learned how to not accidentally state things that give anything away. Does your group just not care about rule-breaking? Learning how to succeed as a group despite limited communication is kind of the whole reason to play Hanabi.

 

The last few times hasn't been with my usual group, it's been with a member of it and some randoms at board game night at my FLGS. I definitely agree, and wish I could play with people who aren't likely to break rules more often.

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