Octopus Overlords

LordMortis wrote: Fri Jan 12, 2007 2:41 pm

Grafvolluth wrote:From the original list the only one I am iffy on eventually getting is Caylus, the rest I plan on purchasing at some point , although as pointed out not sure I need all 3 of tile laying trilogy from Knizia but if I find I like one I will probably get the other 2 since I am a bit OCD when it comes to buying habits.

Caylus is good but the game is played with a simalar approach as is Puerto Rico. It's a bit more "fuck you," in general, and a bit more intimidating, at first. I wouldn't get them both at the same time. And if you haven't played a counter the other player before he goes game like this before then I would go PR first. Both games don't play well until you get four players and only play "right" at five.

I played Caylus for the first time last night (the newer version, Caylus 1303). I thought it was really great, with plenty of tension around moving the provost up or down the road to lock people out of their actions. It generated lots of above-the-board talk--pretty much a constant stream of threats and jokes. Would definitely play it again any time.

Sigh...I have no self control whatsoever.



The 80's kid in me simply could not resist MotU. Played a couple games this afternoon, and it's an absolute blast. It's a skirmish game that pits one player team (1-4 characters) against a "Controller" team of villains and bots. Those who are looking for deep strategic gameplay or a compelling narrative can skip it, as it's neither of those things. The best compliment I can give is that it's just plain 'ol stupid fun. It's the adult equivalent of dumping out the box of He Man toys when I was 10 and smashing them together in mock battles. There are 6 good guys, 6 villains, and 20 scenarios in the core box, and the "Box of Power" xpac adds 19 more heroes, 19 more villains, and another 7 scenarios. It essentially triples the size of the game. The whole package is a big giant toybox with awesome minis and simple but fun gameplay.

My only real gripe so far is that the AI rules are very poorly explained and can be extremely confusing (seems to be the big gripe on BGG as well). I've already house ruled quite a few things that were unclear, but it doesn't take away from the sheer fun of it all. It's playing a Saturday morning cartoon, in all the best ways. The xpac even has a deck of cards with "Today's Lesson" on it that you read at the end of each scenario...just like every week's show used to end.

9/10 so far for me, but you can probably lower that a point if you don't have any nostalgia for MotU or are looking for something deep and complex.

I'm still on the fence with ISS Vanguard and am not sure if I'm going to keep it. While sci-fi games usually aren't my thing, I'm certainly intrigued by it having seen it described favorably as "Mass Effect: The Board Game". I think I'm going to watch a few playthroughs and how-to-play vids and see if it's something I would get into before I open it.

If it's like Tainted Grail (and it's by the same company and written by the same guy), then you get a choose your own adventure boardgame.

I’ve come to believe that Awaken Realms has a problem with style over substance.

Isgrimnur wrote: Sat Apr 08, 2023 9:10 pm If it's like Tainted Grail (and it's by the same company and written by the same guy), then you get a choose your own adventure boardgame.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

Certainly not my intent.

Isgrimnur wrote: Sun Apr 09, 2023 10:52 am Certainly not my intent.

No, I figured - was just being snarky. In my group, my wife likes a little challenge but really likes to win, my friend likes a little more challenge and I like even more. But all 3 of us are consistent in liking a good narrative element in our cooperative board games. So we don't necessarily mind a choose your own adventure. Role Player Adventures is a good example of the right difficulty/narrative mix.

Awaken Games definitely do the narrative well, but admittedly their gameplay can be a mixed bag. For example, I like the mechanics of Tainted Grail, but it ends up being a grind throughout some portions.

I like what Awaken Realm tries to do with their games. They're unique and they're not afraid to think outside the box. But I've yet to see that married to a truly fun game, imho of course. That being said, I'm hoping the update to Tainted Grail brings me back. I think there's a truly good game in there. It just needs some cleaning up.

Had a friend come in from out of town yesterday, and we had a nearly 8 hour board gaming session. I had actually never done that before, and it was glorious. Got to play Dwellings of Eldervale, Ascension Tactics, and Masters of the Universe with another person for the first time, along with Star Wars Deckbuilder and Legendary Marvel.

I generally really enjoy playing solo, but it is nice to occasionally have someone other than the kids to play with.

Skinypupy wrote: Fri Apr 14, 2023 9:01 am ....Masters of the Universe

I just packed up MotU after a solo run. The game turned on a dime. It went from me getting a bit of the upper hand to suddenly getting hammered by an Strategic card that hit everyone with a 4 dice attack and knocked out three people, ending my game. That was... disappointing... because I felt like there wasn't anything I could have done to stop it.

In general Masters of the Universe is a MESS. The game evokes a lot of nostalgia and as Skinypupy mentioned, it feels a lot like playing with He-Man figures in my living room in 1987. But, and I don't want to be mean, the rules are about as coherent as the ones I made when I was 7-8. Everything is extremely vague or worse have too many erratas. Do people heal when they get KO'ed (I think yes)? How many move points do AI-controlled Minions get? Do you draw one or two strategy cards for the AI (the books says one, the reference card says two, and the developers disagree on BGG forums)? I house-ruled that last one to only draw one card, but wonder if that means the AI isn't spending enough power and always getting the top choice on every card.

I regret getting the GAME to be honest, but not getting the figures. I'm going to have a blast painting them and I will probably repurpose to have a He-Man themed Five Leagues from the Borderlands campaign.

baelthazar wrote: Fri Apr 14, 2023 12:48 pm

Skinypupy wrote: Fri Apr 14, 2023 9:01 am ....Masters of the Universe

I just packed up MotU after a solo run. The game turned on a dime. It went from me getting a bit of the upper hand to suddenly getting hammered by an Strategic card that hit everyone with a 4 dice attack and knocked out three people, ending my game. That was... disappointing... because I felt like there wasn't anything I could have done to stop it.

In general Masters of the Universe is a MESS. The game evokes a lot of nostalgia and as Skinypupy mentioned, it feels a lot like playing with He-Man figures in my living room in 1987. But, and I don't want to be mean, the rules are about as coherent as the ones I made when I was 7-8. Everything is extremely vague or worse have too many erratas. Do people heal when they get KO'ed (I think yes)? How many move points do AI-controlled Minions get? Do you draw one or two strategy cards for the AI (the books says one, the reference card says two, and the developers disagree on BGG forums)? I house-ruled that last one to only draw one card, but wonder if that means the AI isn't spending enough power and always getting the top choice on every card.

I regret getting the GAME to be honest, but not getting the figures. I'm going to have a blast painting them and I will probably repurpose to have a He-Man themed Five Leagues from the Borderlands campaign.

I don't disagree with any of that...but am still having an absolute blast with it. I have just house-ruled anything I wasn't sure on and it's been fine so far.
- Heal on KO: Yes (would be really weird if it didn't restore)
- Minion Move points: Same as PC (3)
- Strat cards: I've gone with one

So, I’m as new as you can get with boardgames outside of Monopoly, Sorry… etc. KKBlue and I attended Octocon many years ago. The people we met and the games played, we still talk about it today.

Recently I was in our local library and they have a bunch of boardgames to borrow. It’s a nice selection to experiment with different type games. I brought home two games I thought would be easy for me and the wife to play; Carcassonne and Horrified. We are having a blast playing together and with Horrified we work together to defeat the monsters. Horrified is a little more complex and we are figuring out the the best combination of monsters to use for a two player game. We are still learning all the rules and I think there is some confusion that we may not be playing 100% properly.

Carcassonne is easy to learn and after 2 games we already added the river tiles and dabbled with Farmers. Using an Abby is next.

Anyway, we have Carcassonne and Horrified for a couple weeks so I’d like to try something else next. If anybody has any recommendations for Two Player games we should try, let me know. Here is a picture showing our library’s collection. Hopefully you can zoom in and see some of the titles.



I didn’t realize there are solo games (Horrified is one) but briefly looking at the previous posts I see this is fairly common and is either fun or frustrating.

So... that's what we played last weekend (and playing this weekend).

It's hard for me make out some of the titles, or otherwise recognize the boxes, but Azul is a good introductory board game that plays well at 2 players.

It's notably more complex, but Spirit Island is another great game on that shelf, but bear in mind it's a cooperative game, that is, both of you are playing together to win the game. You play as mystical forces of nature protecting an island from invading colonists who want to subjugate the native people and corrupt the land.

It also plays very well as a solo game, so you could learn the rules yourself, then teach it to a 2nd player

Daveman wrote: Sat Apr 15, 2023 5:25 pm It's hard for me make out some of the titles, or otherwise recognize the boxes, but Azul is a good introductory board game that plays well at 2 players.

Yeah, sorry, I thought the bigimg would make it bigger. I'll see if I can get a list of the games from the library. Thank you for the suggestion about Azul. I'm getting a list of games to borrow next and that sounds like a good round 2.

Since you seemed to like Horrified, I'd highly recommend trying Pandemic. It's sort of the granddaddy of cooperative games. Once you start playing co-ops, you'll start seeing Pandemic's influence everywhere. It's far from the first co-op game, but I think it could be argued it was intrumental in pushing cooperative titles into the mainstream.

Pandemic is 100% responsible for 3 of my 4 gaming group members getting into board games as a hobby.

From what I can make out on those shelves, Terraforming Mars is excellent. It’s initially quite complex but once it clicks, it’s fairly easy to understand.

I also see Ascension in there, which is a fantastic 1v1 deck builder.

+1 on Azul as well.

From what I can make out on those shelves, Terraforming Mars is excellent. It’s initially quite complex but once it clicks, it’s fairly easy to understand.

I also see Ascension in there, which is a fantastic 1v1 deck builder.

+1 on Azul as well.

If you try Azul and enjoy, it's worth giving Sagrada a shot. It's like Azul went on to college. It's not great at two but it's good.

telcta wrote: Sat Apr 15, 2023 5:15 pm So, I’m as new as you can get with boardgames outside of Monopoly, Sorry… etc. KKBlue and I attended Octocon many years ago. The people we met and the games played, we still talk about it today.

Recently I was in our local library and they have a bunch of boardgames to borrow. It’s a nice selection to experiment with different type games. I brought home two games I thought would be easy for me and the wife to play; Carcassonne and Horrified. We are having a blast playing together and with Horrified we work together to defeat the monsters. Horrified is a little more complex and we are figuring out the the best combination of monsters to use for a two player game. We are still learning all the rules and I think there is some confusion that we may not be playing 100% properly.

Carcassonne is easy to learn and after 2 games we already added the river tiles and dabbled with Farmers. Using an Abby is next.

Anyway, we have Carcassonne and Horrified for a couple weeks so I’d like to try something else next. If anybody has any recommendations for Two Player games we should try, let me know. Here is a picture showing our library’s collection. Hopefully you can zoom in and see some of the titles.



I didn’t realize there are solo games (Horrified is one) but briefly looking at the previous posts I see this is fairly common and is either fun or frustrating.

So... that's what we played last weekend (and playing this weekend).

7 Wonders holds up remarkably well as a two-player game (though technically, you play the two-player variant by using a third 'dummy' player, controlled by each player every other turn).

If you're not averse to purchasing some rock solid "couples games," i.e. games designed and intended for two players, I would highly recommend any of the following:

• Jaipur
• Lost Cities Card Game
• Raptor
• Targi
• Morels
• Patchwork
• Santorini
• Codenames Duet
• Schotten Totten
• Hive Pocket, which has to be one of the most travel-friendly games around.

I'll put in another vote for Azul...really fun game that is simple to learn, but can involve quite a bit of strategy.

I also see Codenames:Duet (version in the green box) on the bottom shelf. Codenames is a lot of fun and although I've never played the two-player version, I've heard that it works really well.

The titles from that shelf that stand out for me for two are Above and Below, Pandemic, and Big Boggle (I am a sucker for Boggle). Also Dice Throne, if you want some light head-to-head combat.

telcta wrote: Sat Apr 15, 2023 5:15 pm

I didn’t realize there are solo games (Horrified is one) but briefly looking at the previous posts I see this is fairly common and is either fun or frustrating.

Trying to squint... Pandemic and Azul should probably be next, as others have said.

If you could recruit another couple, Betrayal at House on the Hill/Baldur's Gate, Codenames, and Cards Against Humanity can be great games (but watch a video or two on CAH and make sure it's a good fit - the humor is pretty extreme.)

I think I see Sushi Go up on top. That's a good one, although I'm not sure how well it plays with two (that isn't me casting doubt, just that I haven't played in a while and don't remember.) That seems to be Tsuro on the bottom. That's another that's fun with two (although it's better with more people.) The DC Deck Building Game is fun if you like the theme.

I see Dice Throne and it's a great 2 player game that isn't difficult to learn. If you enjoy rolling dice and trying to make combos to fight your opponent, it's a great game (that's pretty quick).

Great recommendations, thank you. I've made some notes and listed the games I have available to me at the library.

Full list of games I have access to:

YellowKing wrote: Sat Apr 15, 2023 5:36 pm Since you seemed to like Horrified, I'd highly recommend trying Pandemic.

Thank you. This (and Azul) is going to the top of the list.

Daveman wrote: Sat Apr 15, 2023 5:25 pm It's hard for me make out some of the titles, or otherwise recognize the boxes, but Azul is a good introductory board game that plays well at 2 players.

It's notably more complex, but Spirit Island is another great game on that shelf, but bear in mind it's a cooperative game, that is, both of you are playing together to win the game. You play as mystical forces of nature protecting an island from invading colonists who want to subjugate the native people and corrupt the land.

It also plays very well as a solo game, so you could learn the rules yourself, then teach it to a 2nd player

I like your idea of playing a game first and teaching another. And Azul is on my "borrow next" list since it was mentioned a few times, looking forward to that one now.

Smoove_B wrote: Sat Apr 15, 2023 9:14 pm I see Dice Throne and it's a great 2 player game that isn't difficult to learn. If you enjoy rolling dice and trying to make combos to fight your opponent, it's a great game (that's pretty quick).

We are enjoying Horrified and rolling the dice is fun so Dice Throne is going on my list... thank you.

Blackhawk wrote: Sat Apr 15, 2023 9:11 pmI think I see Sushi Go up on top. That's a good one, although I'm not sure how well it plays with two (that isn't me casting doubt, just that I haven't played in a while and don't remember.) That seems to be Tsuro on the bottom. That's another that's fun with two (although it's better with more people.)

Sushi Go is there, good eyes. I'll definitely give that one a try. It's great having all these games available to try before we commit to buying anything.

Mysterium is unique. And interesting. But you'd want to have a few more people. I don't know that 2 would work well.

And you should try Exploding Kittens just to report on it. Especially if you are a fan of The Oatmeal webcomic. In case you are unaware, that is the game he designed.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars is just Pandemic with a Star Wars skin. In case that’s more to your liking.

King of Tokyo is a fun, simple game as well. My kids still play it all the time.

Thank you gang for all of the input! It was neat to have Telcta bring home the games, something different. Libraries are so special!

I’m trying to get into ISS Vanguard, but it’s just remarkably dense. The tutorial does a good job of walking you through everything, but I’m having a hell of a time trying to figure out how to do it all myself without the very specific, step-by-step instructions from the tutorial.

I really want to get into it, but it’s certainly not making things easy.

I had the same impression myself when I first tried it last year. This video is allegedly one of the best to try and learn; I haven't circled back

I’ve watched that twice, and still find myself hopelessly confused.

I didn't want to say that, but I'm with you. For whatever reason the Awaken Realms games...I have great difficulty in trying to grok them.

Nemesis wasn't too bad. I have to confess, however, that I actually haven't broken out any of the others yet.

In other news, I got my copy of Dungeon Degenerates last week and played twice this weekend. Once with another player, and then I started a solo campaign. It’s just stupid fun, but it has some depth I didn’t expect. I’m diggin’ it so far.

I really enjoyed Dungeon Degenerates the few times I played. The biggest hurdle, for me, is trying to sort out the terrains by color. My friend is color blind; I suspect that he'd think this game was torture.

I picked up Disney Villainous this week and we tried playing for the first time yesterday. Overall, I do think it's a really cool game, but my 9yo struggled a little bit with understanding the mechanics. He couldn't understand/accept that one lucky fate card draw by me the turn before he was about to win was able to set him back several turns, so he got frustrated and wanted to quit.

Here's what happened for those familiar with the game... I think part of the issue with a first play is that you really need to have some understanding of the available cards in a villain's deck to optimize your path to victory. When you're playing the first time and haven't really reviewed the deck, it's tricky to know what you're doing enough to have much strategy. I get the impression that the best experience will come after playing each character a few times to learn how they work, as well as how you may be able to interfere with your opponents.

I do think Villainous is a cool game, but maybe he's not quite ready for it yet. I'm hoping I can convince him to give it another go with his mom (my wife) joining us and maybe we can make it to the end. Hopefully I can get him interested again because I can really see it being a lot of fun.

I've been playing a lot of Pax Pamir online with friends lately, via Rally the Troops!, a free website with a handful of well-regarded board games, all very nicely implemented.

In-person, this weekend I played Stationfall, Hanamikoji, and Magic: The Gathering with my family. I'd never played Magic before! My son briefly mentioned an interest, so we picked up a starter set for Christmas and finally got it to the table today. First impression: it seems pretty good, and there's clearly a lot of depth to be plumbed. I don't think I can offer more than that after a single play, in which we surely got some rules wrong.

disarm wrote: Sun Apr 23, 2023 9:39 pm I picked up Disney Villainous this week and we tried playing for the first time yesterday. Overall, I do think it's a really cool game, but my 9yo struggled a little bit with understanding the mechanics. He couldn't understand/accept that one lucky fate card draw by me the turn before he was about to win was able to set him back several turns, so he got frustrated and wanted to quit.

Here's what happened for those familiar with the game...

Spoiler:

My son was playing as Captain Hook and was about to win. He had Peter Pan right next to the Jolly Roger, where a whole team of allies were waiting take him out. He had just drawn a Cannon card (adds Vanquish to any location) on his last turn and added it to the Lost Boys Hideout. This meant that all he had to do to win was move to Lost Boys Hideout on his next turn and complete two available actions to win...move Peter Pan to the Jolly Roger and vanquish him. Thanks to his Cannon card, he could do both of those actions from that one location. But I had a very lucky turn right before he could win...

I moved to a location that let me draw a Fate card and pulled Taunt, an item that attaches to any hero and forces them to be defeated before attacking anyone else. I put the Taunt on a Lost Boys hero card at the Lost Boys Hideout. With that one card, my son went from winning on his next turn to needing at least two allies played/moved to the Hideout location and vanquishing the Lost Boys there before he could attack Peter Pan. It was a very lucky (and admittedly kind of mean) move by me that totally ruined his plan and would have extended the game quite a bit if he hadn't decided he was frustrated and wanted to stop. It's how the game works, but I think it was too much for him to understand/accept on a first play of a new game.

I think part of the issue with a first play is that you really need to have some understanding of the available cards in a villain's deck to optimize your path to victory. When you're playing the first time and haven't really reviewed the deck, it's tricky to know what you're doing enough to have much strategy. I get the impression that the best experience will come after playing each character a few times to learn how they work, as well as how you may be able to interfere with your opponents.

I do think Villainous is a cool game, but maybe he's not quite ready for it yet. I'm hoping I can convince him to give it another go with his mom (my wife) joining us and maybe we can make it to the end. Hopefully I can get him interested again because I can really see it being a lot of fun.

I’ve played the Marvel (which I hated) and Star Wars (which was slightly better) versions

The most accurate description I’ve heard is that Villainous feels like everyone is playing their own individual game…that happens to sometimes collide with others.

Anonymous Bosch wrote: Sat Apr 15, 2023 7:23 pm

telcta wrote: Sat Apr 15, 2023 5:15 pm So, I’m as new as you can get with boardgames outside of Monopoly, Sorry… etc. KKBlue and I attended Octocon many years ago. The people we met and the games played, we still talk about it today.

Recently I was in our local library and they have a bunch of boardgames to borrow. It’s a nice selection to experiment with different type games. I brought home two games I thought would be easy for me and the wife to play; Carcassonne and Horrified. We are having a blast playing together and with Horrified we work together to defeat the monsters. Horrified is a little more complex and we are figuring out the the best combination of monsters to use for a two player game. We are still learning all the rules and I think there is some confusion that we may not be playing 100% properly.

Carcassonne is easy to learn and after 2 games we already added the river tiles and dabbled with Farmers. Using an Abby is next.

Anyway, we have Carcassonne and Horrified for a couple weeks so I’d like to try something else next. If anybody has any recommendations for Two Player games we should try, let me know. Here is a picture showing our library’s collection. Hopefully you can zoom in and see some of the titles.



I didn’t realize there are solo games (Horrified is one) but briefly looking at the previous posts I see this is fairly common and is either fun or frustrating.

So... that's what we played last weekend (and playing this weekend).

7 Wonders holds up remarkably well as a two-player game (though technically, you play the two-player variant by using a third 'dummy' player, controlled by each player every other turn).

If you're not averse to purchasing some rock solid "couples games," i.e. games designed and intended for two players, I would highly recommend any of the following:

• Jaipur
• Lost Cities Card Game
• Raptor
• Targi
• Morels
• Patchwork
• Santorini
• Codenames Duet
• Schotten Totten
• Hive Pocket, which has to be one of the most travel-friendly games around.

My wife and I have been hitting the 2-player games pretty hard and I have to say this is a legit list! I would add Cascadia and Love Letter as two more great couple games. Klask is more like a small version of air hockey, but it's a great one to add to mix things up. Others to suggest would be Star Realms, Mindbug, Fox in the Forest, 7 Wonders Duel, Odin's Ravens and Carcassonne among others.

Enough wrote: Mon Apr 24, 2023 4:46 pm Others to suggest would be Star Realms

Or Hero Realms, if you prefer a fantasy theme.

Latest new game is Clank! Catacombs and we really like it. I never played Clank! but did like Clank! In! Space!. Catacombs is better, we love the modular board that's revealed as you play.

Also still in love with Heat: Pedal to the Metal. For those who have been looking, the reprint has started showing up in Europe and it's assumed it'll be in the US in the near future. Might want to start looking around as the game has been a big hit.