OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

[LordMortis]

How is the solo variant on Terraforming Mars? I'd love to get it at some point, but not sure if my gaming group would be willing to shoehorn it into our already packed schedule. If the solo variant is worthwhile, however, I could probably justify owning it and getting group play in down the road.

I haven't read the rules but my guess is that solo variant is that you have 14 generations (turns) to get all three features maxed. I don't see it being much fun. In the multiplayer, there is a real competition to get your stuff right and then to retool when someone else interferes. I don't see how a solo variant can substitute for the competition.

[Zenn7]

Monthly game day Saturday.

FIrst up - First Martian - basically, Robinson Crusoe on Mars I was told (never played Robinson Crusoe). Has the potential to be interesting, but the first scenario was way too easy. We had 6 turns and completed it in 4 and never felt seriously in danger of not winning. The owner thought that was probably supposed to be an easy game to teach the basics and that future scenarios will get harder.

Clank - never played this before, liked it quite a bit, favorite of the day. Last 2 turns I didn't bother to buy anything (only had 1 hit left, didn't want to trigger a dragon attack) and didn't think to burn my 2 potions of 2 swords to take out a goblin. FIgured the guy who had a thing that let him buy 2 of the 7 VP tomes that are always available for the price of one - he'd bought several, figured he had it in the bag. Turns out, I was only 1 point behind. If I'd bought a VP card from the random cards, or fight the goblin twice and gotten 2 more gold, I'd have won. Still, lots of fun.

Last - Crisis in Ancient Times (I think?) - we were roman emperor wanna be's in 200-300 AD time frame. Deck builder except instead of shuffling and taking the top 5 cards, you got to pick your cards. You had to cycle through them all, but you could pick what order you got them in so you could get all of one type that you had (or as much as you needed if you had more than enough) to do what you wanted to do the next round instead of the usual random - "huh, not enough money to buy the card I want, not enough X to do Y..." that bad draws can lead to. I didn't fully grasp the mechanics up front, the owner won. It was decent, sort of like Mare Nostrum, but I like Mare better.

[Chrisoc13]

Enjoying reading about the love for Terraforming Mars. I really do enjoy the game and can't wait for the expansions to start coming and get them to the table. The only thing I don't like about the game is that the length is a bit much for what you get especially with drafting which is when the game really shines. But it is a great game.

Had some intersting gaming recently.

First up-
D'r Af- This is an interesting game. It's a splotter game from the late 90s, that has been out of print since that time and pretty hard to get ahold of, but I stumbled across a copy and got to try it out and I really enjoy it. It's a racing game where the end goal is to be the first to fly off the table. You do so by playing cruise control cards every turn. The card dictates how many road tiles you lay down, as well as how many spaces you advance and how much you can turn. But it also determines how much damage you take if you do collide. The faster the more damage you take. You take damage by discarding cruise control cards limiting your future cases.

Along the road there are various obstacles you can hit (or avoid). If you hit them they cause damage, allow you to jump, slide side to side (not under your control) or even repair your car. It’s a crazy road out there, just have to do your best to avoid the bad things and hit the right things all while staying in the race so as not to be eliminated and to be able to race off the edge first.

It's really interesting and plays really quick, with the length being determined by how far from the edge of the table you want to start. It's a game that keeps everyone on the edge of their seat, and I can't help but find it very charming and fun. I like it quite a bit, hoping to play it more.


Cars just beginning the race.

Next up we played-
Churchill- This is an interesting war type game from GMT. It's an up to 3 player game only (really best at 3). Each player plays one of the three leaders of the allies during WWII. Your goal is to both work together and opposed to each other. It's a very interesting game where you have to manage to peacefully work together while also doing what is best for you. But the win conditions are strange. You don't just win by having the most victory points. If you have the most victory points and the axis powers both fall and you are ahead too much the second place player wins because you became too powerful. If you don't manage to defeat both axis powers than it really gets weird in terms of who wins. The leader rolls the dice and lsoes that many points, second place rolls the dice and loses half those points, the loser rolls a dice and gains that many points. It's... strange. The idea (I think) is to keep the points as close as possible and squeaking out a win.

The gameplay is fairly fun with each round having two sections, the first being the conference where each leader advances certain issues onto the table and tries to use certain leaders to sway issues more into their camps. Then the second phase is advancing the war and the fronts towards victory. The conference part is certainly the most important part of the game, advancing the right topics at just the right moment, but it is also crucial to play your cards right at the right time.

I enkoyed the actual gameplay quite a bit, but I have to say the end game conditions are a bit much for me... the game just suddenly became all about a single dice roll, and that just seemed a bit anti-climatic for me. Basically we played for multiple hours, and then everything really came down to a single roll of the dice (because we failed to defeat the Germans). A fund game... but I won't be heartbroken to not play it again. The end game conditions are just too weird.

[YellowKing]

Got our asses well and truly kicked in MANSIONS OF MADNESS last night. Played the DLC scenario (the name escapes me), but it was a lot of fun and very challenging. Typically we end loss nights on a down note, but this scenario was so engaging that everyone was in high spirits (no pun intended) when we left.

Terry also brought FIRST MARTIANS: ADVENTURES ON THE RED PLANET so that we could ooh and aah over the components. We inventoried everything and punched out tokens. Should be getting to that one in a month or so. We want to tackle our final MANSIONS scenario - the big six hour one - which we figure will take up the next two weeks.

[Defiant]

Got to play First Class. This is a nice, quicker (20 min x # of players) eurogame. Players have in front of them a train they can move and on a different part of the board cars they can upgrade or add more cars to. The game is comprised of six rounds, and each round is comprised of turns where each player takes a card from a set of cards in front of everyone (after everyone's gotten three cards, the round ends)

Cards allow players to do a number of different things, such as:
1. expand the route for your train
2. move your train forward on the route (as long as there's still a route to go further on)
3. Add a new car to your train
4. Upgrade the value of a car to your train
5. move the conductors down the line of cars on your train.
6. Upgrades - for example they might upgrade the value of a car on your train, or they might upgrade a special benefit on your route.
7 Contracts to fullfill (That give you a benefit when you do)
8. End game scoring cards (based on what cards you've collected)
9. Take money.

There are three decks, each of which is used on two successive rounds, and at the end of that second, fourth and sixth round there's a scoring phase.

Train routes have some stops that immediately give victory points, and others that give a special benefit during every scoring phase so long as you've reached or gone past those points. These benefits can include stuff like above (get free money, upgrade a car, move your train forward further - indeed, if you're lucky, you get a benefit that moves your train forward early on during the scoring phase, which means you don't need to focus on getting cards to push your train forward) The scoring phase also scores the cars, at which point you count the values of all cars which are either in front of or occupied by the conductor.

It was quick enough and enjoyable enough that I'll want to play a few more games of it (and there are also various modules, which add replayability). That said, it's more of a light-to-mid level game.

[hepcat]

Good lord, solo Terraforming Mars is tough.

...or I'm just really dumb.

Wait...don't answer that.

[LordMortis]

Good lord, solo Terraforming Mars is tough.

...or I'm just really dumb.

Wait...don't answer that.

Maybe I have to give it a try.... I assume it's just trying to get all 3 markers to habitable by the 14th generation. If you don't have to also worry about victory points, that seems doable. I keep meaning to read the solo variant but then I get distracted. Sunday, I accidentally put in an 8 hour session of Battle Brothers and man do I have headache to show for it.

[Ralph-Wiggum]

I played Fury of Dracula for the first this weekend. Unfortunately, I was playing with four other people who had also never played the game and one of the players had serious analysis paralysis, so the game took 4.5 hours despite us hunters amazingly locating Dracula on the first turn of the game. The game had some interesting mechanics and I could see how it could be fun with the right group, but I'm not sure I'd want to play it again.

[hepcat]

Good lord, solo Terraforming Mars is tough.

...or I'm just really dumb.

Wait...don't answer that.

Maybe I have to give it a try.... I assume it's just trying to get all 3 markers to habitable by the 14th generation. If you don't have to also worry about victory points, that seems doable. I keep meaning to read the solo variant but then I get distracted. Sunday, I accidentally put in an 8 hour session of Battle Brothers and man do I have headache to show for it.

It is, but with only one player, it's tough to get an engine going that hits all three areas. At least that was the case in my game. I had temperature going just fine, but I wasn't able to really get the other two going until late in the game.

[LordMortis]

It is, but with only one player, it's tough to get an engine going that hits all three areas. At least that was the case in my game. I had temperature going just fine, but I wasn't able to really get the other two going until late in the game.

I'd think you do it largely with cash, allowing you avoid all of the trappings of VP collecting. Now if the card screw you, I suppose there's not a damned thing you can do about it. Not having attempted the game, I'm not sure. You can buy energy, which buys heat and continues buying heat. You can buy greenery which buys oxygen one time but also allows you to place to pick up more resources.

Oceans, I'd think are the trick. I don't think you can buy oceans, can you? If not, you get one ocean from temp and that would mean you'd need to rely on the luck of the cards for the other 8.

[hentzau]

I played Fury of Dracula for the first this weekend. Unfortunately, I was playing with four other people who had also never played the game and one of the players had serious analysis paralysis, so the game took 4.5 hours despite us hunters amazingly locating Dracula on the first turn of the game. The game had some interesting mechanics and I could see how it could be fun with the right group, but I'm not sure I'd want to play it again.

Fury of Dracula was one of our favorites for quite a while, but that was 1st edition FoD. I like what I see from the new versions, but I do still wish they had figured out a way to play the game with fewer than 5 that did not require someone to take multiple characters.

[Isgrimnur]

I'll take Letters from Whitechapel or Black Orchestra over Fury of Dracula any day.

[Ralph-Wiggum]

It just seemed like there wasn't a whole lot to do each turn if you weren't fighting Dracula. Search, move, or supply were the main possibilities, yet it still took one guy about five minutes every turn.

[Zarathud]

I have always seen someone take the lead for the investigators, so the AP in my games came from the investigators coordinating.

Dracula can hit pretty hard during the daytime in the early game before the investigators are equipped. So being that close would not have been good if you had an experienced Dracula. But you didn't if he was spotted on the first turn.

[TheMix]

It just seemed like there wasn't a whole lot to do each turn if you weren't fighting Dracula. Search, move, or supply were the main possibilities, yet it still took one guy about five minutes every turn.

I have a friend like that. It can make things painful at times.

He can spend 5 minutes trying to decide which of his Zombicide survivors to give the SMG to... easily.

Heaven forbid there is math involved. He has to then determine which choice/item gives him the better odds. Then agonize over the factors that aren't as obvious or can't be factored directly into the math.

[YellowKing]

Just a note that a new MANSIONS OF MADNESS scenario has been released via DLC:

Dark Reflections

Aspiring novelist Ada Miller insisted something was wrong with the country estate she inherited from her great aunt. Her publisher believed it was all Ada's writerly imagination until she missed her deadline--and the train back to Arkham she swore she was taking. Now you must uncover what caused Ada to vanish and what she feared in her isolated country manor.

Three star difficulty, 180-240 minute duration.

We'll be trying it out tomorrow night.

[Isgrimnur]

It just seemed like there wasn't a whole lot to do each turn if you weren't fighting Dracula. Search, move, or supply were the main possibilities, yet it still took one guy about five minutes every turn.

I have a friend like that. It can make things painful at times.

He can spend 5 minutes trying to decide which of his Zombicide survivors to give the SMG to... easily.

Heaven forbid there is math involved. He has to then determine which choice/item gives him the better odds. Then agonize over the factors that aren't as obvious or can't be factored directly into the math.

Make sure to tell him that recessed pips mean that the dice aren't truly random.

[YellowKing]

My daughter's 8th birthday rolled around, so I picked up Roller Coaster Challenge from Think Fun.

This isn't a game but a brain-teaser/puzzle with 40 challenges in increasing difficulty from Easy to Super Hard. The components consist of a 5x5 grid, 36 stackable support post segments, a loop, and a selection of variable length track pieces.

Each challenge card shows an initial layout you have to build consisting of the start point, end point, and any starting supports/tracks. It then shows you which pieces you are allowed to use to finish the track. Use the pieces to build a layout that works, then send your little ball-bearing coaster car from the start to finish. If it makes it successfully, then you solve the challenge. Anyone who has struggled to complete a track in Roller Coaster Tycoon will feel right at home here.

I only have a couple of complaints. One is that the track pieces can be a little difficult to snap together/remove for younger kids. However, the track does need to be sturdy so I can see why they didn't go with a simpler option. The other minor complaint is that the rule book is a little sparse on the symbols used on the challenge cards and how to attach track to supports. It took me a bit of trial and error and re-reading to figure everything out. Once it clicked, however, it was a lot of fun.

It's a really fun and educational toy, and we had a blast building the layouts and figuring things out. The great thing about it is that the challenges are really optional - after awhile the kids just wanted to design and build their own roller coasters.

I also bought Balance Beans also by Think Fun.

This one's similar in that it's a set of 40 challenges in increasing difficulty. The "board" is a little grid balanced like a teeter-totter, and you have beans in various sizes and weights that can be placed onto it in any orientation. You're given the placement of the red beans, which can't be moved, and must place blue, orange, or yellow beans as given on the challenge card so that the whole contraptions balances.

My kids LOVED this game, and I found myself playing with it quite a bit as well. It can get surprisingly difficult later on. Another highly recommended educational toy.

[Defiant]

I played another game of The Networks, which is a fun game if you like management sims (and something that I don't think there are many other board games like).

And I played Magic Maze, a real time board game. In this game, you control four different colored characters in a maze-like mall. There are seven possible actions: move in any of the four cardinal directions, use an escalator, explore a new tile if your character is on an explore location on the edge of the board that is the same color as the character, and zip a character back to a portal location of your characters color. There's also several one-time-use timer locations, which if any character steps on, it resets the 3-minute timer. Because all of this is happening with a time limit.

The goal is to move all four characters to specific locations of their colors (assuming you've explored all the tiles to find them), and when they're all there at the same time - at which point the portals are no longer usable - you then want to move all the characters to their own exits.

But, here's the thing - you don't control individual characters, rather you control one or a few types of actions. Thus, you might be able to move any character west, as well as explore new tiles. Or maybe you can move any character right or use portals on any characters. Or maybe you can move any character north. And so on. Which means you need to work together to move a character to a goal, and your trying to focus on four different characters, while focusing on the different areas of the board. But in addition to coordination and awareness, you also need luck (so that the tiles are in good locations for the different characters)

And then there's one more thing, you can't talk, which means it's very hard to coordinate. You can only use a red pawn to draw attention from someone. It's very much like Escape: Curse of the Temple, and just like that one, it's a little too hectic and fast paced for me.

[Chaosraven]

After finally getting a copy of Factions for Alien Frontiers, redrun LordMortis and I played a couple games with Factions and Agendas yesterday.

I really enjoyed the Factions (Game one was Xeno Explorations vs Corex Conglomerated vs Scavenger Fleet with Scavenger winning pretty decisively, Game two was Brethren of the Stars vs New Gaea Engineers vs Prophets of the Artifact with Gaeas winning at the end despite Brethrens early lead) and the Agendas lent a few pumping or equalizing VPs.

We used the Asteroid Belt as well, and the game seemed pretty enjoyable.

Then we moved to Terraforming Mars for our 3rd and 4th games, this time using the Corporate Cards variant (next time we'll Draft, I hope).

Games were very close, first ended with 1st and 2nd two points apart, second ended with 1pt apart.

[Ralph-Wiggum]

I played Pandemic Legacy for the first time this weekend with my girlfriend; we each took on the role of two characters. I had played Pandemic once a few years ago and my gf never had, so we played one quick game without the legacy stuff to get familiar with the mechanisms. And I do mean quick game - I think we lost within 20 minutes, but partially because I screwed up the card distribution/shuffling order so we had three epidemics in only a few turns.

Despite that failure we decided to give the full game a go without more practice. Perhaps not surprisingly, we lost our first attempt at the January scenario after only curing two diseases.

We tried a bit later, though, and with some better coordination (and the increased funding levels) we managed to beat the month pretty handily. Unfortunately, I realized a bit later that we screwed up the upgrades.

We then decided to tackle February. Without giving spoilers, I will say we were doing pretty well in containing everything but we were running low on player cards (which ends the game if they run out). Fortunately, we had the cards and position to win the scenario the turn before the last two cards were drawn. Almost every city had low levels of infection and the outbreak meter was low (at 2, I think) so everything looked peachy. Just needed to draw two of the last four player cards and then cure the last disease.

But stopping viruses from spreading is never so simple - on the final draw of player cards before the winning turn, we draw an epidemic card. That's ok, though, there are only two cities in the game that could potentially outbreak and cause enough spreading on the disease to cause us to lose (by running out of blue cubes) and about 100 disease city cards left in the deck. So about a 2% chance of losing. And of course we draw one of those two cards and lose the scenario. Screw you, London!

I really like the game but man is it stressful. And, in general, I found the legacy part of the game not always the most clear when new rules popped up. I suppose I'll get used to it, though. Look forward to giving February about go.

[Zarathud]

It's ok. The game takes into account that you'll lose sometimes.

[YellowKing]

Knocked out the 4-6 hour "Rising Tide" scenario in MANSIONS OF MADNESS last night. By knocked out, I mean we lost. But barely. I wound up dying prematurely which gave us only one last round to win. Couldn't quite pull it off.

We finished with 5 players in about 4 1/2 hours. I have to say that of all the scenarios, this is the one I was most looking forward to due to the length. However, I was slightly disappointed because compared to other missions it's fairly basic. As a three-star it's not meant to be particularly difficult, but I was hoping for a slightly more epic storyline given the length.

Still, we had a lot of fun with it. Only one more scenario left (the recently released DLC), then we'll be moving on to FIRST MARTIANS.

[Defiant]

So I got a new game, Not Alone, and played a couple of games of it. It's an asymmetrical card game, where a group of explorers are shipwrecked on the planet and are trying to explore it while an alien is hunting them. There is a track with the alien on one side and the hunters on the other, and a goal location (about one third away from the alien side) where both want to reach to win.

There are ten locations on the planet, each with their own power(s), and each of the humans starts with a deck of five cards, one for each of the first five locations, a one time use power card, and three will tokens. Each turn, the humans each secretly choose a place to explore. After that, the monster places their token on a location theyve decided to hunt. They also play a power card that turn, which does different things - they might require one of the survivors to discard some location cards, or make a second or even a third location deactivated or inaccessible or allow the monster to move later in the turn or so on. The players then reveal their locations and discard their card to the discard pile. Each player in the hunted location loses a will cube and cannot use the power of the location. Any player that can then uses the power of their location (or they can choose to not use the power and take back a card instead)

The various locations do different things like:
- Allow you to bring back some of the discard pile into your hand
- Allow you to move on the victory track (the one in the first five requires two activations, each on different turns, to move on the victory track, but a different one in the last five requires just one activation)
- Allow you to gain a card from the 6-10 locations that the players don't start with.
- Allow you to play two cards the next turn and decide which one to play after the alien reveals their location
- heal a human to allow them to regain a single will cube.
- gain one time use cards

Additionally one of the locations allows you either to regain all the cards in the discard pile into your hand or use the power of whatever location the alien is on, but if you get hunted there, you lose two will tokens instead of one.

Also, a player can forgo their turn by giving up a will cube to regain two discarded cards.

Each turn, the humans move up on the turn track by one location automatically (plus up to two more if they successfully used both locations that allow you to move on the track). The alien moves up one if they successfully hunted at least one human. Additionally, for every human that drops down to zero will cubes, the alien moves up one location, and then those players regain all their will cubes and their entire discard pile goes into their hand.

It's a glorified game of hide and seek, but with real strategy involved as well as trying to outguess your opponent. I played both as a human (in a seven player game) and as the alien (in a four player game) and both sides were fun, and they both ended with the losing side one location away in the end (the second game was decided by turn order, and could have easily gone the other way). In both my games, the endgame tended to shift more towards humans hiding trying to wait out the alien once they had amassed enough additional location cards (and activated the moving on the track a few times) in order to make it more viable. Also, being able to handle 2-7 players a game, and being a relatively small box size, makes it a nice addition to my collection.

[$iljanus]

Daughter and I pulled out the win in Flashpoint Fire Rescue on the 2 story lab board from the Extreme Danger expansion. We were one structural cube away from total building collapse as we pulled the last victim to safety. Loved using the hydraulic bucket to keep fires under control on the top floor. A bad run of hot spots and a pile of hazardous materials cooking off turned our initial confidence into a frantic push to stave off more explosions. Don't think we could have pulled it off with less than the six firefighters we brought to the fire.

Recently bought the Honor and Duty and Dangerous Waters expansions which have you fighting fires in a subway station, a plane, a freighter and of all things a submarine. Looking forward to playing on those maps next.

[Punisher]

Received my copy of Stop Thief! today...
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/re ... escription

Coincidentally it is our family game night so we got to put in 2 full games. Game was easy to setup, learn, play and cleanup!! All pluses in our book.
This is going to be a good fill in game for when we are running late or just too lazy to setup one of the bigger games.
Game definitely needs a Thief expansion pack. We ran through all of them in the 2 games we played.
We messed up the first round of the first game because I missed the part in the rules that said the Thief moves one section at a time.. We couldn't figure out how to find the Thief because we didn't know how far he could move. Oopps..
After that the game was easier, but still very fun. Some random luck helped because after each full round when you got a new thief, the new one could spawn right near us or on the opposite side of the board.
Basically, you use an app that gives you sound clues to try to find the thief. depending on the number of players, there is a cash amount a player needs to get in order to win the game. You can't reach this in one round, so you play multiple rounds until a player gets enough money.
The thieves are worth different amounts and have different results when they are caught or during game play. there are ways to increase the reward during the game such as if the thief sets off more alarms before being caught and there are also some player cards that have the power to take money from other players.
Players move around the board using 6 movement cards. some are straight movement numbers and some have special abilities. You play the cards one at a time in any order you want, but they stay out of play until something causes you to reclaim your cards, such as the reclaim your cards, card that everyone has. They stay out of play, even if you go into the next round with a new thief, although one thief's special is to have all the other players reclaim their cards.

Some thoughts based on our game.

1) Love the fact that they gave us extra storage bags to keep the game together.
2) App definitely needs a next player/turn button instead of just clicking get clue. It was confusing at first.
3) An option of inputting player names and the investigator they are using would be nice.
4) Extra money to help in case we want to play with 6 investigators and the game goals to go with them. The app could also change color depending on the current player as well to keep it organized.
5) It would be nice if the app would rotate horizontally. That is the way my iPad stand works. We had to prop it up on the wall vertically.
Overall very happy with my pledge!!!

[YellowKing]

Finished up MANSIONS OF MADNESS (at least until the expansion) with the latest DLC scenario. Lots of fun, with a huge map and a difficulty level that challenged us but did not frustrate us. We wound up winning clean with nobody going wounded or insane, though it did take some very careful decision-making on our part to pull it off. We haven't decided yet whether we want to jump into FIRST MARTIANS now or give MoM one more go in an attempt to beat that scenario that we lost twice (badly).

We had some time left over, so I had brought along THE GOONIES: THE CARD GAME as a light filler. We lost really badly, but that was as much due to our inexperience with the game as bad luck. It's not a fantastic game due to the high luck factor, but we had enough fun with it that we are going to continue to bring it along for the times when we have a spare hour to kill.

[Punisher]

So... there is a possibility that we will have a huge game night this Sat... 8-12 people... Still waiting on my son to confirm, but any suggestions on games that are that big? Would need to be relatively easy to learn..
I am thinking it may have to be an RPG, but even then, for a newb GM like me, it would be a monster to try to run.

[Ralph-Wiggum]

The newer Sushi Go party plays up to 8. There are also the social deduction games like Werewolf or Avalon that can handle a bunch of people.

[Anonymous Bosch]

So... there is a possibility that we will have a huge game night this Sat... 8-12 people... Still waiting on my son to confirm, but any suggestions on games that are that big? Would need to be relatively easy to learn..
I am thinking it may have to be an RPG, but even then, for a newb GM like me, it would be a monster to try to run.

In terms of enjoyably accomodating the entire group, your best bet would almost certainly be some variation of Werewolf (or, if you've never hosted before, Ultimate Werewolf: Deluxe Edition, which includes an extremely helpful manual with useful tips and guidance). For a genuinely amusing party game, you cannot go wrong with the Telestrations 12 Player Party Pack, which provides side-splittingly hilarious good fun.

If you're OK breaking into smaller groups, I'd suggest Shadows over Camelot, The Resistance: Avalon, Codenames, and Spyfall.

[Montag]

So... there is a possibility that we will have a huge game night this Sat... 8-12 people... Still waiting on my son to confirm, but any suggestions on games that are that big? Would need to be relatively easy to learn..
I am thinking it may have to be an RPG, but even then, for a newb GM like me, it would be a monster to try to run.

Between Two Cities

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/168 ... two-cities

[hentzau]

The Great Dalmuti is good for up to 8 players. Other suggestions are all good ones.

[Isgrimnur]

Formula D will play 10, but it's easy to wander off while waiting for your turn. Talisman is supposed to cap at 6, but I can't think of any reason why you couldn't go past that. Arkham Horror supports up to 8.

[Ralph-Wiggum]

7 Wonders with the leaders expansion will also play 8.

[Punisher]

Thanks for the suggestions.. I will hopefully have a head count tonight..
Werewolf seems to be the best bet unless I go with a miniature game and load up...

[Defiant]

Most of the games that support more players tend to be social deduction games or party games.

Deception: Murder in Hong Kong will play 4-12, although it does become somewhat cumbersome with more players.
The One Night games play 3-10, and I think they can be combined to allow for more players.
Secret Hitler goes up to 10 players
Saboteur goes up to 10 players.
Party Playoff theoretically has no limits, but can get loud.
Pit can handle 8 players.

[Blackhawk]

I am thinking it may have to be an RPG, but even then, for a newb GM like me, it would be a monster to try to run.

As a non-newb GM, I wouldn't even try. Very few systems will be fun for anyone - GM or players - with that many people. Even experienced players will take a minute or two to take their turn, between decisions, mechanics, and narrative. With ten players, that means every person acts for 90 seconds, then sits there for 15 minutes not playing. With inexperienced players, double that. Three minutes of play followed by 30 minutes of sit.

Get a party/social game, or split into two groups.

[Defiant]

So... there is a possibility that we will have a huge game night this Sat... 8-12 people... Still waiting on my son to confirm, but any suggestions on games that are that big? Would need to be relatively easy to learn..
I am thinking it may have to be an RPG, but even then, for a newb GM like me, it would be a monster to try to run.

In terms of enjoyably accomodating the entire group, your best bet would almost certainly be some variation of Werewolf (or, if you've never hosted before, Ultimate Werewolf: Deluxe Edition, which includes an extremely helpful manual with useful tips and guidance). For a genuinely amusing party game, you cannot go wrong with the Telestrations 12 Player Party Pack, which provides side-splittingly hilarious good fun.

If you're OK breaking into smaller groups, I'd suggest Shadows over Camelot, The Resistance: Avalon, Codenames, and Spyfall.

Yeah, Spyfall, Codenames and Telestrations are great choices. I'd be a little wary of Shadows, since that can be a lot longer than the other games (It'll probably be 2.5-3 hours for a game, especially if you're teaching it).

[hepcat]

Nice piece on one of my favorite game designers, John Clowdus, on Geek and Sundry. I just learned recently that his one man game shop Small Box Games was just bought up by Kolossal Games. Sounds like they'll be reprinting some of his earlier stuff...including the most excellent Omen: Reign of War.

[Anonymous Bosch]

So... there is a possibility that we will have a huge game night this Sat... 8-12 people... Still waiting on my son to confirm, but any suggestions on games that are that big? Would need to be relatively easy to learn..
I am thinking it may have to be an RPG, but even then, for a newb GM like me, it would be a monster to try to run.

In terms of enjoyably accomodating the entire group, your best bet would almost certainly be some variation of Werewolf (or, if you've never hosted before, Ultimate Werewolf: Deluxe Edition, which includes an extremely helpful manual with useful tips and guidance). For a genuinely amusing party game, you cannot go wrong with the Telestrations 12 Player Party Pack, which provides side-splittingly hilarious good fun.

If you're OK breaking into smaller groups, I'd suggest Shadows over Camelot, The Resistance: Avalon, Codenames, and Spyfall.

Yeah, Spyfall, Codenames and Telestrations are great choices. I'd be a little wary of Shadows, since that can be a lot longer than the other games (It'll probably be 2.5-3 hours for a game, especially if you're teaching it).

On second thought, that is a valid concern.