Octopus Overlords

Got to play:

Betrayal at Baldur's Gate. A game built on the same system as Betrayal at the House on the Hill, but with a D&D theme, with you investigating a city (and the sewers below) before triggering the endgame. The game we played ended fairly quickly (The endgame was triggered after four haunt roles, with most of the town/sewer unexplored (maybe a quarter of the tiles had been put down?), and the small size helped me (I was the traitor) complete the quest.

The gameplay is mostly the same from the other game (with some minor variations), so I would say they're about the same with enjoyment, unless you prefer one theme (horror or fantasy) over the other.

Also, got to play a two player version of The Expanse. It works reasonably well with two players (you remove some of the cards and some of the locations from play) - I think the variable powers players have helps with that regard. That said, I think the four player version is better (if longer), and one or two of the rules needed clarification that we weren't able to find in the rule book.

I've had some more time with 7th Continent, and man this is a fun game. Puzzle. Story. Gamepuzzlestory. Whatever.

I played an extended session of the game at OctoCon with another player. I had already played through the very first part of the first quest with him (and we had a fairly ignominious end (I knew how to get around this thing, but I was letting him drive)), so this time we were able to cruise through the first part pretty easily and get to new content. And man, did the options open up for us, and get really tough.

(Side note...this game is REALLY hard to talk about without spoilers.)

We played this for about 5 hours at OctoCon before we finally died off again. And here is where I have a slight problem with the game...when you die off, there is really no "save state" from the previous version where you could start over again. According to the rules, you have to go back to the very beginning of the curse and start over. Which leads to a lot of tedium, because you know the territory, and you know where you have to go to get past some of the puzzles. There is still randomness, in that you won't get the exact same Exploration cards come up, and you could get other injuries, etc. But still a slog to get back through to a previous "save point". I'm going to have to think on a way to do an incremental save type thing, at least of a starting location.

Last night I took another new player (from my regular group, he hadn't played yet) through the first part of the curse again, and once we reached this logical ending point, we went ahead and saved the game. And the save works exactly as advertised, it takes about 5 minutes to save the game state. It's really pretty cool. This is going to work out well for us, because we can add in the third player now to this further location without having to start all over again.

Still loving this game! Of my regular group, one the player (the one I played for 5 hours at OctoCon) also loves it. The one last night wasn't so sure in the beginning, but really warmed up to it as we progressed. Hope to get this on the table again in a couple of weeks, this time with 3 players.

Finally started the FIRST MARTIANS first campaign (non-legacy), to....mixed results.

We decided to play on Normal, and passed the first mission fairly handily. We did take some wounds, but were in OK shape. Second mission, we realized that those wounds carried over and the decisions we were making were having lasting ramifications. We struggled to complete it but did manage to squeak by...albeit perilously close to death. I'm not looking forward to Mission 3.

THE GOOD:
- The campaign definitely forces you to play a bit differently than standalone scenarios. Whereas there were often times in scenarios where we would throw caution to the wind in Hail Mary attempts to complete objectives, you can't do that in campaign mode. Those kinds of risks become untenable when you know the repercussions may carry over.

- The app allows you to change the difficulty at the beginning of each mission. This is nice because it doesn't lock you in from the start and put you in a position where you may get stuck mid-way through banging your head against a wall. Because we have so many games to play, we're really not interested in spending a ton of time on the campaign - if a mission is proving too difficult, it's nice to have the option to bump difficulty down and keep playing.

- The campaign missions so far are just as fun and varied as the standalone scenarios. They make more extensive use of the map and exploration which is nice, since that's not always a huge focus in standalone play.

- The app does allow a save state mode where you can basically drag components around a virtual game board to lock in your game state at the end....

THE BAD:
- .....but it's really clunky. We found ourselves taking pictures of the game board in addition to saving in the app. Just in case.

- Like everything else about this game, success comes with repetition. This is great for standalone scenarios, but in the campaign I REALLY wanted to succeed the first time every time. Watching your mistakes compound over time is stressful, and if I'd had my way we would just start over from scratch next week. However, Terry's copy of Pandemic Legacy: Season 2 came in, so I have a feeling he's ready to knock FIrst Martians out and move on!

I’m kind of smitten with Dark Eye: Aventuria the Adventure Card Game. It doesn’t do anything that hasn’t been done before, but it’s just a solid, fun game. The 2 to 4 player duel mode is great and would be enough for most games, but it also throws in a coop/solo campaign system with stat growth and loot. It’s a bit on the light side, but it really does work well.

You have a 30 card deck for your hero that consists of action cards, weapons, armor and spells. Each turn you can place up to two cards from your hand face down in front of you as a resource they call endurance, then exhaust them each turn to pay for your other cards. It’s a little bit of San Juan and Race for the Galaxy as you’re sacrificing cards to play other cards.

Close combat, ranged and magic attacks can be made each turn as long as you don’t perform more than one of each.

The adventure mode for coop sees players facing a big bad and his henchmen after a short series of text based skill checks. It’s light as I mentioned, but it works.

I just ordered the first expansion, and two more big box expansions are being released over the next two months.

I played a game this weekend!!!

Well, I played Flick Em Up: Dead of Winter with my 8 year old. I messed up 2 rules that made it harder than it needed to be and we didn't even come close to beating the first scenario. I just might be able to talk him into playing again. It's fun and I really like the zombie tower of doom.

I also got to play games!! Big weekend!

I got to finally try out Roll Player, playing two fairly quick games (second much faster than the first). We really liked it, despite being fairly "mathy." I was a little disappointed by the low amount of items and skills, but the combinations make the game far more versatile and give the game longevity. I think the expansion will be welcome.

I also got to play a three player game of Tiny Epic Galaxies. The group liked it a lot, although there was an interesting correlation to Roll Player (both have some elements of optimization with limited turns and actions). I look forward to trying it out with the expansion, which would give another path to victory (the base game is great, but we felt like it was a bit too focused on doing one thing).

We wanted to play Tiny Epic Quest, but the rules for that one are just so confusing. We hope to get into it a bit more deeply when we have some more time.

I may be moving to West Lafayette, IN by next summer. Which means I would be significantly closer to both GenCon and Chicago...

That would be a win except for living in Indiana.

Indiana isn’t that bad. I mean, I’m from Ohio. That’s sort of like an Indiana after the invention of the wheel.

baelthazar wrote: Mon Oct 30, 2017 5:16 pm I got to finally try out Roll Player, playing two fairly quick games (second much faster than the first). We really liked it, despite being fairly "mathy." I was a little disappointed by the low amount of items and skills, but the combinations make the game far more versatile and give the game longevity. I think the expansion will be welcome.

I've played a few games of Roll Player over the last month and it's total point salad, yeah. I haven't quite figured out the best strategy, but it's a fun semi-casual dice chucker. Definitely high appeal for anyone that has any type of D&D experience.

Indianapolis has come up in the spitballing of eventually moving out of Texas. Because there’s no way I’m moving to Chicago.

I thought the ban was lifted?

Board Game Finder

A website for boardgame recommendations, based on game mechanics and other games that a player likes.

Doesn't work so great right now, though (it couldn't recognize several mechanics I tried to input).

Last night I played a game of Machi Koro that went on way too long. One of the other players lost sight of the winning condition and just wanted to take everybody's money. Another of the players argued the rules throughout the game - at least, when he was paying attention and not conversing with people watching the game.
I finally managed to win the game. Machi Koro just shouldn't take 2 hours.

That is insane. Also, how do you rules-lawyer freakin' Machi Koro? It's simple as pie.

When there's a will, there's a way. My brother-in-law could do it.

I've played with people that will obsess over what they believe is the incorrect use of a possessive pronoun in the game's manual for a half hour...

hepcat wrote: Sun Oct 29, 2017 9:12 pm I’m kind of smitten with Dark Eye: Aventuria the Adventure Card Game.

Any relationship to the Dark Eye video games on STEAM? It looks Euro so maybe I'm just not familiar with the pen and paper (?) worlds / authors it is based on?

Yup. They're all based on a long running German RPG that outsells D&D in Germany. But that's a country that also celebrates Father's Day by letting dads wander off and get drunk. So take that as you will.

Interesting. As someone that has has been collecting and reading about RPG systems since I was a kid, I'm pleased to see a 5th edition English translation was released about a year ago and is available on Amazon (of course it is). Thanks.

So I found out recently that the upcoming Borg expansion for the fantastic Star Trek: Ascendancy takes the game from 3 players (4 to 5 with the race packs) to 1 to 5. It's a coop mode essentially.



Hopefully it comes out in the next few days.

We played "Colt Express" Tuesday night with three players. With only three cars it was kinda tight. The next game we tried 4 cars and thought it was better. The friend we taught it to thought it was a great game!
Thanks, Hentzau, for introducing us to this game at Octocon.

Bad Demographic wrote: Thu Nov 02, 2017 2:13 pm We played "Colt Express" Tuesday night with three players. With only three cars it was kinda tight. The next game we tried 4 cars and thought it was better. The friend we taught it to thought it was a great game!
Thanks, Hentzau, for introducing us to this game at Octocon.

4 cars with three players? Blasphemy!

I played Flashpoint Fire Rescue at work yesterday. with two Pandemic fans. They both really looked it. It was one of the most intense games of Flashpoint I have ever experienced. We won by the slimmest of margins including getting down to only two fire tokens left and then down to the last structure cube. One bad roll and we'd have been done in either case.... and that was playing Rookie!

(I just checked the rules and in reality we lost to structure damage, but I told them if we needed a cube and didn't have one THEN we'd lose and I don't have the heart to tell them. They already think it's harder than pandemic.)

hepcat wrote: Thu Nov 02, 2017 1:47 pm So I found out recently that the upcoming Borg expansion for the fantastic Star Trek: Ascendancy takes the game from 3 players (4 to 5 with the race packs) to 1 to 5. It's a coop mode essentially.



Hopefully it comes out in the next few days.

Suddenly I find myself extremely intrigued. I'll have to be watching reviews to see how it is. I haven't bought into ascendancy for a variety of reasons, but mostly due to player count. 3 players was almost impossible, usually we play 2 or 4. And at 4 part of the group really isn't into Star Trek so... this is huge. Looking forward to seeing how it is.

Had some family visiting and largely we just played a lot of games that we already know really well, but had a blast doing so. Highlights-

Downforce hit the table a couple of times, always a fun game. I somehow managed to win 2 games of it, which was the first time I have even won. Fun racing game, definitely a great game.

Mare Nostrum: Empires- somehow haven't played this in over a year, and I have to say... I am really glad I got it back to the table, because it is a fantastic game. I think I had almost forgotten how good this game is. I knew I loved it the first couple of times we played it but this time it really shined, even at 4 players. So that's great, and I can't wait to play it again in the future (yet again).

Finally Kingomino, Sheriff of Nottingham, and Cosmic Encounter all managed to hit the table as well, so it was a great time of gaming.

Mare Nostrum is just a solid, well made, balanced experience. It's a gold standard strategy game in my opinion.

Chrisoc13 wrote: Thu Nov 02, 2017 2:50 pm
Suddenly I find myself extremely intrigued. I'll have to be watching reviews to see how it is. I haven't bought into ascendancy for a variety of reasons, but mostly due to player count. 3 players was almost impossible, usually we play 2 or 4. And at 4 part of the group really isn't into Star Trek so... this is huge. Looking forward to seeing how it is.

I should probably clarify it's 1 to 5 if you have both the race packs (Cardassian and Ferengi). Otherwise it's 1 to 3 and whatever race packs you buy.

Chrisoc13 wrote: Thu Nov 02, 2017 2:50 pm Finally Kingomino, Sheriff of Nottingham, and Cosmic Encounter all managed to hit the table as well, so it was a great time of gaming.

My 11 year old actually likes Kingdomino... amazing!

I had no idea this was a thing - Nightmare before Christmas Clue

hepcat wrote:Mare Nostrum is just a solid, well made, balanced experience. It's a gold standard strategy game in my opinion.

I should probably clarify it's 1 to 5 if you have both the race packs (Cardassian and Ferengi). Otherwise it's 1 to 3 and whatever race packs you buy.

I'm really glad it's a good game (mare nostrum) because I went all in for bling except for the big map (federally not a huge over sized map fan) and I have a history of going all in on Kickstarters that ain't live up to hype. This one remains awesome.

The race packs look great, I hope they keep them coming because that's part of what really appeals to me is playing as all of the different races.

Continued our FIRST MARTIANS campaign last night.

We started Mission 3 beaten and battered after playing Missions 1 & 2 on normal. We decided our only chance of survival was to back it back down to Easy, which is what we did for Missions 3 & 4. We managed to survive them and set ourselves up for a pretty good run on the end game.

One strategy we figured out that worked out really well this time around was the idea of splitting pawns between a heal and a roll. Because we were in bad shape health-wise but still needed to complete objectives, we decided every turn to devote on pawn to healing a wound and one pawn to doing some action - build, gather, explore, research - but rolling for it.

We figured that worst case, we get a wound from the roll (which the heal negates), and fail the roll (but we at least get 2 morale tokens). Best case, we succeed on the roll and heal a wound. Over time, the probabilities should work in our favor, and indeed this is how it played out. While one of our party just got really crappy rolls and never managed to really dig himself out of his hole, the rest of us made great strides to restoring our health and advancing the objectives.

Overall I still have mixed feelings about the (first) campaign. They did some "surprising" things that were meant to make the campaign feel exciting and dynamic, but came off to me as massive cheats. I have no problem having to adapt my strategies mid-game as new events develop. However, I think it's unfair to players to lead them into believing that a mission will play out one way and then just completely yanking the rug out from under them with no warning. It felt like the equivalent of just randomly stopping a football game in the third quarter and telling the losing team, "Sucks to be you!" On the other hand, I do enjoy how the campaign forces you to think long-term, and the most recent developments have proven very interesting in terms of making the game feel more tied to the theme.

Chrisoc13 wrote: Fri Nov 03, 2017 6:29 am
The race packs look great, I hope they keep them coming because that's part of what really appeals to me is playing as all of the different races.

I'm hoping that the Tholians make an appearance in an upcoming pack. They're mentioned as a possible player race in the base game, so I assume it's going to happen. Plus, when we were discussing the game at Origins before its release with the owner of GF9, he mentioned that they were coming.

I would also love to see the Gorn, Andorians and the Dominion member races show up. Maybe Tribbles too.

Had an impromptu Thursday night game last night. We wanted to go old school and play something we were fairly familiar with. I had an itching to give Fortune and Glory another try, and I had the box handy, and so I pulled that out and started to set it up. Had everything set up, suddenly realized I couldn't find the Villain Event deck (we were going for a co-op game). Oh well, we'll switch to competitive. Go to place the first artifact...no location deck. Well shit. Near as I can figure, the missing decks are in the expansion box, and that is packed in my garage (which resembles the warehouse scene at the end of Raiders right about now.) So, no Fortune and Glory.

Instead I pulled out one that we hadn't played in a few years, Flash Point. I had forgotten how fun this game is. Played the advanced game, without any expansions, but at the Veteran level. And we absolutely owned the game. This was the smoothest I have ever had this game go. We were playing with the generalist and the CAFS firefighter, and we stuck to a game plan of "I'll get the people, you put out the fires!" Early in the game, we had one big explosion which caught up two different hazmats, and knocked down the extinguisher. I was able to get on the engine the next turn and had a perfectly aimed shot from the deck gun that took out almost all the fire in that area. After that, we pretty much had the best run of dice rolls I have ever seen. Only one other explosion, the POIs were showing up in groups near exits, and in the end we were able to do a perfect extraction with all POI's rescued and minimal structural damage.

This game is crying out for doing a large scale building model with light up fires.

Legendary: Buffy is out. I haven't played it yet, but watched part of a playthrough and it looks interesting. It is not an Encounters game and I already have too much Legendary, but I ordered it anyway. It adds a Light/Dark track that has interactions with lots of different things and should make the game more interesting. I am hoping my oldest son (Xander... hmm, where did that name come from) will be interested.

hentzau wrote: Fri Nov 03, 2017 10:28 am This game is crying out for doing a large scale building model with light up fires.

Whoa...

That's an interesting thought, but maybe I'll just buy the digital implementation on Steam after it releases next week.

YellowKing wrote: Fri Nov 03, 2017 8:08 am Continued our FIRST MARTIANS campaign last night.

I appreciate your ongoing commentary on the game. So far you haven't said anything that makes me regret selling it... further I scratched my plans to pick up the updated Robinson Crusoe as I remember just how much of a random pain these game can be.

coopasonic wrote: Fri Nov 03, 2017 10:31 am It is not an Encounters game and I already have too much Legendary, but I ordered it anyway.

Can someone explain this to me? I only have one of the line (Marvel Legendary), but I thought they were the same thing.

Blackhawk wrote: Fri Nov 03, 2017 11:14 am

coopasonic wrote: Fri Nov 03, 2017 10:31 am It is not an Encounters game and I already have too much Legendary, but I ordered it anyway.

Can someone explain this to me? I only have one of the line (Marvel Legendary), but I thought they were the same thing.

You'd think I'd be well equipped to explain the distinction having bought and played every legendary game but one. There are a couple of distinctions. At a high level, Encounters games are full co-op with pvp options (in Aliens and Predator anyway, don't remember any PvP for Firefly), while the other games are semi-co-op (co-op with competitive scoring for a winner among winners). In the encounters game, you are a character in the game. You have your own health value and a special card/ability/something that identifies your character. You can die and your team can go on. In the other games, there is no "you," just a deck and hand of cards.

It may not seem like much of a distinction, but it makes the encounters games feel more... personal, maybe? Thematic certainly.

I may have to break down and get Buffy. I'm a big fan of the series, and the only Legendary (Encounters) game I own is Aliens, which I love. I doubt it will fly with my gaming group, but I think it's something my wife would enjoy since she's a big Buffy fan as well. Plus the Legendary system is simple enough that I think she'd pick it up pretty quickly even as a non-gamer.

coopasonic wrote: Fri Nov 03, 2017 10:31 am I am hoping my oldest son (Xander... hmm, where did that name come from) will be interested.

This suddenly makes me feel better about naming our daughter Phoebe after Alyssa Milano's character on Charmed (and also a Friends reference).

I got a copy of Warhammer Shadespire due to the major hype. I need to find a second player to see how it goes (or play solo) but it looks impressive. I have to say, Games Workshop seems to be stepping it up with the boardgames - Shadespire was reasonably (for GW standards) priced and the boards and cards are all excellent quality (better than Silver Tower, IMHO).

I hear that the newest entry in COIN series, Pendragon is set to charge and ship this month. I have been looking forward to this one for at least a year. As a medievalist, it is perfectly in my wheelhouse, and as an Arthurian legends fan it is personally in my area of interest. I am hoping for the best COIN experience yet.

Somehow I managed to get my work to cover a copy of Leaving Earth to possibly use in my honor's courses (as a Space Race sim). So I am also waiting for that to print and ship. I hear Lumenaris can be pretty slow, so that may be a bit.

And to you Hoosier haters - I am originally from Indiana, so you can suck an ear of corn!

Abe Lincoln and a velociraptor walk into a bar...



I was checking out Michael Barnes best of 2017 (so far) list and he was gung ho for a little IDW game called Escape from 100 Million BC. I'd seen it at Gencon but hadn't really thought much of it from the box cover art. What I didn't realize was that it was a Kevin Wilson game. The man behind Arkham Horror, one of the first board games I picked up after I returned to the hobby years ago.

So I ordered it from Amazon and played two solo games of it this weekend. The first game I gave up on about 10 turns in as I realized I was playing a few things wrong. My second game went better, but I lost in the final few turns.

What is it? It's a time travel coop game. Up to 6 players play modern day heroes stuck in the past after their time machine goes on the fritz in 100 million BC. You have to travel around a huge board with hidden map tiles, looking for a variable number of time machine parts based on the difficulty level.

Along the way, you'll encounter dinosaurs, adventures and pick up a ton of equipment. But you WANT to pick up all that equipment because if you leave any behind, you may lose the game as the time paradox track goes up for every little bit of anachronistic equipment you leave behind at the end of the game.

But that's not all. You'll also see time rifts open up and historical figures dropped into the past alongside you. You need to convince these people to come with you back to their rift so they can return to their time. If you don't, and you leave them behind after gathering all your time machine parts, they each move the time paradox track up and could lose the game for you.

Chasing JFK, Socrates and Jeff Bridges/the Dude across the board as you desperately search for the parts of your time machine is a singular experience.



The game is goofy, driven by luck, and just plain fun. It's a bit of Pandemic with some Arkham Horror thrown in for good measure. But the time paradox track is a nice addition to the various game mechanics it draws together. I highly recommend it for folks who just want to laugh while pulling out their hair trying to beat the clock in a game.

Cool. I remember reading about that a long time ago, but it just fell off my radar at some point. Thanks for the reminder!

Yesterday we tried Incan Gold, a push-your-luck dungeon-delving card game. It's a fun trifle, but not much more than that. My 7-year-old didn't like it because it was "too random."

This was part of a weekly series of free gaming sessions at our FLGS. Of the games tried so far, Revolution! was the biggest hit for my family -- simple enough for the kid to grasp, but enough meat for all of us to make proper strategic decisions. I wouldn't necessarily recommend it for an experienced gaming group, but it is great for us.

Other games we've tried at these sessions:

- Carcassonne: One of the first modern board games I ever bought. But I don't especially like it.

- Century Spice Road: A merchant game in which you collect sets of resource cards in order to fulfill specific "contracts." There's no direct conflict between players, but lots of indirect interaction as you take contracts or resources that someone else was gunnign for. Very intuitive and smoothly designed.

- San Juan: A classic that I had not played before. I would happily play it again. This was right after Hurricane Maria swept through Puerto Rico, so they organized the session as a fundraiser, auctioning off certain cards for real money during the gameplay. It threw off the game balance completely, of course, but everyone was in the right spirit and had a great time.