In the last half year or so, board games has become something me and my friends get together to play quite frequently.
So I thought I'd put this thread up to discuss this sometimes overlooked type pastime, and all the various incarnations it comes in.
Currently, the big thing (amongst me and my friends) is co-op games where everybody plays together against the game. This is really a lot of fun if you get one of the good games. (I will spoilerize these as it took up more space than I thought).
[spoiler=Ghost Stories]
The first game we played in this vein was the very recommendable Ghost Stories, where you play 4 tao priests in ancient china who seek to protect a village from an army of ghosts and the eventually reawakened spirit of Wu Feng. The priests come with various powers, and you move around the board trying to keep all four sides of the village free from ghosts and the dreaded haunters who haunt (sometimes useful) parts of the village. It's a very great game, and the expansion only added to the delightful confusion. We usually end up neck-deep in unfriendly ghosts quite quickly.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=red november]
The second one we play quite often is Red November where you play gnomes on a malfunctioning submarine and try to make it to the end while putting out fires, pumping water out of sections, stopping missile launches and uncontrolled descents, and killing kraken. The whole game advances on a time track and the next player is always the one furthest back on the time line. Every time you do something, you decide how much time you want to spend, making it more likely to succeed, but also resulting in you having to draw more of the dreaded event cards. It almost inevitably ends with chaos and deceased gnomes (a potential draw for many).
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Space Alert!]
On occasion, I've also had the pleasure of trying Space Alert!, a game involving a spaceship, an on-board computer (aka cd) telling you of enemies approaching, and many carefully laid plans that turn out to go horribly wrong. The game only takes fifteen minutes, divided into three planning rounds where the players continually get new information they have to react on. They each have 4 actions they can take, depending on their cards, and have to lay them out facedown and in order before the phase ends. At the end of the game, the actions and events are resolved in turn, and you get to see whether your plans were foiled because you forgot to fuel the main reactor or happened to take the elevator while somebody else was going the opposite way. Very fun game, quite intense, and never takes longer than 30 minutes (plus setup).
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Betrayal at House on the Hill]
The last co-op game I can say anything wise about is the (in my social circles) famous Betrayal at House on the Hill (surprisingly horrible sentence to remember correctly btw, because you keep wanting to put haunted it in somewhere).You are 5 persons exploring a haunted house, on room at a time, drawing the rooms from a pile of tiles. Certain events and omens take place, and at some point the Haunt begins. One of the players turn out to be a betrayer in one of 50(!) different scenarios, involving everything from the Ouroboros over dracula and werewolves to vampiric bats and creeper vines. Not surprisingly, the remaining players have to find their way out and stop the haunt. It has like a dozen randomizing factors and different characters, so it would be different to play exactly the same game two times.
[/spoiler]
So those are the co-op games I'm currently well acquainted with.
Now, for more mundane games I have a few others worthy of mention.
[spoiler=Munchkin]
Ah, yes, Munchkin. I reckon that most of you have played this game in one of its many, many, many versions. I have a few of them myself (but I'm probably not going to spend money on more). I find it to a pretty good game, even if the gameplay can be a bit up and down depending on luck and circumstances. But it does have potential for rather a lot of fun, especially if you get all the jokes. Sadly, I often seem to be stuck without any cards to mischievously throw at my fellow munchkins...
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Smallworld]
only played this once (yet), but it deserves mention anyway. Basically, you play various fantasy species through their rise and fall as civilizations. You can have one active race and one in decline, and you score for both but can only control the active one. So the game is about advancing quickly, then declining your race, advancing your next one, and so on. In between this the other characters are of course trying to conquer the parts of the "small world" your race is inhabiting, leading everybody to engage in a constant battle for land and living races.
Just to add to the fun there are 2 dozen or more different races, and a bunch of attributes. A race is made up by combining a base race and one of these attributes, often with hilarious results. In our game we had historian orcs, flying ratmen, were-wizards and berserker gypsies to name a few.
[/spoiler]
So, what games have you had good experiences with? And if you haven't played many boardgames I hope some of these caught your attention.
(note: I don't know how popular games like these are in the US. a lot of game designers seem to be europaean, so I don't whether it's just more popular over here or if you have a preference for other types of games in the US... So if you have any cultural knowledge on this to share, please do)
I am a bit of a risk nut, I won't say too much but that fact is going to become clear soon once me and the rest of a certain group are ready to initiate a full release of something that's been in the works for over a year.
Small World is awesome
Settlers of Cataan
Battlestar Galactica
Arkham Horror
Battlestations (which requires a "GM")
Played more that I can't remember the name, brainface could jump in here with some pretty awesome games too.
Battlestar Galactica. 3-6 players. It plays like a co-op game, except about 1/2 of the players are CYLONS IN DISGUISE TRYING TO DESTROY HUMANITY. It's a really good game for finding out how to tell when your friends are lying. Also it's a great game for lying to your friends, trying to convince them a human is really a robot and needs to be airlocked.
Lifeboat: a very noncooperative card game. the 3-7 players are all survivors from a shipwreck. You're dealt a love card (you love that survivor and want him to live) and a hate card (you hate that guy and want to kill him.) Players can trade cards such as weapons, water (keeps you from dying of thirst), and cash (increases your end of game score); generally as bribes to get people to protect you or join your fight. By the game is over, generally you'll want to kill 3 or 4 of your friends.
I love Race for the Galaxy. It plays like a collectible card game, where you build up a steller empire and economy, but there's no actual collection/ booster packs, and all players pull from the same draw pile.
I have tried Battlestar once, and I really want to get around to playing it again. It seemed like a lot of fun, and I like the way cylons can influence the skill checks without any immediate risk of discovery. I'm not sure we were very good at bluffing the last time we played it though.
Arkham Horror is pretty awesome too (how can't it be when based on Lovecraft), but it usually ends up taking a hell of a lot of time. It's pretty complicated. But still cool.
Settlers is a classic.
Haven't heard of lifeboat, but it sounds like something I should keep an eye out for.
Race of the Galaxy I have heard of, but not that much. Any more you can tell me/us about it?
Also Ishmayl, on Smallworld, do you have any cool combos worth mentioning?
QuoteRace of the Galaxy I have heard of, but not that much. Any more you can tell me/us about it?
Yeah, this is gonna be hard to do in a forum post.
If you've ever played puerto rico or san juan, it's largely the same game. In space.
Each player has a hand of action cards. These cards are identical between players and don't change during play. They're explore, develop, settle, consume, and produce. Each turn, each player plays one of these cards, and the cards played are the only steps taken during that turn. This is kind of like if magic had cards labeled "draw, untap, main phase, and attack". I'm gonna hope you play magic so that anology makes sense. So if one player plays explore and one plays settle, those are the only steps that take place.
Each player also has a hand of cards they draw from the draw pile. These are all settlements (lost alien world, outlaw world, etc.) or developments (things like space marines and diversified economy). These cards you can play when the settlement and development phase comes up. Every card is worth some victory point cost. The player with the most victory points wins. Both types of cards also have some sort of ability, that's different for each card. (Generally making it easier to play other cards or making it easier to get more victory points with consume/produce.)
The explore phase allows you to draw cards from the draw pile.
The Trade consume and produce phase basically allow you to get more victory points. I'm not gonna explain it in a forum post ^_^
Basically each player is in a race to build up an economy that can produce/trade consume for victory points or to just lay down enough cheap worlds/developments fast enough to win the game. (The game ends when some player has 12 cards on the table. This guy isn't necessarily the winner if he's done his math wrong. ^_^).
Unlike say, magic, there isn't a lot of ability to screw with the other player's cards, so it's rather low-key. The cards in the draw stack are mostly unique though, so looking for good interactions/remembering what kind of cards are there is part of the game.
I love risk. Not a lot of time these days to play, but I found this (http://www.conquerorgame.com/index2.php) online. It's free and it's a little more challenging than risk. (There are 'farms' and 'civ' levels) It's a really nice, free, risk-like game. I've been hanging around that game for nearly four years now, and still find it fun.
Quote from: SarisaI love risk. Not a lot of time these days to play, but I found this (http://www.conquerorgame.com/index2.php) online. It's free and it's a little more challenging than risk. (There are 'farms' and 'civ' levels) It's a really nice, free, risk-like game. I've been hanging around that game for nearly four years now, and still find it fun.
You are really going to like it when we release our project :)
Oh yeah, Race for the Galaxy was pretty bad-ass. I beat brainface at my first game of it :)
I used to love playing monopoly. My fiance and roommate and I tried to play it a while ago, and found that it was a bit boring now that we're jaded gamers. We did everything in our power to keep anyone from getting a monopoly, and nothing happened. Odd.
Carcasan is quite fun. Very easy to learn and play, but between the random element of tile-drawing, and the subtleties of various strategies, it can be just challenging enough to remain enjoyable.
I have played a little magic, so it made some sense, and I have actually played Puerto Rico so i got that analogy. Still sounds pretty good.
Have any of you guys played Citadels? I have only recently been introduced to it, but it's pretty good. Basically, there are 8 different characters (king, thief, assassin, merchant, preacher, architect, warlord etc.) and, starting with the current king, you pick one secretly which grants you a specific power for your turn. It also decides who goes first, as the roles are ordered by number (so 2 goes before 3 and so on).
Basically, the objective is to earn gold so you can buy districts in your city, and if you get 8 districts the game ends and points are scored depending on what people have built). The fun part is of course using the different characters to your benefit, while not falling prey to the abilities of thief and assassin and warlord which depend on either naming a character (not a player!) to steal from/kill or using the preacher as a foil to the warlord (he's immune to the warlord's ability to destroy districts).
Also, king's can get a "district" called ballroom where the players have to say "Thank you, your excellency" when the king calls out their character, or lose their turn.
Reminds me of other card games with weird rules. I once played a stick figure serial killer card game where there was a card called "meteor" which, if you drew it, had to be held above the game table and then dropped. It would then annihilate all cards on the table it overlapped. There was also a curse that forced you to speak in a shakespearean tone...
Quote from: Catalysmic CrowHave any of you guys played Citadels?
Oh yeah. If I'd known you played citadels, I woulda compared it to that. ^_^
I like Race a lot more, because 1: I own it, 2: it's IN SPPAAAACCCEEE. (Which aren't really valid criticisms.)
Citadels is probably a lot better for people that haven't played before though, because there's less card diversity & the cards don't all have their own rules text.
BTW: Dominion. It's a deck building game. You start the game with 5 1 gold cards and 5 1 victory point cards. This is your deck. You draw 5 cards each hand, and use what gold you have in that hand to buy cards to put in your deck. You can buy more expensive gold cards, greater victory point cards, or various improvements such as the marketplace (which gives you additional buys and gold when played), the witch (which gives all opponents a -1 victory point "curse" card that goes in their deck), or the chapel (which allows you to discard several cards in hand, such as curses or cheap gold cards). These go into your deck. The goal is to get as much victory points in your deck at the end of the game, but if you buy too many victory points too quickly, your hands will be full of victory point cards you can't really use in game.
I've had a lot of fun with Space Hulk, which is a fast tactical sort of board game where you have a team of space marines (it's set in the Warhammer 40K universe) in battle with alien invaders. There are all sorts of expansions and various user-deigned content, too, so the game just doesn't get old.
Quote from: XeviatI used to love playing monopoly. My fiance and roommate and I tried to play it a while ago, and found that it was a bit boring now that we're jaded gamers. We did everything in our power to keep anyone from getting a monopoly, and nothing happened. Odd.
Monopoly is pretty much the most overrated board game of all time. Amusingly enough, it's actually tolerable if you use the actual rules (auctioning unbought properties, not randomly putting a ton of cash in Free Parking, etc.) but everybody I've ever discussed the game with seems to insist on using some sort of unconscious houserules that make the game drag on into an interminable slog.
I've had some fun with Heroscape, particularly if your group has a tendency to grab whatever figurines or clutter are convenient and assign stats to them. ("Let's see... my army is four Micro Machines and three California Raisins, versus your three lego men, one R2-D2 action figure, and one pair of wind-up chattering teeth?")
Cheapass Games is a great resource for simple and compelling games, and they publish a lot of my favorites. Witch Trial is absolutely hilarious if the people playing bother to actually talk like venal and immoral lawyers, and Unexploded Cow is a perennial favorite due to its cartoonishly grisly theme (mad cow disease in Britain? fields full of landmines in France? sounds like an entrepreneurial opportunity!)
So did any of you have experience with co-op games yourselves? Do you like them? dislike them? Do you know of any you'd recommend besides the ones mentioned here?
Quote from: Cataclysmic CrowSo did any of you have experience with co-op games yourselves? Do you like them? dislike them? Do you know of any you'd recommend besides the ones mentioned here?
You mean Arkham Horror-style "everybody vs. the system" types of games? I honestly don't have a lot of experience with those, but I'm intrigued by them.
Oh yeah, I recently got to play the German card game "Bohnanza", which was described (aptly, I think) as "Settlers of Catan, without the board". This game was a lot of fun, and has a lot of different strategic elements to deal with! Players are bean farmers trying to cash in big harvests by playing large amounts of the same kind of bean cards in the two "bean field" stacks in front of them, and there's a lot of value considerations about what to plant, whether to harvest earlier and free up a field or keep going in hopes of a bigger payoff with more cards, and how to trade cards with your opponents.
In a six-player game, I came in dead last (I'm a "has bean"), but I had a boatload of fun in the process.
Yeah, I think I've heard of that. Tried some kind of Star Wars/sci-fi adaptation of it, but that isn't recommendable. Kind of missed the point...
If you want to try a co-op game, you should try and get your hands on the previously mentioned Ghost Stories. Very sweet game. Otherwise get Red November, it's a fair bit cheaper and can take more players.
Also got around to trying Dungeon Lords this saturday which is exactly what it sounds like: the boardgame equivalent of the dungeon keeper video game, where you build dungeons and traps, hire monsters, and fend of adventurers. It's a surprisingly deep game with a hell of a lot of tactical elements to take into consideration. Do you want to risk playing your trap card late so you might get the free trap? Do you risk not being able to play the card the next round? Do you dare pay the evil cost of the vampire as it brings you close to attracting the paladin? Can you come up with the optimal way of using monsters/traps to fend of the adventurers?
the list keeps on going. There are two phases and two turns (years). The first phase is the preparation phase where the players each season bid in on three of the activities (gather food, spawn imps, dig tunnels, mine gold etc.). The order in which they bid determines the cost, so you have to judge who bids on what when to get the most beneficial payment.
Then at the end of the year the adventurers strike and try to conquer your dungeon room by room, and you'll have to spend traps and monsters to kill them while taking into account that rogues reduce trap damage, priests heal combat damage and wizards activate event cards.
It's not co-op, so each dungeon lord has his own dungeon and tries to scrounge points and titles together to win the game.
For those who are interested, the 2nd edition of Betrayal at House on the Hill will be out next week! Although buying this game will require you to break any trade embargos you have in place against Wizards of the Coast, I can readily recommend this game (since it's pretty similar to the old out-of-print game by all accords). It's plenty fun, although you might be disappointed if you are only on the look-out for highly tactical games.
I really enjoy Space Hulk and I've heard good things about Ravenloft.