Author Topic: Micro Reviews of Board Games From a Non-Competetive Perspective (Read 111064 times)

Ampa · « **Reply #25 on:** February 26, 2011, 03:53 PM »

I agree with everything that Mouser said! Settlers has a big reputation, but doesn't do it for me.

Keep looking though and you will find some modern boardgames that do suit you, and your playing group, then you'll be hooked!

40hz · « **Reply #26 on:** February 26, 2011, 07:19 PM »

@Mouser @Ampa - Thx. Thought it might just be me.

OK. This game wasn't exactly cheap so I'd hate to see it just sitting on a shelf gathering dust. If there's any DC member (with a mailing address in the USA) that would like a free, only used once copy of The Settlers of Catan sent to you postpaid via U.S. snail mail, PM me where to ship it - and it's yours. My treat. UPDATE: We had a taker. It's been shipped. Enjoy!

My copy has slightly different box graphics than the one pictured above. It might be an earlier edition, although I only bought it about 6 months ago. It's published by Mayfaire Games Inc. (ISBN 1-56905-091-0).

Here's what mine looks like:

Micro Reviews of Board Games From a Non-Competetive Perspective

Shades · « **Reply #27 on:** February 27, 2011, 02:48 PM »

The game mechanics are not that great and that is likely the reason why you don't like it.

What made the game fun for me was always the "social" trading of goods/resources between players which allows you to try reading their tactics and reveal your own as much as possible. But that requires good other players as well...never found those after losing touch with the playing group I was part of when moving to South America.

The only kind of board game that people (in my age/social range) play here is when it shown in a computer screen. Which is a shame as I spent many afternoon/evening playing board and table-top games and loving that. But now it is reduced to an occasional game of chess during a brown-out/power failure.

JoTo · « **Reply #28 on:** February 28, 2011, 08:07 AM »

Hi,

for those of you BoardGameGeeks i have a suggestion.

I am a long time member of http://www.brettspielwelt.de (BoardGamesWorld).

BSW is a site where you can play online and FREE many original boardgames. From Settlers of Catan, over Pandemic to Dogz and whatnot. All the games are licensed with the original publishers and so they look relatively genuine (original graphics, gameplay and rules). The publishers count the BSW as a kind of advertisement for their games. And it worked for me. When i joined the BSW i played Pandemic the first time. I loved it so much that i purchased the game as a board game -> DANG! Money for the publisher via BSW.

In BSW there is a Metagame that is organized in a kind of "World" with towns and Guilds and Ranks/Levels. So you can go from town to town where games in "houses of the town" are offered to play. Lounges and shouts makes it easy to find opponents. Also there are a lot of people around all the day and 24/7. At the time i write this post 1200+ players were online.

Regular tournaments and events completes the scenario. The Metagame is a nice addon, but not the main thing. If you register you can get a citizen of a town and play for this town in tournaments and earn money for the town (that is needed to purchase food, pay tax and whatnot). Or you just enter, wade to the game you want, play some matches and walk away again. It's at your will.

Oh and did i mentioned its completely FREE. You even don't need to register. You can play as Guest. But then you miss a lot of fun of rankings and levels. But even if you register, i never got a single email from them, except the register/welcome one.

Don't be afraid that this is a german page and the homepage is all german. There are a lot of foreign (non german) members there and english spoken is BSW-wide from a lot of persons there. There are even founded towns in the BSW-Metagame with english speaking or regional persons (e.g. London for British people or Istanbul for Turkish).

E.g. there is a special forum board for english only at: BSW English Forum

So maybe we meet you some times in the world of BSW. My nickname (What do you think? Surprise, Surprise!) is of course not JoTo.

Was already taken. I am Lukullus there.

Hope this suggestion is valuable for someone.

Greetings
JoTo

kfitting · « **Reply #29 on:** February 28, 2011, 10:49 AM »

For those who have tried Settlers and didnt like it, have you tried the Cities and Knights expansion? I think it adds a LOT of interesting gameplay/tactics into the original. I dont like playing the original anymore as it's way too simple.

As mouser said, everyone has their own taste so I'm not saying Cities and Knights will make Settlers appeal to those who dont like the original version, but it's worth a shot!

mouser · « **Reply #30 on:** March 04, 2011, 04:05 PM »

I think we will plan on playing Crack the Case Live and Online in the DonationCoder IRC channel tonight (friday mar 4, 2011), at sometime around 11PM server time (USA Central Standard time).

Everyone is welcome.

mouser · « **Reply #31 on:** March 04, 2011, 10:36 PM »

Crack the case will start in [countdown=3,4,2011,23,0]Already Started[/countdown]. Join the chat channel to play (click chat button above or join #donationcoder on efnet using a standard irc client).

mouser · « **Reply #32 on:** September 05, 2011, 04:42 AM »

It's been too long since I posted a new board/card game mini-review, so here's a quickie.

This is my mini-review of a card game for young kids called "Spot It".

I learned about Spot It from my favorite board game review video series by Tom Vassel:

Tom's daughter Melody is a real gamer and she and tom both liked the game.

I thought it might be perfect for my niece during a family visit I took last week, and it was. Turns out everyone in the family enjoyed it, even my parents.

It's a light game where you are trying to quickly match symbols on the cards. There are actually several variations you can play, which adds some variety. We invented a couple of additional variations, including one that used the cards to play go-fish which i think worked quite well.

I'd give this one a 9 out of 10 in the category of quick family games for playing with young children under 10.

Someone mentioned a similar game called "Set", which has won many awards. Set is definitely in the same vein of identifying similar cards.. and has some more sophisticated elements to it. I tried Set a while ago but found it completely unfun to play and too taxing on my brain.

Side note: This game can actually be fascinating for the mathematicians in the family and some of us found ourselves deep in thought about the algorithm used to create the cards. You see the cards are such that: Each card has 8 symbols on it, from a collection of over 50 symbols. There are 55 cards. Each card has one and only one match with every other card. It's not at all trivial to come up with an algorithm that achieves that, or to answer questions such as how many cards can you make given N unique symbols with M symbols on each card..

mouser · « **Reply #33 on:** September 05, 2011, 04:46 AM »

By the way, my niece's favorite game was not actually a game.

I brought a ton of pieces i keep for prototyping new board/card games (dice of all types including some blank dice, blank playing cards, miscelaneous tokens, etc.), and it turns out my niece is a budding game designer.. She could not get enough and wanted to invent 3 or 4 new board games every day.

I'm not sure that many kids would take to the challenge of inventing new games but might be something worth investigating if you have young kids in your family, since I think it's a great learning experience.

iphigenie · « **Reply #34 on:** September 05, 2011, 09:35 AM »

I just ordered Forbiddden Island which you mention is simpler than Pandemic, as a good travel game for semi-gaming adults going on a road trip - will see how it fares

Deozaan · « **Reply #35 on:** September 05, 2011, 10:42 AM »

Spot It looks fun. Thanks!

mouser · « **Reply #36 on:** September 25, 2011, 12:14 PM »

My next review is for a game called Merchants & Marauders, which we played for the first time last night:

This is a big beautiful expensive game where players pilot ships in the Caribbean Islands, earning money as a trader or robbing ships as a pirate.

I was attracted to the game based on a few reviews that described it as similar to Tales of the Arabian Nights, one of my favorite board games. I like games that involve a narrative story and are filled with surprise and adventure and exploration.

Merchants & Marauders succeeds quite well in creating a very visceral experience of being on the high seas dealing with other ships and ports -- and is one of those rare board games that really makes you feel like you are in a living world. It's not just that it succeeds in presenting an immersive theme, but that it succeeds in making you feel like the world is actually dynamically evolving as you play.

It's a long game (I think we played for over 5 hours), and it's also extremely successful in creating a wide variety and diversity of things to do and adventures to go on, and ways to win. We barely scratched the surface of the different events and adventures and missions to go on.. And player interaction is as hands off or brutal as the players want -- which is a nice feature.

It's the area of rules where the game doesn't quite work for me. Now to be honest this is where most games fail for me. I really dislike overly involved rulesets which are difficult to keep track of. Much of the reason for this is that I don't play too many games with the same crowd repeatedly, so if a game required 2 or 3 sessions before everyone gets up to speed and can play, it's hard to have fun with new people. In board game discussions you will hear the term "fiddly", which refers to games where there are lots of little tokens and chits and counters to keep track of and do bookeeping on.

Merchants & Marauders isn't terrible in this department -- but it is on the borderline. There are a lot of little rules and tokens and bookeeping. NPC interactions and Combat in particular is overly complicated and convoluted and involves many steps which seem overkill to me. I prefer theme and flavor for combat, not all of these involved steps.

The game comes as close as any board game I have ever seen in creating something that feels like a world simulation.. but it does it at the cost of a bit to much bookeeping and upkeep work.

In the end, that's what makes the game something that just didn't quite work for me -- just too much focus on going through the motions and doing bookeeping, and too little novel surprise narrative adventure/exploration.

So I continue my quest to find the perfect fun exciting adventure board game that is super easy to learn and play and run.

Ratings:

Me: 7 of 10
Gothic: 7.5 of 10
Traci: 7.5 of 10

Interesting elements for game designers:

Feels like a simulation in a board game
Nice choice of how much interaction between users
Nice options for players to customize their way to play

Ath · « **Reply #37 on:** September 25, 2011, 12:23 PM »

Good review

Q: There are 4 player seats in the photo, but only 3 players are mentioned. Where you playing for 2 seats? (and still scored only 7 out of 10

) or was that Cody's spot?

mouser · « **Reply #38 on:** October 05, 2011, 08:34 AM »

My review today is for King of Tokyo:

I learned about King of Tokyo from the Cracked LCD Review of it by Michael Barnes and the review on Drake's Flame, which I recommend you go check out.

When Michael said it was a simple game with lots of theme, that was one of the best board games of 2011 -- I just had to try it. And I'm glad I did -- It's exactly what I'm looking for in a game -- a fast fun experience that is easy to learn and a pure pleasure to play. It's a great game.

It was designed by the same guy who created Magic the Gathering (Richard Garfield). The artwork is out of this world, cartoon monster styled -- and the components are really fun to look at and read and use. It's got a big stack of cards that are phenomenal.

I won't go into the rules, you can read them on the Board Game Geek site or the Cracked LCD review I linked to above. Basically each player controls a monster and they fight to stay alive and gain victory points. Gameplay is fast and furious and there is a lot of luck involved. But always tricky choices to make and tension and surprise around every corner. We had a huge amount of fun talking during the game and enjoying watching the process unfold.

This game really worked for me in an area where games often fail for me -- and that is with the rule-changing cards. King of Tokyo comes with a large deck of (beautifully illustrated) cards that give players special powers and change the (simple) base ruleset. In many games that use this idea of rule-changing cards, the rules on the cards are long and complicated and are hard to absorb and incorporate. But King of Tokyo does it so well -- with just minor changes, and perfect themeing -- it just works.

Final rating: 10 out of 10 if you are interested in a quick fun game with people who are learning for the first time.

mouser · « **Reply #39 on:** August 30, 2012, 06:39 PM »

My next mini-boardgame-review is of "Survive: Escape from Atlantis"

Once a year I've been getting together with my family for a week, and it's my job to bring board games for the family to play. This means bringing games that will, first and foremost, appeal to my beyond-cute 8yr old niece, but also my 70+ yr old parents.

This year the biggest hit was Survive: Escape from Atlantis, which was purchased based on the numerous recommendations on Board Game Geek saying that it was a fun family game.

To be honest, after reading the rules I had my doubts about how well the game would go over, because it's pretty cut-throat. But the theme goes a long way towards keeping everything lighthearted and amusing. The younger kids loved it, and the older people enjoyed it as well. A great mix of luck and strategy and surprise, and quite easy to learn.

Very highly recommended for family gatherings: 9 of 10.

mouser · « **Reply #40 on:** July 09, 2014, 07:50 AM »

Today's board game microreview is for "Wits and Wagers".

Wits and Wagers is a very clever mixture of trivia, betting, and social interaction. It's fast to play, super easy for anyone, and easily supports 7 players or more with teams.

Gameplay works essentially like this: On each round a trivia question is read that has a numerical answer. All players (teams) write down their answer on a dry erase card, and then all answers are laid out in numerical order. At this point, everyone can bet on which answers are correct. In this way, even if you have no idea what the answer is, you have a chance to bet on the answers from people who you think might know.

The social element of seeing what answers others gave, and how confident they are, and the range of answers -- is all quite fun. And the strategy and risk taking of betting your accumulated chips is very fun.

I've played this twice now with large groups -- the first time was fun but not magical; the second time -- playing with people i didn't know well, was extremely fun.

Highly recommended if you have a large group of adults. There are special editions for families and kids (though i think it works better with adults).

mouser · « **Reply #41 on:** July 09, 2014, 08:08 AM »

Another party board game mini-review, this time for a game called "Telestrations".

Telestrations is a light-hearted drawing game that works similarly to the kids game of "Telephone". Each player gets a secret word (or phrase), and tries to draw it. They then pass along their pad clockwise to the next player who looks at the picture they drew, and tries to guess (in words) a description what it is a drawing of. Then that player passes along the pad clockwise and the recipient draws a picture of the description that the previously player wrote. So as each pad goes around the circle, it becomes a sequence of drawing, description, drawing, description, etc..

After each pad has gone around the circle, players take turns becoming the center of attention and showing off the sequence of drawings and descriptions in their pad while everyone else laughs at how wrong things went.

The best part of this game is that the worst artists create the most fun. Children will especially enjoy being the center of attention as people enjoy the mayhem.

It's a pure fun game that should work well for any group, has tons of laughs, and is great for kids of all ages. Highly recommended.

The normal edition supports up to 8 players; there is a "party pack" that goes up to 11 or 12.

Deozaan · « **Reply #42 on:** July 10, 2014, 03:33 AM »

Another party board game mini-review, this time for a game called "Telestrations".

[...]

The normal edition supports up to 8 players; there is a "party pack" that goes up to 11 or 12.
-mouser (July 09, 2014, 08:08 AM)

I've played this one before. I've never heard of this game being called "Telestrations" and I think that the idea that the board game is limited to 8 players or having to buy a party pack for extra players seems ludicrous to me. This game can be played with as many players as want to play. No game board necessary. No timer necessary. No "secret word" from a list or deck necessary.

A multi-page drawing pad for each player is useful and simplifies the process, but it is not necessary. The instructions below will get you playing if you can scrounge up enough paper (take regular sheets of paper and fold them up and tear them into smaller sheets) for everyone.

Just get some pieces of paper, enough so that each person has as many as there are people playing (so if 26 people are playing, each player needs 26 sheets of paper). Then you just start by writing a word or sentence, then pass the paper to the left. Everyone plays simultaneously. When you get a drawing, you try to write the sentence that the drawing was of (on a blank paper) then you pass it to the left. When you get a sentence, you try to illustrate it with a drawing (on a blank paper) then you pass it to the left.

When everyone is out of blank paper, they pass their entire stack to the right. The person to the right takes the paper from the bottom of the pile (assuming oldest drawings/sentences are on bottom) and passes the remaining stack to the right. This process is repeated until all the stacks are gone. Now everybody should have all the papers for their original sentence, in order (or reverse order, depending on which way the stack was facing). Then you go around one at a time, reading the original sentence, then showing the drawing, then reading the sentence of the drawing, then showing the drawing of the sentence of the drawing, etc. until everybody has had a chance to be the center of attention and laugh at all the silly drawings and twists of the original sentence/word.

If you use pads of paper, it simplifies the process of getting the story back in order, since you can just flip back toward the front of the pad. But other than that there's not much difference and no need to limit the number of players or the possible "secret words" since you're limited only by the number of people who want to play and their imagination. Even people who use the same starting word/sentence could result in very different stories by the end of it.

mouser · « **Reply #43 on:** April 26, 2015, 08:28 PM »

Time for another board game mini-review, this time for: Small World.

Small World is a very popular board game that's been around for a few years, but yesterday was the first time I've played it.

A quick video review from our friends at Starlit Citadel:

And you can watch a full 80 minute game played by one of my favorite board game video folks:

I played a 2-player game with a friend and we had a great time with it even our first time learning the rules and playing.

Perhaps what surprised me the most about the game is that I tend to shy away from games where there is direct, repated player conflict/confrontation, especially when it comes to "area control" mechanics (like battling over spaces on the board). Games like this (risk, etc.) feel much too confrontational to me, and they completely stress me out and make it so i don't have fun. If i am losing i feel nervous and if i'm winning i feel guilty. But Small World, which is based on such a mechanic -- was somehow free of any real confrontational "feel" -- which was wondeful. If you have a friend (or friends) who might tend to shy away from competitive type games, I recommend you give it a try.

One of the hallmarks of the game is that players take control of special creatures whose unique special abilities are mixed and matched, so every game is a bit different.. It's an incredible achievement in terms of game balance and entertainment. I think part of why it doesn't feel so confrontational is that over the course of the game, your chosen creatures (tribe) will suffer and you basically "retire" them when you want, and pick up a new set of creatures to control -- so in a way you're kind of happy to see them go into decline so you can play with a new set of creatures with new abilities. It's incredibly fun.

One caveat to this game is that, while the rules are fairly simple, you'll constantly have to be reading a large sheet that explains powers and abilities, which can sometimes be a little tricky, so you might very well have a problem with smaller kids, especially if you don't know the powers by heart when you try to teach them.

Highly recommended: 5 out of 5.

vrgrrl · « **Reply #44 on:** April 26, 2015, 09:34 PM »

Sounds like a nice game!

mouser · « **Reply #45 on:** June 07, 2015, 10:19 AM »

Today's micro-review is of my favorite new 2-player card game, which can be had for as little as $10-$12: Star Realms.

Star Realms is actually a "deck-builder", which means that over time each player buys and adds cards to their own personal deck which is continuously re-used (Dominion is one of the more popular "deck builders").

I can't think of a better introduction to deck building -- it's a fun, quick game with simple rules but plenty of strategy.

The theme is Sci Fi and the art is wonderful.

Really fantastic little game, could not recommend it more highly.

The creators of Star Realms look like they are using the same engine to make a similar card game set in fantasty theme, currently kickstarting here: https://www.kickstar...-game?ref=nav_search

TaoPhoenix · « **Reply #46 on:** June 07, 2015, 02:43 PM »

Collectible Card Games are a tricky subject to review!

Can you give us more of the mechanics details? For example, in the classic Magic the Gathering, the raw mechanic went something like

Creatures Attack (Plus Modifiers) + Spells, try to defeat the opponent first.

MtG eventually sprawled into a monolith that eventually took turns I didn't agree with, with the whole "your cards are only good for about two years before we declare them 'too old to use'. "

So what's the appealing part of this new game? Is it just reliving the glory days of MtG of 1993 with a SciFi spin?

mouser · « **Reply #47 on:** June 07, 2015, 04:23 PM »

well i never played magic the gathering, though i have watched some of it being played -- and from watching i know it can get quite complicated.
there has been a rebellion against the "collectible" aspect of card games, as seen in magic the gathering, and most new deck builders do not follow this path.
instead there are fixed card sets that everyone can by for affordable prices and there aren't these super rare expensive cards, etc.

star realms seems to be the core boiled down essence of a deck builder, lean and mean and easy to learn and play.

here's a review that talks more about how to play it and why it's good:
http://www.nohighsco...ar-realms-in-review/

mouser · « **Reply #48 on:** August 01, 2015, 10:35 PM »

Here's a new board (card) game mini-review, for Boss Monster:

https://boardgamegee...n-building-card-game

Lately i've played a bunch of a card game called Boss Monster (i've only played two-player). It feels a little bit like Star Realms -- the images and cards are fun to look at and read.
Each player builds a dungeon and tries to kill heroes that visit them.
It plays really fast and fun, with a good amount of solitaire feel but also plenty of take-that and press your luck elements.

There's a lot of luck but a ton of strategy. Most of all it's *FUN* as heck.

I would say however that while the basic rules are simple, there are a fair number of non-obvious specific card rules and interactions on cards that can be confusing -- this isn't a game for young kids who aren't quite sophisticated in terms of planning out multiple interactions.

Really great game, highly recommended (there are expansions too).

Edvard · « **Reply #49 on:** August 02, 2015, 04:25 PM »

Just wondering, based on your reviews of Settlers of Catan and Heroscape, if the two could be blended; combine the fast-action gameplay of Heroscape with the simpler map and social aspects of Settlers? For the record, I never played either, so...

Also, while looking for piecepack, I ran across this:
http://theboardgamedesigner.com
Heard of it?