Any Boardgamers out there?

[TCrouch]

I've debated picking that one up, so I'm glad to see that. Thanks, Dan.

[Danimal]

http://maximumpixelation.com/2014/10/13/nhl-power-play/

Cross posting because this is a really simple and fun deck builder with an NHL Theme

[webdanzer]

I've been having some good fun with some 'family' style board games lately:

Black Fleet is a fun little pirate game. Each turn you control a merchant ship trying to ferry goods from one port to another, a pirate who is trying to steal from the other players' merchant ships and then bury the treasure they loot, and one of two Navy ships who are out to find and sink the other players pirates. The board gets crowded quickly, and it's fun trying to plot routes either to get your cargo to port safely or bushwhack your opponents before they can do so themselves.

Random event cards and development upgrades can add surprises and sneak attacks, and since on the whole the game is fairly simple (Choose between two movement cards each turn that give different movement values for each of your ships), the whole family was able to get into the action and have fun quickly. Recommended as a fun, light, family game. You won't play many games back to back, but fairly fast moving fun for the occasional family game nights.

Wok Star is a real time co-op game that sees 1-4 players of the Wang family attempting to make enough money by day 4 to make a payment on their bank loan to keep their Chinese restaurant open. You start with a handful of basic recipes that use basic ingredients, the latter of which you keep track of on the large Wok inventory board. Each player is tasked with waiting a certain table, and being in charge of certain prep stations where you place dice in key spots to get more of the ingredients you need for the recipes. You start the timer, the first customer enters and gives his order, and then the player in charge of that table has to figure out what ingredients are needed to fulfill the order and slide them down the wok. if there are not enough ingredients, the yelling commences: "We're out of Bok Choi!" "I need a 5 to make three more, i don't have a five!" "I have a five, but I need that to make pork! Do we need pork?! How many egg rolls have we served?!"

If you serve the customer in time, you get paid. If not, you take a penalty. After the last customer leaves, you count your money, subtract your penalties, and then upgrade to prepare for the next round by purchasing new recipes for (usually) higher paying meals, upgrading your serving stations to prepare more ingredients at less cost, etc. Repeat for 4 rounds, and at the end of the last day, see if you have made enough scratch to save the restaurant.

Things are kept fresh by random events that show up in the customer deck (Spilled food cart, lose your most stocked ingredient! Argh) and by the special powers each player has as a member of the Wang family. (Grandpa Wang has his secret recipes: replace 1 ingredient in a recipe with any one other and still have it count! --I gave that poor dude egg roll wrappers instead of chicken!)

All in all it feels like a video game, and another great one to play with the family.

[webdanzer]

NOT a family game, but finally got a chance to play some Sons of Anarchy. Mean worker placement that has tons of wheeling, dealing, and screwing your fellow players. A ton of the game is played above the shoulders, though, so good bargainers and shrewd manipulators will do better than lucky die rollers, which can be good or bad depending on what you are looking for in a game. PLUS for social warriors, less so for Euro-heads. I had a blast, though, even though I frustratingly could not convince another player that the deals the eventual winner were offering were BAD DEALS, DUDE!

Captures the theme of the show really well. My only main negative is that it runs a bit longer than it feels it should, which actually happens to be a criticism I have of all GF9 games. (Firefly, Spartacus) Fun, but they all can run long and FEEL long towards the end. SoA is the sprightliest of those three, and possibly my favorite.

[webdanzer]

I finally got to play Dead of Winter last night, after wanting to get it to the table for a long time.

Ran into many situations not defined by the rules, came across a couple of silly rules and useless distinctions, and realized the game itself is pretty clunky and seems to have widely variable --almost random-- difficulty.

That said, it generates quite a story, giving you some fun moments, dark moments, and some truly tough decisions. It's one of those games that will generate those situations that you'll recall and discuss many sessions down the road. I enjoyed it a lot, but as more of an 'experience game' rather than a 'test your skill' sort of game.

[Danimal]

Ran into many situations not defined by the rules, came across a couple of silly rules and useless distinctions, and realized the game itself is pretty clunky and seems to have widely variable --almost random-- difficulty.

What kind of situations did you run into?

[webdanzer]

Ran into many situations not defined by the rules, came across a couple of silly rules and useless distinctions, and realized the game itself is pretty clunky and seems to have widely variable --almost random-- difficulty.

What kind of situations did you run into?

Crossroads cards where one of the options was to lose something we didn't have (So could we choose that and lose nothing or was that choice unavailable?), Realizing there is no need for a group leader in game, weird exile strategy on final turn that allowed us to meet crisis objective by banishing arbitrary player (I had to select which of us would lose), misunderstanding on event card usage, had some issues understanding designer's intent on table talk,questions on whether helpless survivors were affected by certain events, etc)

Nothing gamebreaking, and many answers were found on bgg, and some issues were just the result of first time play. Combination of the crises, crossroads, plus card draws and dice rolls made it more of a random experience than I was expecting, but still quite fun. Hard to draw any firm conclusions after one game, but I feel like it's not really a game to measure how well you play, but more about 'what happened that time."

Probably sounds more negative than I am on the game. I really enjoyed it and it is a keeper.

[Danimal]

Thanks for the input.

I found a copy last week in a local store and paid full price because of the hotness and lack of product. I never do this and I have it in shrink still, planning on playing Saturday night but was on the fence about opening it when I have a dozen other unplayed games.

However the group I will play with like a good experience over strategy so maybe I'll open it...

[webdanzer]

Quick update on Dead of Winter:

Played again last night, and second play was quite easy, with very little tension throughout. Definitely seems to confirm that it is a swingy-type of game challenge-wise. Play it for the story, and for bluffing your friends. Game system itself is only so-so.

[Danimal]

Still haven't gotten it to the table but a game I will suggest for bluffing and fun is Sherri of Nottingham. It's a remake / re-theme of an old game but it is a lot of fun.

[webdanzer]

Still haven't gotten it to the table but a game I will suggest for bluffing and fun is Sherri of Nottingham. It's a remake / re-theme of an old game but it is a lot of fun.

I just grabbed the last copy at a local game store yesterday! They got five in, and sold 'em all out the first day. I had been looking forward to this for some time! Can't wait to play.

I'm a little dismayed at the quality of the components, though. The cards seem thin and prone to chipping, and I'm worried about the snaps tearing off the bags, especially with the amount of usage they will get.

[webdanzer]

Oh wait, Sherri of Nottingham? You may be playing something else...






(Humorous Typo)

[Danimal]

You have to admit, those are better quality components.

[webdanzer]

You have to admit, those are better quality components.

Indeed!

[Danimal]

My Machi Koro review is up if your interested in a fun family game http://maximumpixelation.com/2014/11/25 ... ro-review/

Also my Shadowrun Crossfire review was posted last week.

[webdanzer]

Nice review. I like MK as a quick filler, but can't take too much of it at once.

[Pete1210]

Thanks. Thread helped me choose a few new games for some family gifts:

Ticket to Ride
Fluxx
In a Pickle
Coup
Snake Oil

So far we played Fluxx and Snake Oil. Laughed our butts off playing Snake Oil. Fluxx was fun, but some the rules cards are a little confusing.

[Zeppo]

Looking for some advice from the table-top gurus around here: the girlfriend and I are seeking some good two-player games to play. We dabble in Go, the venerable classic, but we just dabble, and of course that game's a monster. I recently picked up Lost Cities, part of the Games for Two series from Kosmos, which we enjoy quite a bit, but I'd love something with a greater sense of theme and some real game mechanics.

I'd like to try a good co-op game, so what co-ops are good for two players? What would work well if we each took two characters? I've never played a co-op, so would Pandemic be good for us? Forbidden Island? Too much longer than an hour for a game would be a bit unattractive. Robinson Crusoe?

Any ideas would be welcome. I'm just dabbling. Brainsotrm at me, please!

[Danimal]

Co-ops you hit on some good ones. Forbidden Island or Desert is good. Pandemic (new version) is really good. If you're looking for an rpg slant then any of the D&D Adventure game system games and my wife loves the Pathfinder Card Game. Both of those have ongoing campaigns which make it nice,

2 player versus can take many forms. I always thought Carcasoone was a good choice. Here are a few lists that might help. To me my favorite 2 player games are Twillight Struggle and 1960 The Making of the President. Both are longer than an hour and will cause arguments with your SO however

http://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/16476 ... wife-games

http://www.bestboardgameslist.com/best- ... ard-games/

[GameSeven]

Yes, Pandemic and both Forbiddens would make good choices, I suspect. Also, don't know if the Fire Rescue theme would appeal to her or not, but Flashpoint: Fire Rescue I've found to be fun as a co-op. Also, last year's Samurai Spirit has a bit of game in a small (co-op) package and a cool "Seven Samurai" vibe.

I'm afraid Crusoe would be too weighty and lengthy although I did enjoy the game I played of it.

For two player vs, a couple introduced to be by Webdanzer that made an impression were Jaipur and Le Fantôme de l'Opéra. I'm probably forgetting others, but he may chime in here, too.

[ScoopBrady]

This is a good video to watch. Pretty much anything by rahdo is good. I really enjoy his gameplay videos. They give a good sense of how to play a game when I am unfamiliar with it.

[Danimal]

I'm actually getting time to write again and I put up 2 reviews this week at maximumpixelation.com.

One is on the newest D&D adventure board games The Temple of Elemental Evil which is a 1-5 player co-op.

The other is on the latest Pathfinder Adventure Card Game called Wrath of the Righteous.

In my opinion both are the best of their collective series.

[Leadfoot5]

I'm giving away a new copy of Baseball Highlights 2045 over on my "Hands-On Games" YouTube channel. There's only a couple more days left to enter though, so if you are interested, check out this video...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3I6rmUhDoJs

[Danimal]

Anyone else going to be at Gen Con this week?

[Danimal]

For anyone interested my review of the WWE Superstar Showdown game. I liked it a lot which will be a new theme over on my site. I'm only posting about games I like as I don't have the time to post about bad games.

http://maximumpixelation.com/2015/08...star-showdown/