Board Games

I just played Mice and Mystics with the kids. They got bored with it quickly, and I can't blame them. The combat is dull (and annoying since they don't give you enough dice), setup is too involved, there's lots of downtime, and the things you can do are too constrained/random/uninteresting. The story is even kind of dumb. I'd much rather play the Mouse Guard RPG, so this is going to the sell pile. What a letdown.

But thank you for taking the bullet for the rest of us. It looked very interesting.

I just played my first game of Mice and Mystics with the wife with both of us controlling 2 characters. We had fun with it, and managed to get killed by the cat and lose the first adventure. I think playing it with 2 people doubling up works a bit better than having anyone just control 1 mouse, because I'd agree it'd be kinda boring if I was only doing half the stuff I ended up doing in the game we played. Working together though, I didn't notice a lot of setup or downtime. I'll grant I've not played more than half the first adventure, but what I've played I enjoyed and we'll probably try to tackle it again tomorrow.

As a head's up, CoolStuffInc is running a 10% off everything in the store sale this weekend and through monday. So find $100 worth of stuff and get it shipped for free for $90. Pretty good deal considering their prices are already excellent values year-round.

So, after back to back games of King of Tokyo and 7 Wonders last night, my wife and I finally figured out what category of games she likes. I would describe them as games involving "random hilarity", ie, a large amount of uncontrolled randomness, often causing players to suffer tragedy in comic and unfortunate ways.

For example, her favorite games include Survive!, Bang, and King of Tokyo.

So my question is, do you all have any suggestions for games in a similar vein? They dont necessarily have to be the best designed games (as the inclusion of Bang on that list should indicate), but they need to have that kind of random craziness that those games try for.

Any suggestions?

Talisman?

Galaxy Trucker?

I'm going to kill myself after typing this: Munchkin.

OK, I'm still here. Others include EPIC SPELL WARS OF THE BATTLE WIZARDS: DUEL AT MT. SKULLZFYRE, the Red Dragon Inn series, and Galaxy Trucker (as mentioned).

Farther afield (and of sound design), is the Duel of Ages series. So many wacky combos, but so many tactical possibilities. Rarely passes The Wife Test, though, and I don't know if you can easily obtain it.

Seconding the Red Dragon Inn suggestion.

Mage Wars.

Chrononauts.

Zombicide has way too many goddamn zombie miniatures (especially the Abomination bonus Kickstarter version), and for some reason I have decided to paint them all:



That's 96 zombies at least partially painted.

Eh. Three months in and my gaming group is still playing it regularly, so it's probably worth the trouble.

(Also, to tie it into the current thread a bit: the random zombie spawning does have a nice "oh shit we're SO SCREWED" nature sometimes.)

Wow, thanks for all the ideas.

Also, to reassure Baker , a friend tried to play Munchkin with us a while back and my wife hated it. So all is right with the world in that respect, at least...

nlanza, that's an awesome shot! Love the sickly yellow.

Played Last Night on Earth a few weeks ago and thought it was mediocre. How does Zombicide compare?

Thanks! Secret Weapon's Baby Poop and Sewer Water washes did all the hard work of shading for the horde, so it wasn't as difficult as it might look.

I haven't played LNoE, but I like Zombicide a lot. It gets the feel of a zombie B-movie down pretty well, and you can adjust the difficulty nicely by picking scenarios appropriately. That's actually the main flaw too, though -- until you get a feel for the game it's not always clear how to pick a good scenario for the number of players and familiarity with the game you have, so things can either be a cakewalk or an absolute slaughter.

The noise mechanic is nice, and there's enough in flight at once and enough randomness in the game that it doesn't seem to devolve into the same distributed-solitaire thing that games like Pandemic can, where the player who understands the game best just tells everybody else what to do.

Baker, there's no random screwage in Munchkin. The game screws over all players by design, and tragedy is a foregone conclusion the moment the box hits the table. That said, props for finding a situation where you could actually recommend that game with something resembling a straight face.

Wader, I'd also recommend checking out Garden Dice and Dragon Rampage. I liked the idea behind Garden Dice but hated it for the random screwage, so it may well be up your wife's alley. Dragon Rampage I think fits your bill as well.

I definitely support the recommendation of Galaxy Trucker. It's such a wonderful game, from the mad dash to build your spaceships to the inevitable, random havoc wreaked by the actual space flight. There's a lot of replayability in it. RoboRally is similar in that you plan as best as you can, but are usually undermined by the game board and other players.

Cosmic Encounter is the granddaddy of (mostly) random craziness, down to the fact that you generally are told by the game who you will have to attack. Given the huge variance in the alien races assigned to each player, there's a lot to enjoy about this game.

Long Shot is another delightful game with a central, random element: the horses on the track advance based on die rolls. While you can mitigate some of the luck with cards and bets, this game really mimics the tenseness of races that come down to the wire.

Betrayal at House on the Hill has a number of random elements, including how it picks who will be the traitor and what they end up being (a werewolf? a mad scientist?). Good fun.

Hoity Toity is well themed and includes a central guessing mechanic: you have to think about what your opponents might be planning to do on any given turn. Given that you don't have a lot to base your guess on, I count this as being somewhat random. It's hilarious when every player decides to go to the art auction, and then every player also decides to send a thief in to steal the money from the impending sale (of course there is none, since everyone was busy trying to rob the till).

It can be hard to find, but an excellent pick is Manila from Rio Grande Games. If it weren't so rare these days, it would be my top recommendation.

My wife enjoys a healthy dose of randomness in games, so these are all ones that have gotten her stamp of approval in that regard.

Forgot about Dragon Rampage. That's a good one.

I forgot about Cosmic Encounter as well but I'd recommend it.

Also if she likes Bang I'd strongly recommend Shadow Hunters, which to me is like a better realized design for that type of game.

Robo Rally! I love that game, but I've never found a group that enjoys it as much as me.I seem to be better than most at it, too, somehow. I just love how crazy poorly made/rushed plans can go. Other people seem to get frustrated.

I think that's a big "Ameritrash" thing, the randomness. A lot of folks here don't like the Flying Frog games, but Last Night on Earth and Fortune and Glory both have a lot of crazy randomness. The later might be the better game, but my point is that games based more on theme than mechanics might be up her alley. Ask what she'd be interested in playing, in terms of theme, and then search the geek.

Sets 1-7 in mint condition!

Man, do I love Cosmic Encounter.

Is it too much to hope that the Batman Gotham City Strategy Game is basically Chaos in the Old World with Batman villains instead of chaos gods? Cos I would be so okay with just that.

Whoa, nice find. Didn't know about that one. From the description, that sure is what it sounds like. I hope it's not too dry, though.

The word "Chaos" reminded me of the old game Chaos Overlords, which reminded me of Plaid Hat's upcoming City of Remnants -- terrible title, potentially interesting game.

yamo posted this in the bargain thread.

DVG is having their buy one get one free sale. That means you can get Baker's favorite Thunderbolt Apache Leader and something else for a mere $90 plus shipping....
That's still really steep, though. Baker, how much more dynamic is Tunderbolt Apache Leader than you've found Phantom Leader to be? I've tried to get into Hornet Leader quite a bit, but all the missions feel the same to me. There's only so much you can do on the tactical display, I feel like, even with the tons of customization in terms of planes, weapons, and skills.

Thunderbolt-Apache Leader is much more dynamic than Phantom Leader because of the way the missions play out. A level of abstraction is removed so that you actually fly the planes around and can't leave them hovering in one spot (I've never played Hornet Leader -- I'm guessing from looking at it that the missions work much like those in Phantom Leader). The pilots are also separate from the planes, giving you more options, and there's just a hell of a mix of equipment and ordnance. Also, like other Leader games, the campaign dynamics really change depending on what time period you select. I would always play T-AL in favor of PL.

The problem with the DVG sale is that the prices aren't that special. You can get T-AL from Miniaturemarket or Coolstuffinc for around $58. Throw in pretty much any other DVG game and you hit the free shipping threshold, or you can just add whatever other games you want. The only thing DVG has in its favor right now is that it has games in stock. Otherwise, if you're on the fence just wait until you place your next big game order or for the inevitable iOS version of T-AL to appear.

I ended up ordering Legendary since CSI got it back in stock on Monday and still had that 10% off deal going on. Should have it by the end of the week and will be able to share my impressions, but I'm looking forward to it.

Picked up the Star Trek:TOS Deckbuilding Game and I'm of mixed feelings on it. I don't think it's a bad game, but I'm not really sure what the hell kind of game it's trying to be. The abilities on cards are convoluted and not at all straightforward, which means there's a lot of options but the complexity doesn't necessarily translate into deep strategy in the way that I assume they were going for. The game is almost harder to play than the payoff you stand to get from playing it is worth.

The process of attempting to add to the BGG community, be it files or photos or whatever, is occasionally frustrating enough that it makes me question the desire to participate at all. I submit a photo of my Homesteaders storage solution under Game and it gets rejected because it's creative, so it belongs under Creative. I submit it under Creative and it gets rejected because it's a photo of game components, so it belongs under Game. I once played a game of Saboteur which was the worst game ever. Thanks to geologists, rival gangs and saboteurs we actually had more paths heading backwards than we did going forward. So I took a photo. Declined because it just showed cards. What? That's all Saboteur is is cards! It's a funny picture, goddammit!

I ran into this recently when I submitted my iOS Phantom Leader review. BGG (stupidly) decided to split everything for iOS implementations into Videogamegeek (which nobody uses), but the rule is applied inconsistently. For Alien Frontiers, what I originally submitted at BGG was moved to VGG. For Phantom Leader, the iOS review was accepted at the BGG page, but the mod doing pictures rejected the eight files I uploaded because they were for the iOS version. Apparently he didn't realize that there wasn't an iOS Phantom Leader page set up at VGG yet, so there was apparently no way to get those images into my review without hosting them myself.

Then some kind soul told me that we all have personal image accounts at BGG, where we can upload whatever we want and don't have to wait for mod approval. This solution worked great for my review, but wouldn't help you because your stuff obviously belongs in with the main game files.

BGG is frequently frustrating, but overall I think one of the keys to its success is the heavy moderation. It sucks when it backfires, but I can't imagine how overrun the site would be with duplicate pics and other crap if they didn't guard the gates.

You would not even believe how many pictures I have of my cats being cute while sitting in game boxes. If not but for the grace of Mod there post I.

Those would probably make the front page.

Cats and cute girls. Real BGG thumb fodder.

Does anyone have experience with or recommendations for a deep fantasy war game? After playing MageKnight I realized that I can't get enough of that kind of thing (not that it's a war game obviously).
Browsing BGG I found:
War of the Ring
Battles of Westeros
Runewars
BattleLore
which doesn't seem like many compared to the vast array of historical ones.

I would include Warhammer Fantasy in there but I don't really want to spend over $200 to get started, especially since I want at least the option to play on my own (need to make local geeky friends).

Not a wargame, but if you want the deepest possible solo-friendly fantasy game you want Magic Realm.

I'm contemplating making a copy, but it's a tremendous undertaking and I KNOW that as soon as I'm finished they're going to announce a Kickstarter for a new edition. Still, this graphical redesign is gorgeous and likely won't be topped.

If it's possible to have one single favorite game mine would probably be War of the Ring.

Have you tried Titan? There is an iPad version. Right now it's a little short on features but they've just submitted an update to the app store to add online multiplayer with chat and a ranking system.

Baker: You could just use the VASSAL module, too.

True. I just love making games and hate using VASSAL. I may make an exception for this one, though. Sooo many parts...

Baker, have you played Barbarian Prince? I just printed it out but haven't had a chance to play. Remembrancer, that may be a good option for you as well.

Or you could always play it online!

Good God, how could I have forgotten about RealmSpeak? Nice call. Time to start in on a "Playing Magic Realm Without Needing to Buy/Make it" piece.

Still, I love pushing cardboard around. I really wish they would Kickstart a new edition.

Nope. I have Todd Sanders' redesign and have been meaning to print it out for a while. It's on The List.

I did recently print out a playtest copy of Hired Swords, a solo card game where you hire mercenaries to complete contracts that give you more money to hire more mercenaries to complete more contract. I have absolutely no idea why I printed and sleeved more than 100 cards to try out a game that obviously isn't balanced yet, but I'm stupid that way.

I've heard the hushed tones with which people talk about Magic Realm, I'd love a copy. If you make one it wouldn't be too much extra work to make a second one right? ;) I've got the got cold hard cash.