Pop Culture Update Part 2
Board Games:
Over the past several months, our group has really been raging on board games, which is good because we've been making a dent in my massive stack of unplayed games. Even as we've been trying new games at a good pace, we've also been returning to some for repeat plays, which is great because it lets us try new strategies and get deeper into the tactics of a game.
One we've been playing a lot lately is a new game called Xia: Legends of a Drift System. It's a game about flying a ship around a solar system, racking up victory points by trading goods, blowing people up, and accomplishing missions. The board is created in play, making for a lot of variance in the game (including making sure that different trade routes are effective in different games, which changes up the strategy). There are also a lot of ways to win, which is also really nice. The game is really punishing sometimes, though - you can get absolutely destroyed by bad dice rolls, and you can be messed up for several turns if someone lucks out in attacking you. Also, once someone starts to do well there seems to be a runaway leader issue, but that may not be something that happens every time. Still, it's the kind of game where once it's finished you keep going over what you could have done differently in your head, and you want to keep getting back and playing it to hone your skills.
Other recent games we've played that I really enjoyed include:
Sushi Go! - A really quick card drafting game that is really good for beginning gamers. Its mechanic is essentially the card selection mechanic from 7 Wonders, with all of the other fancy rules stripped out. Jenni and her family all loved it, which is another plus!
Machi Koro - A really elegantly designed game, involving building up a small town fastest. Each turn, you roll dice, and each player has a set of buildings, each of which has a power that is triggered when you or someone else roll a specific number. The game moves really quickly, and every player is invested in everyone else's turn (since you can make money on other people's turns as well as your own). Very simple, but a lot of fun and really easily expandable.
Sheriff of Nottingham - I love this game. It's a bluffing game in which one player is a customs inspector and everyone else is a merchant trying to get goods past him. You put a set of cards in a bag and tell the inspector what's inside, and he then has the option of opening the bag. If you were lying, you pay him, but if you were telling the truth, he pays you. If he doesn't open the bag, you get everything in, including any contraband you were hiding. Everyone takes a few turns as inspector, and the person with the most money at the end wins. Every single turn of this game is super intense - great game.
Steam Park - This is a really fun game about running an amusement park for robots. You roll dice at the beginning in real time, scrambling to get the results you want before everyone else so that you can go first for the rest of the round. Then you spend your dice rolls to buy rides, which attract robots to your park, concession stands, which let you break rules, and bring robots in, which actually makes you money. The game is really fun, and the pieces are awesome, as you have these little stand-up roller coasters in your park covered with tiny robot meeples.
Survive: Escape from Atlantis - We were all surprised at how much fun this game is. You start out by making an island out of a set of tiles, then you place little men at different points around the island. Each of your guys has a different point value on the bottom of the meeple, but once you place them, you're not allowed to look for the rest of the game - you have to try to remember which ones are the most valuable. Then the object is to get your men into boats and across some water to safety, while other players are trying to kill your people using sharks, sea monsters, and the like. So ideally you want to let someone else's guys into your boats if you can, in hopes that they won't destroy the boat in that case.
Doomtown - This is a living card game with a weird west theme - meaning that there are gunslingers, mages, and monsters running around battling it out. You build a deck of dudes, weapons, and town locations, then your aim is to have control over more of the town than your opponent has influence, which is measured through their dudes. So you can take control either by building yourself a lot of buildings or by killing a lot of your opponent's guys. The combat in the game is great and really thematic - every card in the game has a suit and number, and when you have a fight you draw a hand and try to build the best poker hand possible. Really enjoy the theme of this one, and it's actually got me interested in doing some deck building.
There are others, but almost too many to list! This is really a great time to be a board gamer, honestly. A ton of great stuff comes out every month, meaning it's really difficult to make headway on my stack, but I just can't stop myself from picking up the new hotness.
I also reorganized my list of favorite games - I'll hit my all time top 25 here just for the heck of it:
25. Love Letter
24. Dead of Winter
23. Kemet
22. Battlelore
21. X-Wing Miniatures
20. Robo Rally
19. Dice Masters
18. Sheriff of Nottingham
17. Quantum
16. Twilight Imperium
15. Shadows Over Camelot
14. Beyond Balderdash
13. Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective
12. Thunderstone
11. Battlestar Galactica
10. Mage Wars
9. Alien Frontiers
8. Mascarade
7. Memoir '44
6. Cosmic Encounter
5. Summoner Wars
4. Galaxy Trucker
3. The Resistance: Avalon
2. Telestrations
1. Game of Thrones
Over the past several months, our group has really been raging on board games, which is good because we've been making a dent in my massive stack of unplayed games. Even as we've been trying new games at a good pace, we've also been returning to some for repeat plays, which is great because it lets us try new strategies and get deeper into the tactics of a game.
One we've been playing a lot lately is a new game called Xia: Legends of a Drift System. It's a game about flying a ship around a solar system, racking up victory points by trading goods, blowing people up, and accomplishing missions. The board is created in play, making for a lot of variance in the game (including making sure that different trade routes are effective in different games, which changes up the strategy). There are also a lot of ways to win, which is also really nice. The game is really punishing sometimes, though - you can get absolutely destroyed by bad dice rolls, and you can be messed up for several turns if someone lucks out in attacking you. Also, once someone starts to do well there seems to be a runaway leader issue, but that may not be something that happens every time. Still, it's the kind of game where once it's finished you keep going over what you could have done differently in your head, and you want to keep getting back and playing it to hone your skills.
Other recent games we've played that I really enjoyed include:
Sushi Go! - A really quick card drafting game that is really good for beginning gamers. Its mechanic is essentially the card selection mechanic from 7 Wonders, with all of the other fancy rules stripped out. Jenni and her family all loved it, which is another plus!
Machi Koro - A really elegantly designed game, involving building up a small town fastest. Each turn, you roll dice, and each player has a set of buildings, each of which has a power that is triggered when you or someone else roll a specific number. The game moves really quickly, and every player is invested in everyone else's turn (since you can make money on other people's turns as well as your own). Very simple, but a lot of fun and really easily expandable.
Sheriff of Nottingham - I love this game. It's a bluffing game in which one player is a customs inspector and everyone else is a merchant trying to get goods past him. You put a set of cards in a bag and tell the inspector what's inside, and he then has the option of opening the bag. If you were lying, you pay him, but if you were telling the truth, he pays you. If he doesn't open the bag, you get everything in, including any contraband you were hiding. Everyone takes a few turns as inspector, and the person with the most money at the end wins. Every single turn of this game is super intense - great game.
Steam Park - This is a really fun game about running an amusement park for robots. You roll dice at the beginning in real time, scrambling to get the results you want before everyone else so that you can go first for the rest of the round. Then you spend your dice rolls to buy rides, which attract robots to your park, concession stands, which let you break rules, and bring robots in, which actually makes you money. The game is really fun, and the pieces are awesome, as you have these little stand-up roller coasters in your park covered with tiny robot meeples.
Survive: Escape from Atlantis - We were all surprised at how much fun this game is. You start out by making an island out of a set of tiles, then you place little men at different points around the island. Each of your guys has a different point value on the bottom of the meeple, but once you place them, you're not allowed to look for the rest of the game - you have to try to remember which ones are the most valuable. Then the object is to get your men into boats and across some water to safety, while other players are trying to kill your people using sharks, sea monsters, and the like. So ideally you want to let someone else's guys into your boats if you can, in hopes that they won't destroy the boat in that case.
Doomtown - This is a living card game with a weird west theme - meaning that there are gunslingers, mages, and monsters running around battling it out. You build a deck of dudes, weapons, and town locations, then your aim is to have control over more of the town than your opponent has influence, which is measured through their dudes. So you can take control either by building yourself a lot of buildings or by killing a lot of your opponent's guys. The combat in the game is great and really thematic - every card in the game has a suit and number, and when you have a fight you draw a hand and try to build the best poker hand possible. Really enjoy the theme of this one, and it's actually got me interested in doing some deck building.
There are others, but almost too many to list! This is really a great time to be a board gamer, honestly. A ton of great stuff comes out every month, meaning it's really difficult to make headway on my stack, but I just can't stop myself from picking up the new hotness.
I also reorganized my list of favorite games - I'll hit my all time top 25 here just for the heck of it:
25. Love Letter
24. Dead of Winter
23. Kemet
22. Battlelore
21. X-Wing Miniatures
20. Robo Rally
19. Dice Masters
18. Sheriff of Nottingham
17. Quantum
16. Twilight Imperium
15. Shadows Over Camelot
14. Beyond Balderdash
13. Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective
12. Thunderstone
11. Battlestar Galactica
10. Mage Wars
9. Alien Frontiers
8. Mascarade
7. Memoir '44
6. Cosmic Encounter
5. Summoner Wars
4. Galaxy Trucker
3. The Resistance: Avalon
2. Telestrations
1. Game of Thrones