There is a video where Jorbs talks about StS2’s Beta branch and the many complaints about a Boss called the Doormaker. This is mostly “inside baseball,” but Jorbs brings up a problem common to many games. (For reference, the modified Doormaker steals every 10th card you draw. The point was to stop infinite combos where you draw your entire deck, which lets you play the important cards and draw them again, etc all during the same turn).
Jorb points out that at the start of the game, the game state (what you can do) keeps branching and growing. You get more options, the number of variables increases, etc. He continues….1
“An issue that StS1 always had and StS2 had on release is that at the end of Act II, this game tree funnels a lot. … It stops expanding and more and more things start compressing as you get to a point where … you see how to win all the fights ahead of you.” (And you just have to click the buttons for 20-30 minutes).
While I’m not the player that he is, it is somewhat true. Typically I die in Act I or Act II. Rarely in Act III and when I finally beat Ascension 10 for the first time, I was fairly confident of winning once I won Act II. (I was not on the Beta branch). The Doormaker is a major “bomb” in game design terms. If your deck requires you play a specific card to win, there is a 10% chance he’ll eat it. If your deck requires you to play the same card dozens of times … well, now you need a new plan. (Which does exist, and is more inside baseball).
(Slay the Spire 2 offers you a positive “bomb” at the start of act III to balance this, you will get a huge bonus from the Ancient One).
This is from the transcript, except cleaned up to remove ums and things like that ︎
This is a faithful implementation, nothing else. Right now the demo is against a (poor) AI only and with only parts of the tech-tree available but it was good enough for a demo. The full game promises multiplayer support. Given that Space Empires 4x is all about fog of war, feints and the balance of terror, multiplayer support is required (IMO) and a computer implementation would be a Very Good Thing as it would replace all the fumbling for chips and accounting errors.
A good AI would be a “nice to have” bonus feature, but I get it. It’s perfectly reasonable to learn the game. (I would hope that the full game would implement one of the solitaire variants/scenarios, but who knows?)
But what is it with GMT and computer implementations? Look, I get that programs have bugs (I submitted a few bug reports), but there is just a basic level of …. I don’t want to say incompetence, but maybe “I ain’t got time for that” on the developer’s side. (I rarely worked with graphics engines, but I’ve designed plenty of Graphical User Interfaces in my day). From what I saw:
I’ve played SE4x multiple times (the last a few years ago) and even then sometimes I couldn’t do anything and would have to try and figure out why. It was usually correct, but the game never said “This vessel can’t explore” or anything useful.
No Undo button for a misclick. I get that there are certain points you can’t undo, but there are many you should be able to.
Frequently windows pop up over other windows, some buttons are hard to see against the background. (I thought the game had locked up but nope, some clear-bordered modal buttons were lurking.)
When firing in combat, sometimes you must click multiple times to select a ship+target before the “fire” button appears.
If there’s only one class of target, you still have to select it and fire for each ship instead of just having a “go ahead and just keep on that one class” (maybe just once/round, and then you can have your retreat/screen options).
No way to speed up combat, or turn off the “yes, commander” when you select a ship (or the random blather they say when firing, just a few options and they got old very quickly) Yes, I could adjust the volume, but the one time they have some effects they are just annoying.
If there was a way to combine stacks (that have the same exact stacks) I didn’t see it. I did see how to split stacks.
The board would zoom into combat (fine) and zoom out, but then often back to a weird view. Honestly it feels like whenever they want to try to do something cool, it just makes it more confusing.
Also, because this is a computer game, I hope there are options like “No countermix limit.” The countermix limit existed in the board game because, well, yeah, there are limited counters. Maybe that makes the board game better. Maybe not.
Despite liking the board game, I doubt I will be purchasing the computer game.
Expanding on the Spoiler Free thoughts I had a week ago. Putting the rest in an expandable block, (in case you want to not see).
(For reference, I have cleared Ascension 7 with all characters but the NecroMancer, and have now played a half dozen ish games of co-op, including a brutal floor six loss.
Expand to view StS II Thoughts
When I said “I liked what was missing” I was referring to:
A) Cards that double, like Catalyst or Limit Break. Because often those cards provide such massive scaling (being geometric) that they are often auto-selects in in archetype using it (and are sometimes worth taking “blind” in hopes of getting poison/strength). Sadly there is at least one new doubler (Voltaic) and it does indeed solve the endgame by itself (with one upgrade and any support).
B) Huge swing cards/artifacts (like Corruption or Biased Cognition) that have an outsized value. Those particular two are still there, but are no longer “mere” rare card rewards but boss relics, which seems reasonable. Both are also been reduced in value because some of their complements (Dead Branch and artifact charges, respectively) are missing.
It’s an early access game, so the card balance is off in a few points, but overall I still like it. In particular:
Focus being mostly until end of turn (Defragment is still in, but rare) means the defect’s most solid and boring build is gone. The temporary focus cards are interesting, and with more cards that load up orbs (or evoke) make a nice change.
I agree with the complaints that the elites do not feel notably distinct from the hallway fights. One of the the things that Slay the Spire 1 nailed was that different fights attacked different deck archetypes (mostly with Boss/Elite fights, but not always). For example “Time Eater” destroys card spam. “Reptomancer” requires a bunch of fast All out attack. Big Giant Head took out decks that dish out consistent damage but can’t scale, etc. The game lobbed Bombs in the Jonathon Degann game design sense.
You do see that, for example “Entomancer” punishes a bunch of small attacks. But the “Hunter Killer” hallway fight punishes card spam. Too many of the Act I elites are kind of “samey” … the game is missing (for example) having to deal with Gremlin Nob crushing skill decks and needing to hit it for ~80 before the end of T3. It’s just “bigger numbers.” The Bygone Effigy feels like the worst offender on that. You need to do the same by T3, but if you fail it’s just brutal death.
Part of the problem is that the relic pool is a bit “meh.” It’s good that the card pool is such that you can make a build to kill the Act III boss and then just grab a potion for a weakness, and that you then skip a few elites to lower variance. But that could get boring (and Asc 10 is double final boss, so that’s an issue).
But that’s a balance issue. Also, I do like the events that are “here are two choices that may both be bad, and no you can’t skip.”
Co-op: Have played (2p) and I stand by my earlier comment, its well done, considering. Some fights are much easier, some fights are much harder (the Phantasmal Gardners can absolutely tank a run early if you aren’t prepped for them), but I’ve mostly won (granted my co-op ascension is still quite low). The co-op only cards seem wildlly unbalanced, but that’s ok.
(This is not intended to spoil things, but it will mention things that could be construed as such if you want to be totally surprised. You have been warned).
Slay the Spire is a “Roguelike1” you are trying to get through a procedurally generated dungeon and beat the boss. But combat and character progression was inspired by Dominion. You get better by adding cards to your deck (and removing bad cards from your deck). There are non-card based ways of getting stronger, like artifacts that grant you abilities (sometimes in combat, sometimes in the “master board” to borrow a phrase from Titan) or potions.
And Slay the Spire was massively influential. Right now I’m seeing ads on steam for Roguelike games but “using poker instead of dominion” (Balatro) or what not. Most are clear cash-in knock offs (though I’m told Balatro was good). So many (like me) were waiting anxiously to get their hands on the new version … Slay the Spire II has over 500,000 people playing concurrently.
But given that Mega Crit (the developers) were aware of Dominion and other popular games (and frequently drop in Easter eggs)2, I wondered what mechanisms would show up in Slay the Spire 2.
What I’ve noticed so far:
Card Forging
In the first Slay the Spire, cards could be upgraded (“Foo” could become “Foo+”), and any Strike that was upgraded was the same. Typically some numbers on the card got better (and each card could only be upgraded once, with one exception). But StS2 has Card Forging. Cards can still be upgrade, but each card now has a slot that can add an “enchantment” and these enchantments are not specific to the card, but uniform. So if you say there are ~300 cards, in STS v1 there were 600 cards (300 base cards, 300 upgraded). If you keep the exact same cards in STS v2, but now there are X enchantments3 which means there are up4 to 600 times X valid card combos. And now a Foo could be Foo(+) and Enchantment-A or -B, -C, -D, etc.
And (some) enemies put negative enchantments on cards.
As a fan of combinatorics, love it. I’m wondering if they were inspired by Mystic Vale or Dice Forge or Dice Realms (or just thought of it independently). They didn’t go “whole hog” on it (at least, not in this version) but for the amount of programming of a few artifacts they’ve greatly increased the decision space.
Card Evolution
Arguably just a riff on card forging, these are cards that go into your deck in one form but can be triggered into a different form (usually via the masterboard). I took one of these quests (picking up a useless card that would be removed with a big reward later) and then at the final fight realized I’d never actually went to a space to evolve the card, which actually took a bit of work on my part.
Cooperative Play
Still haven’t tried it, but no doubt they were thinking of this even before the Slay the Spire board game. This required a ton of programming5 (unlike the card forging). Not much to say.
Alternate Masterboard Paths
This is probably pretty common in games, but just as in the Lord of the Rings expansion you can sometimes skip some location boards for others, now in StS II there are alternate acts. (I am not sure if you can control them, though. It’s more of a variety). I didn’t actually register this the first few times it happened, only when I saw some new regular (non-elite) encounters and wondered about it did I realize that “Acts” were switching between games. This is pretty common in expansions, though.
I don’t know if I’ll notice (or think of) more, but we’ll see….
Also — on an admin note, I have created a category for “Slay the Spire” (as well as tagging articles), so you can now click on that for articles. Most of the obvious ones should be in that category by now, but a few stragglers may not be.
(I wrote this before seeing Fred’s comment in the prior post, but was tired and wanted to look at it before posting).
I’ve been slowly unlocking ascensions (I think there are 10 so far). I’ve unlocked up to the Asc 3 for all characters. This means there are still some things I haven’t unlocked.
TL;DR — It’s $25. Ridiculously cheap if you like deckbuilding games. There is a co-operative mode! If you liked the StS board game, this is the real thing. (All players would have to buy a copy, I think, which is still cheaper than buying the board game)
Some actual notes:
Graphics — I liked the rough quality of the first edition, but the new one looks great. Animations are amazingly fluid. (Looking at you, Seapunk).
I do wish they hadn’t arbitrarily changed icons/names for some potions/cards but it’s a minor nit.
Overall I like the improvements to gameplay:
The new characters are interesting at first glance, although I have some concerns that one my be somewhat railroaded. (That was the comment discussion mentioned above)
There are now many more “boss relics” (which happen at the opening of the next act now).
There seem to be more potions and artifacts, which will again make things more variable between games.
The combinatorics (not small for the first game) are through the roof, because of … spoiler-y new things.
I have not tried multiplayer, but I’d be open for it. I suspect it isn’t balanced well.
I have laughed out loud several times at jokes in the game, but I did that for the first few hundred hours of StS, too.
For the most part I easily clear the ‘old’ characters (which I am used to) and one of the new characters, but another new character I lost 6 times before getting my third wins (at 0,1 and 2). (I did like having the Run History in the first edition; it was detailed, and maybe its just hidden in some menu I haven’t seen, or a TBD feature. Update — Found it.)
Ialso like what is missing — cards (and artifacts) that were ‘easy wins.’
Also missing is Watcher, which I’m not actually great at; but was a rather tedious character to play. She is not missed. I often just rotated the other three characters and skipped her.
The minions and bosses continue to find new “bombs” (in game design terms) — Several are hard counters to certain strategies. Despite having only a handful of “regular’ monsters/elites/bosses, the mix seems quite good.
SO …. I think the deckbuilding has gotten more complex (not to mention the pathing and other strategy concerns), which is a good thing. I hope to try co-op.
Update — I’ve decided to buy an “Air Mouse” so I can at least stand up while playing. I’ll see if it’s any good.
Magic, L5R, Shadowfist, Bridge — Small potatoes. (Bridge is pretty close though, but although I’ve played it for nearly 40 years, for fifteen of those years I likely only played only a few sessions a year).
I’ve played more Slay the Spire than any other game. Whereas other people would come home and watch TV, I’d Slay the Spire. I am currently in the steam store trying to download Slay the Spire II. Talk amongst yourselves.
(Actually, my transaction got bonked and I can’t buy it! Trying again in a few minutes).
I’ve now played High Frontier, 3rd Edition, High Frontier 4 All and I owned Rocket Flight (aka Lords of the High Frontier). I’ve never played 2nd Edition, but as far as I know, there was no second edition, but I’m sure a comment will correct me. I’ve gone from “indifferent” to “suggest” back to “indifferent” and I’m back to “suggest.”
Not a blanket suggest …. I see a yearly game that involves all of the expansions1 and that 10 hour behemoth is not for me. High Frontier has a snowball growth. The first exo-factories give you better patents (hopefully) which means your second rocket has first opportunity to explore and exploit key sites.
This may not be true of the most experienced players (several of which are in that yearly game). but it’s certainly true at my level and in one of my three games so far this year I busted site after site in my first hour, squandering my early launch advantage. If I had rolled well, though, I would have snowballed in a positive way. Like many of Phil Eklund games, HF is more simulation than game, with scoring tacked on. That sounds too harsh — the scoring scheme is actually reasonable. Quite often the ‘winner’ is the person that objective observers would say “Yeah, that space agency did the best.” But me personally, when I’m getting snowballed, it’s can be a bit of a drag. Three hours is often enough to determine that.
There is also the brain-burn factor. High Frontier isn’t as complex as Magic Realm, although the fact that its in the same conversation is telling. No, High Frontier’s brain burn is the paradox of choice. In the Realm, you start of with a world where you are going to wander around for a bit … the great treasures could be anywhere. Sure if you are hunting dragons you will have some preferred destinations, but the early game is exploration. In space, we’ve got decades of exploration done before the first mission launches. The map is known, and cosmically complex.
Even ignoring anything past the asteroid belt2, your first mission has plenty of options limited by hydration, distance in burns and/or time, landing thrust …. and also preferences relating to spectral type and risk management. Then you have to calculate fuel, and High Frontier’s ingenious implementation of Tsiolkovsky’s rocket equation take some time to think about. Even initiates with a few games under their belt (such as myself) have to ponder mission planning.
After about three hours, I’m tired.
That being said, I’d like to learn the Bernal and TW thruster rules (some modules in HF4), so I watched the heavy cardboard rules video (and am watching the playthrough) and I’ve set up a solo game (of HF3) which I might play off and on. A solo game has the “I can get up and come back to it tomorrow” advantage.
So, High Frontier is back into the suggest rating. I’ve re-caught that particular bug.
Possibly including expansions still under development ︎
Possibly a mistake, and I also typically ignore Mercury and Venus (a definite mistake) ︎
A fair chunk of gaming was with the TaoLing1. All of Pagan, Air Baron, Jump Drive & Shards were with him (and most of my ’62 and Chu Han). Now that he is no longer a student, I expect a much lower count next year …
I think I played ~90 unique titles, which is honestly fairly high. Full List on BGG
New to Me Games
As is always the case, most new games are firmly in indifferent category, but maybe with a novelty bonus. I think my Game of the Year is likely Chu Han, but even that is somewhat disappointing, because for games by Tom Lehmann, I’m hoping for 100+ plays, Chu Han petered out just north of 20. It’s a disappointment that most designers would kill for, but still.
I’m also saddened that I only got in 3 games of Stationfall and Pastiche. Those need more plays.
Trends and Notes
My Weds night group has pivoted into 18xx for a large percentage of the sessions which accounts for most of my ’46 plays (20+) as well as Shikoku 1889, 18 India, 1822PNW, 1822MX, 1848 Australia. I got in a game of 1833NE, and am looking forward to its GMT release. (I also play some 18xx online on 18xx.games)
100 Meters — Not perfect, but one of the better things in recent memory. After Top Gun came out, one of my brother’s college friends made a parody “Top Thumb” about two guys trying to be the best grocery bagger in the world. (“Tom Thumb” being a local grocery chain). Neither of those is art1, and we’ve seen the genre plenty of times (particularly in sports/competition Anime, which has the protagonist trying to excel at something). This movie (not a series, that’s important!) questions what it means to dedicate your life to a pursuit (the 100M dash), and how your answer changes over time.
Not perfect, sometimes infuriating, but after it was over I kept thinking about it.
Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die — I liked the ‘cafe clip‘ (which is just ~2 minutes of the opening scene) quite a bit. The movie doesn’t sustain that high (difficult to do for two hours) but is genuinely funny and yes, also talking about the present as much as the future. I suspect this will be a well regarded cult classic, but not a monster hit.
Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence — A strange movie, with much of the cast working in their second language. Not only featuring David Bowie, but also Takeshi Kitano’s first film and he’s just as magnetic. I also rewatched Moonage Daydream on Netflix, which I saw in theaters 3.5 years ago, and enjoyed it again.
The Muppet Special — OK, I haven’t actually watched it except the clips on Youtube, because I’m not going to subscribe to a new streaming service just for a 90 minute special, but it’s close. Seth Rogen understood the assignment … don’t change a damn thing.
The Closer — An OK police procedural, mostly. Formulaic, but sometimes strays from “Whodunnit?” to “Howcatchem?” (or “How to get them to confess.”) I’ve taken to fast-forwarding through her personal life. Update — The main character also has a level of hubris that would make Achilles and Homer shake their heads; and this also gets more annoying as the series progresses. But I did finish it.
Ford vs Ferrari — One of those biopics where the ending has you going “Nope. Too fanciful. Didn’t happen.” But it did. Wild. Solid movie, great cast.
Koshien: Japan’s Field of Dreams — A documentary covering two of the teams trying to make it to the 100th annual Koshien, Japan’s World Series of High School Baseball. Of interest if you like baseball and/or Japan.
My Dinner with Andre — I watched this after reading the New Yorker article on Wallace Shawn. Interesting enough to watch throughout in one sitting; but not interesting enough to keep me off my phone, scrolling Reddit. Ebert called it “a film that has no cliches,” (although it has become one). But (some of the) conversation struck me and stayed with me because the topics are still relevant2, and arguably more than in the 80s … I suppose that’s why Wallace Shawn & Andre Gregory were avante-garde … reality caught up with them. I suspect this is actually a “Recommend” assuming that the idea of a 2-man 2-hour play where nothing happens except two men discussing art, living and reality sounds interesting.
The Outfit — Kinda like a Mamet one-set play (really two sets, the front of the shop and the back) and dealing with crime and double crosses … except the dialog isn’t up to snuff and the ending is too pat. Still, not terrible.
Maybe Not / Turned Off
Nurse Jackie — After the first season I thought this would be a maybe but the second season focused too much on stalkers, bullies, etc that I simply never finished a (20 minute!) episode in one sitting. Finally turned it off for good.
I never saw Top Thumb, but probably a safe guess. ︎
In particular, the idea that media consumption degrades our intellect and autonomy, which hit pretty hard because I was … scrolling through reddit. ︎
Every now and then you see a monster hand. Playing with Roxie in a special club game I pick up:
S: KQx H: QJ9x D: 9x C: K98x.
I am not against opening light, but balanced, aceless eleven counts don’t require any pushing (in second seat). It goes around to fourth seat and my partner bids Two Clubs. I have a monstrous hand opposite a two club opening, so I make a waiting Two Diamonds bid (which creates a Game Force). Partner bids Three Diamonds (a real suit). I have a real problem. I do have four hearts, and I can bid it, but I only have four hearts. I bid Three Hearts. Hopefully partner will bid 3 NT and then I can bid … I’m not sure. 6 NT should be safe, but I’d love to have 5NT as “Bid 6NT with a minimum, and 7NT with extras.” But I’d never seen used that bid in 37 years … now I’ve had two hands in under twelve months where I could use it.
Partner now bids Four No Trump. Ugh. Is that blackwood? Quantitative showing extras? I’m clearly not passing. Unfortunately in our version of Roman Key Card Blackwood my correct bid (assuming I think it’s blackwood) is Five Diamonds (showing no key cards). I’d hate for us to be on the wrong wavelength and playing in 5 Diamonds when 6 NT should be ice cold …. although it may only be cold if I’m declarer, and I wouldn’t be. (The opening lead could be a club through my king into RHO’s AQ). I wish my correct bid was five clubs, because then I’m sure I wouldn’t be passed. But I grit my teeth and bid Five Diamonds.
Partner bids Seven Hearts.
I was totally going to pull “Six” hearts to no trump, but should I pull seven? Well, now I’m sure partner must have four hearts (at least). Partner bid seven hearing I have no key cards …. so why ask at all? Partner must have AKxx(x) of hearts and a solid diamond suit. Either partner has the black aces, and I’m not sure what the point of key card was, or partner has a black suit void and was looking for the last ace to decide between hearts and no trump.
We don’t play Exclusion Key Card (the most dangerous convention), so hrm. In the end, I figure that this is a club game and any grand slam should be a 75% even when its as obvious as this. If I convert to 7NT and it’s right, I gain maybe 2 matchpoints. If we’re off an ace I give up 10-12. The only real issue is that sometimes 7NT makes when 7H is off, due to a bad trump break. But against that on a bad diamond break I may need to ruff the suit good (imagine partner with AKQxxx or AKxxxxx).
I pass, but not without some thought. If I get doubled I’ll run. (In fact, a clever expert versus another expert may double a making 7H knowing that 7N goes down … but against this pair I needn’t worry about that). LHO leads a diamond …
I’ve seen monster hands before, but Roxie puts down …. a kaiju. Calling it a monster truly understates how powerful the hand is.
S: A H: AKxx D: AKQJTxx C:A
When the opening lead doesn’t get ruffed and both follow to one round of trumps I quickly claim.
I’m still not sure what the 4N bid accomplished. Sadly with us playing 14-30 Key card, my five diamond response gives no real followup to ask for the heart queen (If we played 03-14 where five clubs shows zero, then 5 Diamonds would ask1 … In hindsight I think that perhaps Roxie should have bid 5NT which typically shows all the key cards and then see what I do. But normally the response is to show kings, and she really wants to know that I have the Q (and hopefully J) of hearts, or Q of hearts and a black king.
Roxie just decided that I was likely to have the HQ or 5+ hearts, and hope for some luck, but I think she should have bid 7NT directly … a bad heart break would doom 7H, but 7N might make if I had the diamond nine! and both black kings or a KQ pair (all of which I had).
This is one of the hand where a relay system2 (which lets you ask for Aces, then Kings, then Queens and sometimes even Jacks) would be useful, but the memory burden of that system daunts even me.
Checking the scores I am at least comforted to know that my guesses at the end were right. 7NT scored 14/15 (three tables bid it3) and 7H was 12/15, and the rest of the field were in various small slams (or 7D).
In any case, Roxie’s hand is now the new record holder. This hand was pat of TheCommonGame, which encourages clubs to all use the same hands (during the same day) so that multiple clubs can compare records (and experts who analyze the hands can share them wider) so presumably lots of people playing bridge yesterday picked up Hand #17 and went “Wow!”
Update — Apparently Schenken would handle this nicely, see comments.
Which way to order them is a hot topic. Eddie Kantar’s 200+ page book on RKC goes into great detail on this, and advocates swapping them around based on if the strong or weak hand is asking, but despite being able to quickly absorb new conventions and entire systems readily, I found myself very confused on reading it and normally just play Kickback (where you bid 4 Spades to ask for aces instead of 4 NT), which alleviates the issue by ensuring you always have more space. Kickback has it’s own set of problems, but I understand them. ︎
Nature (well, several PhDs published in nature) declares that current AI/LLM tools meet the criteria for AGI (Artificial General Intelligence). I think there are some semantic arguments, but I (basically) agree.
Michael Rosenberg is on the short list of “best (bridge) card play technician in the world.”2 He’s been presenting some of his notes on card play and I’ve literally never heard of some of these rules, but they make total sense. There Are Many Situations. (This is deep stuff, Rosenberg says its all theoretically correct but even most of his national+ caliber partners don’t play it. I think I understand the 87xx example and some of the others).
What Happened to Amazon3 — How culture changes. (I heard a quote a few years ago that resonated with me. “Culture is what you let people get away with” (or “Culture is what you tolerate.” If you no longer tolerate well-intentioned failure, you won’t get innovation). After that I skimmed some of the author’s other articles and came upon an interesting and I think correct take on Iron Man — The Suit was Never the Point
My oldest (not the TaoLing) was actually a test baby at Duke’s Psychology Dept. for some experiments, and so was presented with very cute “B.S.”, “M.S.”, and “Ph.D” degrees (all in “Baby Science”) which sadly did not help her resume. There is no point to this footnote, I just find it adorable. ︎
Arguably, he is the entire list, although partially that’s because Bob Hamman is over 80. ︎
I added this link to the list before seeing that Amazon had lost $~400M in market cap over the last week or two. ︎
Had a small group and so I played two games of Attika, which is an excellent two player game. Some people (not me) like it with three, but nobody (that I know) likes it at four. Reminscent of Hex or Go, a ‘connection’ abstract but you also are managing resources (cards and more importantly tempo) to try to get all your pieces down. If you make a connection its an auto win, so you mainly exploit it by threatening when it will be expensive for your opponent to block. Fast and on my fifty by fifty list.
Welcome to the Dungeon — A cute little push-your-luck filler, kind of like “Name that tune.” “Well, I can beat that dungeon that has five monsters!” “Six monsters” “Six monsters but I’ll leave my vorpal sword behind!” etc. Does not overstay its welcome, at least with three players. Not earth shattering, but I got it for $5, so sure. Indifferent.
Magical Athlete — I was sure I had played this before when it was announced, but it turns out that I was thinking of Monster Derby. This one reminds me of Mrs. Tao’s name for Strat-o-matic Baseball: “Bunco for Boys.” It’s an amusing way to spend rolling dice for 30 minutes. This one comes closer to overstaying its welcome. (But we played with six players). Great production values with “Kids Educational Cartoon” style coloring, drawing and meeples. I’m sure if you brought this out with chits it would lose ~3 BGG rating points, deservedly so. Indifferent.
Welcome to the Dungeon — A cute little push-your-luck filler, kind of like “Name that tune.” “Well, I can beat that dungeon that has five monsters!” “Six monsters” “Six monsters but I’ll leave my vorpal sword behind!” etc. Does not overstay its welcome, at least with three players. Not earth shattering, but I got it for $5, so sure. Indifferent.
Magical Athlete — I was sure I had played this before when it was announced, but it turns out that I was thinking of Monster Derby. This one reminds me of Mrs. Tao’s name for Strat-o-matic Baseball: “Bunco for Boys.” It’s an amusing way to spend rolling dice for 30 minutes. This one comes closer to overstaying its welcome. (But we played with six players). Great production values with “Kids Educational Cartoon” style coloring, drawing and meeples. I’m sure if you brought this out with chits it would lose ~3 BGG rating points, deservedly so. Indifferent.
Steam is having a sale on board games, and I’m debating whether to buy any. I’ve mainly not been too happy with board games on steam (see Mr. President and Space Corp), but for the price of a decent lunch having a game I might spend 20-100 hours on seems reasonable, so I’m considering getting one or two.
Also,GMT has announced a digital version of Space Empires 4x (dropping in June) That could be excellent as the real problems with the game were the accounting (and related errors) and digging up a bunch of counters without revealing what you were buying … both of which should be easily fixed by being on a computer.
Steam is having a sale on board games, and I’m debating whether to buy any. I’ve mainly not been too happy with board games on steam (see Mr. President and Space Corp), but for the price of a decent lunch having a game I might spend 20-100 hours on seems reasonable, so I’m considering getting one or two.
Also,GMT has announced a digital version of Space Empires 4x (dropping in June) That could be excellent as the real problems with the game were the accounting (and related errors) and digging up a bunch of counters without revealing what you were buying … both of which should be easily fixed by being on a computer.
I saw many new games, but I suspect that most (or all) of them are easily skippable. It did warm my heart to see a bunch of “Play this new game, let us know what you think, and you might win a copy” going unplayed, because they didn’t seem any good at a glance.
However, one game that did catch my eye is Giants Moving Tiny Furniture, which has a bunch of small cute furniture and you (and team-mates) have to move around on top of the box. I only watched ten seconds, but it seemed like a delightful idea, sort of like a pop-art Jenga. From glancing at the BGG page, after I left, it sounds like Welcome to the Dungeon (which I haven’t played but picked up a copy at the bazaar) where there are things to do and you bid on less and less time (etc) to finish it.
Oh, and you have to use only your pinky? In teams?
I arguably could have played more games, but 2 days is enough for me.
Update — More Thoughts
There were quite a few new “ginormous overproduced games” being played. (At least) one of which was being promoted by the creator/designer/publisher, but they just all gave off the feel of “You wouldn’t look at this twice if it was cardboard chits, and it you shouldn’t look at it twice just because it doesn’t.” There were a number of boxes that looked to be a cubic foot (roughly). Just hulking square boxes taking up space.
Amusingly, one of those was … Food Chain Magnate Deluxe Edition! But that box at least still has the retro 50s artwork that might make people take a second glance instead of “Pew Pew Space-ships!” or whatever. I keep saying I need to put FCM back into my bag (although the new Indonesia is getting good reps this last month), but I’m happy with the old edition, which takes half the space even if I bring the expansion box.
Speaking of “Cool!” (that is in fact, not). The organizers piped in “Geek Music” to the venue. By which I mean …. Movie Themes. Oh, its the Imperial March! Lord of the Rings! Harry Potter! Superman! I may be in the minority, but I hate that. The music is fine, but two days of that got old quick. If people want music, they’ll bring it themselves.
It would be rude if I took out my air pods and played X music on speakers because I thought it better fit the mood (whatever that was), unless I asked everyone. Normally I would have just moved away to a quiet area, but the open gaming was pretty much right up against the speakers. The local game store also does it, and I get it for a game store, where most people are wandering in and spending a few minutes browsing (or playing games for a few hours)23, but for two days it gets old fast.
I believe that I read somewhere (probably in Why we Buy by Paco Underhill), that piped in music does lead to more sales, and stores often carefully curate their sounds. So that makes sense even if I personally hate it. But a convention is a pre-sale buy a ticket thing. ︎
Although now that I realize that Underhill makes his living on consulting for this kind of stuff (coupled with the replicability study in psychology) I wonder if that is in fact true, but I suspect enough companies have A/B tested the hell out of that to verify it. ︎
I saw many new games, but I suspect that most (or all) of them are easily skippable. It did warm my heart to see a bunch of “Play this new game, let us know what you think, and you might win a copy” going unplayed, because they didn’t seem any good at a glance.
However, one game that did catch my eye is Giants Moving Tiny Furniture, which has a bunch of small cute furniture and you (and team-mates) have to move around on top of the box. I only watched ten seconds, but it seemed like a delightful idea, sort of like a pop-art Jenga. From glancing at the BGG page, after I left, it sounds like Welcome to the Dungeon (which I haven’t played but picked up a copy at the bazaar) where there are things to do and you bid on less and less time (etc) to finish it.
Oh, and you have to use only your pinky? In teams?
I arguably could have played more games, but 2 days is enough for me.
Update — More Thoughts
There were quite a few new “ginormous overproduced games” being played. (At least) one of which was being promoted by the creator/designer/publisher, but they just all gave off the feel of “You wouldn’t look at this twice if it was cardboard chits, and it you shouldn’t look at it twice just because it doesn’t.” There were a number of boxes that looked to be a cubic foot (roughly). Just hulking square boxes taking up space.
Amusingly, one of those was … Food Chain Magnate Deluxe Edition! But that box at least still has the retro 50s artwork that might make people take a second glance instead of “Pew Pew Space-ships!” or whatever. I keep saying I need to put FCM back into my bag (although the new Indonesia is getting good reps this last month), but I’m happy with the old edition, which takes half the space even if I bring the expansion box.
Speaking of “Cool!” (that is in fact, not). The organizers piped in “Geek Music” to the venue. By which I mean …. Movie Themes. Oh, its the Imperial March! Lord of the Rings! Harry Potter! Superman! I may be in the minority, but I hate that. The music is fine, but two days of that got old quick. If people want music, they’ll bring it themselves.
It would be rude if I took out my air pods and played X music on speakers because I thought it better fit the mood (whatever that was), unless I asked everyone. Normally I would have just moved away to a quiet area, but the open gaming was pretty much right up against the speakers. The local game store also does it, and I get it for a game store, where most people are wandering in and spending a few minutes browsing (or playing games for a few hours)23, but for two days it gets old fast.
I believe that I read somewhere (probably in Why we Buy by Paco Underhill), that piped in music does lead to more sales, and stores often carefully curate their sounds. So that makes sense even if I personally hate it. But a convention is a pre-sale buy a ticket thing. ︎
Although now that I realize that Underhill makes his living on consulting for this kind of stuff (coupled with the replicability study in psychology) I wonder if that is in fact true, but I suspect enough companies have A/B tested the hell out of that to verify it. ︎
Anmelden
︎