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New Board Gaming |OT2| On Tables, Off Topic
- Thread starter Karkador
- Start date
So I played some Quantum yesterday:
This game is not available in Germany (yet?) and I bought the UK version because I absolutely and madly fell in love with the visual design of the game before even reading any review/impressions on how its played. The thing that I like the most is the look of the planet cards and the use of oversized dice to visualize the ships you are using (6 is a scout, 1 is a battlestation, etc).
The goal is to reach a certain amount of owned planets. You do that by moving your ships, take over planets by having dice add up to the numer of the planet (Planet 7 = Dice 6 +1 or 3+2+2..) and attack other player so they cant take over planets. The game has very simple and elegant rules: 1. Do 3 Actions per turn 2. Take bonus card if applicable.
Actions would be:
1. Change ship (roll a ship dice)
2. Repair and redeploy ship
3. Build cube on planet (<- the goal of the game is to reach a certain number of cubes on planets)
4. Do research (which gives you bonus cards)
5. Move/Fight
Once you went through the manual once, you will likely never need it anymore, since all important info is written on the individual player cards. Its technically a direct conflict game, but depending on the board setup, you could also play a game with a higher focus on expansion and exploration, which will mostly focus on working out the most optimal strategies to reach all your planets.
Its a very elegant game that is almost chess like in its base simplicity, but adds interesting board game elements by offering different universe setups and bonus cards which might give players certain abilities that will force you to completely rethink your strategy (for example one card that makes it possible to always destroy both ships of a fight if you have the defending ship).
The game has a sizeable luck factor, since a) you need to roll your ships to change them (unless you have the "you can choose your ships instead of rolling them" bonus card) and b) the attacks are also done with dice, but its all a very intriguing risk and reward affair. You can always judge whether your ships will be in enemy attack range, so its up to you to decide how to position your ships to shield weaker ships from attacks or to make sure you can easily retaliate with a stronger backup in case you are being attacked. I read some comments that the luck factor is too high, but I disagree. It feels like the right amount of unpredictable randomness that spices up a well planned galactic battle.
Love it.
This game is not available in Germany (yet?) and I bought the UK version because I absolutely and madly fell in love with the visual design of the game before even reading any review/impressions on how its played. The thing that I like the most is the look of the planet cards and the use of oversized dice to visualize the ships you are using (6 is a scout, 1 is a battlestation, etc).
The goal is to reach a certain amount of owned planets. You do that by moving your ships, take over planets by having dice add up to the numer of the planet (Planet 7 = Dice 6 +1 or 3+2+2..) and attack other player so they cant take over planets. The game has very simple and elegant rules: 1. Do 3 Actions per turn 2. Take bonus card if applicable.
Actions would be:
1. Change ship (roll a ship dice)
2. Repair and redeploy ship
3. Build cube on planet (<- the goal of the game is to reach a certain number of cubes on planets)
4. Do research (which gives you bonus cards)
5. Move/Fight
Once you went through the manual once, you will likely never need it anymore, since all important info is written on the individual player cards. Its technically a direct conflict game, but depending on the board setup, you could also play a game with a higher focus on expansion and exploration, which will mostly focus on working out the most optimal strategies to reach all your planets.
Its a very elegant game that is almost chess like in its base simplicity, but adds interesting board game elements by offering different universe setups and bonus cards which might give players certain abilities that will force you to completely rethink your strategy (for example one card that makes it possible to always destroy both ships of a fight if you have the defending ship).
The game has a sizeable luck factor, since a) you need to roll your ships to change them (unless you have the "you can choose your ships instead of rolling them" bonus card) and b) the attacks are also done with dice, but its all a very intriguing risk and reward affair. You can always judge whether your ships will be in enemy attack range, so its up to you to decide how to position your ships to shield weaker ships from attacks or to make sure you can easily retaliate with a stronger backup in case you are being attacked. I read some comments that the luck factor is too high, but I disagree. It feels like the right amount of unpredictable randomness that spices up a well planned galactic battle.
Love it.
joeyjoejoeshabadoo
Member
The guy who owns the game store I go to for game nights is super pumped as well. He is talking about starting a league or at least having tournaments. He showed us how to play and it seems like a neat system. I'll give it a shot when it comes out, but I don't think I have the time to follow yet another LCG, Netrunner already takes up most of time.Search turned up nothing and I've been hugely out of the loop, so forgive me if I'm late to the party...I just learned that the card game Vs. System is being revived by Upper Deck and is apparently due for release at GenCon 2015 with a living card game distribution model. Vs. is by far my favorite trading card game so I'm fucking hyped as shit oh my god (breathe, dammit!) for the revival. Has anyone else heard of it? I was a fan from the day the first shipment of Marvel Origins arrived at my local shop until when the Green Lantern expansion dropped. Game died at our scene around then. Never thought in a million years that it would be revisited. It absolutely deserves to be experienced by everyone, and the LCG distribution model should make the game very accessible.
Again, sorry if this was already a talking point in the thread. I'm just really high off learning about this. Vs. was very special for me and my old playgroup.
Start watching SciFi movies to get in the mood
Go to your local fabric store and get a cheap yard of black felt fabric. Splatter some white-out type liquid on it sparingly for a star effect.
Play thematic music
Dress in all black and march around the house forcechoking things.
BattleMonkey
Member
I dress up in my Tie pilot costume
I really love Descent 2.0
Still dont quiet know why I traded it away. But hearing that its like that with less fiddliness really makes me happy.
Jables Swan
Member
I was lucky enough to have a bloke at work that liked the models enough that he bought the Falcon, Slave 1 and some other fighters to stick on his shelf. Then any time we want to play, we pool our collection.
SillyEskimo
Member
I'm thinking of ordering Shadows of Brimstone City of Ancients & Swamps of Death. Any opinions on either of those?
BattleMonkey
Member
It's in my pile of stuff untouched largely because of having to put together the miniatures. Got too many kickstarted miniatures and other games that are ready to go now. Checking it out at Gencon, it seemed really neat, but yea the boxes are very big, overload of components and minis to put together. It being two games kinda feels odd seeing how big each box is.
Aaah, where are my board gaming buddies if I need them.
...although I seriously need to think about what to do here. Mage Knight and Through the ages are BOTH sealed, I could probably sell both, buy used copies and make 30-40€ profit each -__-
Or I decide not to give a fuck and enjoy it like drinking a good, old and fucking expensive wine.
I've been sitting on a copy of Through the Ages for like three years. I think when we move, either this year or next, I'm just going to take like 20 of my games and sell them at work for sub-ebay prices. Only thing that stops me from turning over games more often is just the hassle of putting it up, packaging, mailing, handling payments, etc.
Anyone doing 10x10 this year? I really enjoyed it in 2014, and we're actually going right down to the wire with 2x TTR, 1x BBTM, and 2x Castles of Burgundy left to play (TTR is already on the table).
It does give semi-weird/annoying incentives to play your 10x10 games over others, but honestly if you choose wisely I think it's a very positive thing. The only thing it really hurts is Cult of the New if you have limited playing time, but again I think for many this might be a good thing. Currently pondering which games to put on next year's list.
It does give semi-weird/annoying incentives to play your 10x10 games over others, but honestly if you choose wisely I think it's a very positive thing. The only thing it really hurts is Cult of the New if you have limited playing time, but again I think for many this might be a good thing. Currently pondering which games to put on next year's list.
El Grande is awesome. Is there even any area control game that comes close to it?
I am a huge fan of Shogun, but I havent played El Grande yet, so we'll see.
And I have. It played Shogun. Also doubt I ever will because I think it takes too long.
El Grande is just super elegant design, plays quick and is even easy to learn/teach.
I wish Hans im Glück would do a new release of El Grande with the expansions. I'd buy that in a heartbeat. Maybe do a small component upgrade. I think the art could do with some freshening up.
I love sitting down with friends in the evening and playing till 3 am in the morning brooding over hard tactical decisions. So yeah, Shogung was right up my alley. We played it a few times now, but you definitely need to pick the right time and people for such an involving game.
disillusion386
Member
I'm not active on BGG, but I am thinking about putting together my own list. The 10x10 challenge is actually ideal for me because I enjoy really delving into games and don't buy very many new ones.
It is really perfect for the people who are just way too Cult of the New, like me.
Did it!
Cross-posting from BGG about my thoughts on this year's list:
Some things I learned, may be totally idiosyncratic:
-Don't rely on big game nights to get plays of your 10x10s in. Game night is just so much more chaotic, and you can't just assume that you can play Galaxy Trucker, for example, every couple weeks.
-My wife is awesome, and my best gaming partner by far. I already knew this, but based on 2014 I geared my choices way more toward couples (or couples+1 or 2) gaming in 2015. I'm really excited about the variety we'll have available to us, as the 2014 challenge already was great for getting us back into gaming as a couple.
-Take risks, but not risks that might turn out to be chores. I was tempted to put in Lords of Xidit and Wiz War on the list, even though I've played neither. But tying this back to #1, what if the people I game with just aren't into these games? What if I'm not that into them? Instead, I went with more reasonable risks like Haggis and Dragonheart (also ties in to point #2 -- playing semi-duds with my wife is much less painful than with a larger gaming group).
1. 7 Wonders
2. Legendary Encounters: An Alien Deck Building Game
3. Mystery Rummy: Jack the Ripper
4. Pandemic: The Cure
5. Paperback
6. Seasons
7. Dragonheart
8. Haggis
9. Escape: The Curse of the Temple
10. Colt Express
11. Bruges
BomberMouse
Member
Nice, I might actually do the 10X10 too.
Played Agricola after not playing in almost two years. It's still as good as ever and I still have a ton of unused expansions for it.
I also bought like a hundred of games that I brought with me before leaving the states. I should stop buying games for a while and trim my library
Played Agricola after not playing in almost two years. It's still as good as ever and I still have a ton of unused expansions for it.
I also bought like a hundred of games that I brought with me before leaving the states. I should stop buying games for a while and trim my library
Except for a couple of games that I NEED, like patchwork and string safari
I went ahead and made my list for it:
Legendary Encounters: An Alien Deck Building Game
Robinson Crusoe: Adventure on the Cursed Island
Ticket to Ride
Arkham Horror
Betrayal at House on the Hill
Dead of Winter
Hanabi
Doomtown: Reloaded
Letters from Whitechapel
Pandemic: The Cure
And the alternate: Marvel Dice Masters
I tried to pick a few that I know are going to happen naturally just in case a couple of the others like Arkham Horror end up being a major grind.
Legendary Encounters: An Alien Deck Building Game
Robinson Crusoe: Adventure on the Cursed Island
Ticket to Ride
Arkham Horror
Betrayal at House on the Hill
Dead of Winter
Hanabi
Doomtown: Reloaded
Letters from Whitechapel
Pandemic: The Cure
And the alternate: Marvel Dice Masters
I tried to pick a few that I know are going to happen naturally just in case a couple of the others like Arkham Horror end up being a major grind.
Been considering it. Not a big flying frog fan but the videos I've seen look cool. And the wife and I have been wanting a dungeon crawl coop with campaign progression for awhile . looks pretty decent. Like a more in depth d and d adventure game
Polioliolio
Member
I thought I'd mention it in this thread as well..
In addition to my Spelunker HD Mix sound track for ESCAPE the Curse of the Temple, I've now added two Dark Souls themed mixes, and two Demon's Souls themed mixes.
Check them out on my soundcloud.
Aside from the intro and outros, the audio cues follow the official 10 minutes rules, as usual.
In addition to my Spelunker HD Mix sound track for ESCAPE the Curse of the Temple, I've now added two Dark Souls themed mixes, and two Demon's Souls themed mixes.
Check them out on my soundcloud.
Aside from the intro and outros, the audio cues follow the official 10 minutes rules, as usual.
Found a few hard-to-find titles at Cardhaus the other day
Council of Verona -- seems to be sold out most other places
Good Cop, Bad Cop -- has slipped out of stock about 4 times as I'm trying to order from CSI. Gotcha, bitch!
Coconuts -- I haven't seen this one in stock anywhere for months and months. They had 3 copies left -- yoink.
Also, Roll for the Galaxy is on its way. One of my most anticipated of the year... although I guess technically it won't be here until "next" year.
Council of Verona -- seems to be sold out most other places
Good Cop, Bad Cop -- has slipped out of stock about 4 times as I'm trying to order from CSI. Gotcha, bitch!
Coconuts -- I haven't seen this one in stock anywhere for months and months. They had 3 copies left -- yoink.
Also, Roll for the Galaxy is on its way. One of my most anticipated of the year... although I guess technically it won't be here until "next" year.
I played 4 new games over the Christmas break, and Dream Heist may have arrived also. I'll try to post some detailed impressions tomorrow, and maybe find the names of unidentified games below.
Games played:
Games played:
- Protect Your Assets
- Valley of the Kings
- Some card game about famous historical names guessed with clues
- Some board game about picking a role and going through a jungle
I'll try to post more thoughts tomorrow, but the short version is that I recommend it if someone wants to try a 2-4 person deckbuilding game with some unique aspects.
I think I played it 5 times in 2 days and most of us seemed to like it. The only game that wasn't really fun was when someone else started taking a long time thinking and/or they had a combo that would use their entire deck every turn so it took forever.
I'm not sure the two largest sets are balanced, but it might need more player experience to truly determine that. The final game I played, I got 99 points in a 3-player game because I had every type of card in the green and blue sets, plus some miscellaneous 14 points.
Overall I certainly wouldn't say it is a bad or even mediocre game, much less a "turd" of any temperature.
It's a crowded genre for sure, but I dunno if I'd call the competition fierce.
I mean, it's either Cryptozoic with their licensed mediocrity (_______ Deck-Building Game), games that have too many expansions to care about (Ascension, Thunderstone, Dominion), games that are kind of half-baked clones of Dominion (Trains), crack addictions I have no excuse for (Star Realms), stuff that's a bit too long and involved (Legendary), or it's attached to a Martin Wallace game that I have to search far and wide for some other crazy souls to play with.
In my opinion, if we must have deck-builders, then the short, sweet, and novel ones are more interesting. Give me a smaller game that doesnt need endless expansions, with some twists to the mechanics, and it will get my attention before the big fish do.
I generally agree with this. Again I'm trying to save more detailed comments for the collection of impressions, but I am just giving my opinions as someone who plays a variety of games from simple to complex. I am neither very experienced with nor do I typically love deck-building games of various sorts. I've maybe played Dominion, and I probably played one or two others like some sort of Resident-Evil-themed one. I've played Magic: The Gathering maybe once.
As a fast game (I'd guess 30-60 minutes if you have the rules/mechanics down) that's small and self-contained with no expansions (96 cards total) and somewhat unique gameplay, Valley of the Kings fits a niche that other games may not. Perhaps that niche is deckbuilder games for people who don't normally like deckbuilder games? I'm not sure.
Sure, but VOTK has no twists and is in desperate need of ANYTHING to make its cards interesting in any capacity whatsoever.
Star Realms is unabashedly a better choice over it at a similar price point, play time, and level of entry.
But, I'm also of the mindset that Dominion came in and stuck a fork in shit. It's near themelessness aside, nothing has topped it for me. And needing endless expansions is nonsense. You can have fun with that game forever with one or two extra boxes, if that.
In related news, someone take this copy of VOTK off my hands.
Star Realms is unabashedly a better choice over it at a similar price point, play time, and level of entry.
But, I'm also of the mindset that Dominion came in and stuck a fork in shit. It's near themelessness aside, nothing has topped it for me. And needing endless expansions is nonsense. You can have fun with that game forever with one or two extra boxes, if that.
In related news, someone take this copy of VOTK off my hands.
Kickstarted it, once all the extra stuff comes in, I'll get my monies worth but until then
As for the game, I've played it twice solo and once with 2 others. The first 2 solo were learning the ropes and got it down pack. There is a lot of sorting of cards and I don't think you mind putting the minis together but once you get everything sorted and glued, set-up isn't too bad. You just put out one piece. I really like the map card/exploration token mechanic. Pick a card and tells you what tile to play and if there is an exploration token. The exploration token will tell you if there is and what kind of event is on that tile AND how many dead-ends and doors/portals there are. That I found really nifty.
It can be a brutal game since when attacking, EACH dice has to get ABOVE the enemies defense (ie: zombies have 1 health but have 4 or five base defense). But they try to balance it with how attack works with deciding your target LAST.
Two helpful tips...
1. Swamps of Death, DON'T glue the Harbinger wings on or you will never be able to store him in anything. Not a joke.
2. When playing, a house rule most use is not allowing two empty corridor/straight aways in a row. Sure it is thematic and makes the game harder but it also makes the game slower and boring cause you aren't getting to the good stuff.
Freakinchair
Member
You forgot the best one: Tanto Cuore
SillyEskimo
Member
Kickstarted it, once all the extra stuff comes in, I'll get my monies worth but until then
As for the game, I've played it twice solo and once with 2 others. The first 2 solo were learning the ropes and got it down pack. There is a lot of sorting of cards and I don't think you mind putting the minis together but once you get everything sorted and glued, set-up isn't too bad. You just put out one piece. I really like the map card/exploration token mechanic. Pick a card and tells you what tile to play and if there is an exploration token. The exploration token will tell you if there is and what kind of event is on that tile AND how many dead-ends and doors/portals there are. That I found really nifty.
It can be a brutal game since when attacking, EACH dice has to get ABOVE the enemies defense (ie: zombies have 1 health but have 4 or five base defense). But they try to balance it with how attack works with deciding your target LAST.
Two helpful tips...
1. Swamps of Death, DON'T glue the Harbinger wings on or you will never be able to store him in anything. Not a joke.
2. When playing, a house rule most use is not allowing two empty corridor/straight aways in a row. Sure it is thematic and makes the game harder but it also makes the game slower and boring cause you aren't getting to the good stuff.
Excellent. Thanks!
The game has great player reviews everywhere I look, but the reviews are almost entirely Kickstarter people so it's hard to tell if they're biased ir not. Many seem like they have yet to actually play the game.
I have yet to open my second box. One of the two people who played it with me really loved it. He is a big RPG fan as well as board games. Just need find more time to bust this game out with all the other big games I have like XIA and now Imperial Assault.
Main downside to brimstone I've heard is getting experience too quickly with how it's designed and that along with some characters who might get a bit op the game can get too easy. I've seen some saying they doubled xp needed to level to good effect to balance things. So at worst it can be house ruled
interesting article on 538 about twilight struggle and bgg scores (and how it relates to length, player count, etc)
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/designing-the-best-board-game-on-the-planet/
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/designing-the-best-board-game-on-the-planet/
I can see that. each box has 5 mine missions and 5 other world missions and after the first 2 mine missions (won first, lost 2nd), I had 935XP, a tentacle arm, and tentacle mustache. It takes 500 XP to get to level 2, 1000 to get level 3 and so on. But when leveling up, think of XP as a currency. And I didn't do XP from the Slashers right either...should've had probably a good 20 more.
Interesting article. Thanks.
As for the 10x10 thing.. I may be able to swing a 5x5 thing.. that's more likely with my playing habits. I'm always playing newer games.
That article is definitely NOT about Twilight Imperium.
Consider me disappointed.
I was tricked too. TS is a wonderful game, but I didn't expect anyone to write an article on TI:3 so I was intrigued.
I gave 3 games, received 1, and played them all. The ones I gave were just bought from a local Barnes & Noble so I did not go hunting for anything amazing or rare. Here are my opinions from playing new games over Christmas (pictures from boardgamegeek pages):
Lost Temple, 6/10
This is a simple race to the finish for 2-8 players. The players who end up starting further back get extra gold and/or an item to compensate. The build quality of the board, cards, and pieces are sturdy from what I recall. Art is nice.
It basically seems more of a kid's game for 8+ though, so I would not recommend it for the thread as a general game. The gameplay consists of moving your token and flipping mystery cards for random effects (which then switch out so other players get different effects). The mechanic that makes it a little more interesting is that every round, players pass around a hand of cards Citadels-style and choose a helper card. That card determines what they can do that turn -- e.g. special effect plus move, or a boosted move. One card might let you spend lots of gems to move really far, and another card might let you switch places with another player. Yet another one lets you look at two mystery tokens and potentially switch them. It ended up being a fairly close game the one time I played it.
Name Chase Historical Figures Edition, 6/10
This is a basic team trivia quiz game, or you can play it every person for themselves. I imagine you could make it work with anywhere from 3-10 players. My family ended up house-ruling it and just letting everyone have a turn reading cards around the table.
The game is super simple -- each card has 4 historical people's names on it, apparently most from the last 200 years. Each name has 4 clues under it worth 20/15/10/5 points. You read the first clue, and your team (or everyone else depending on how you want to play) tries to guess. It might be something like "American Actor and Director", very vague. If someone happens to get that right, it's worth 20 points. If no one gets it until the last clue (which will be something more obvious like a movie the person was famous for), they only get 5 points. Repeat until you're finished playing.
While it seems well-made, was reasonably educational, and people seemed to have a decent time playing it, I would recommend it only for very specific types of people. It is SUPER difficult since there are so many obscure names. If you have a group of history buffs who happen to know lots of obscure names, you might like it. We only played once.
Grandpa Beck's Cover Your A$$ets, 8/10
Fast-paced all-ages card game for 2-6 players. Try to end up with the most valuable asset stack of cards when the deck runs out. Keep playing rounds until someone breaks $1 million and wins.
I am a bit surprised that boardgamegeek rates it so low. Amazon has 70 5-star reviews, 1 4-star review, and NO reviews lower than that. That's a pretty outstanding breakdown for a game.
I might even give this 9/10 but Grandpa Beck's kind of creepy picture on the front, combined with his name being on every card, were a little off-putting. I was given this game and did not expect much from it, but it actually seemed quite fun when my family played it. It was simple enough that my parents could pick up the rules, but it is fast-paced and there is quite a bit of entertainment and changing fortunes because of the stealing mechanic.
To be more specific, you have a small hand of 4 cards, and every turn you can put down a pair (matching cards or normal + wildcard) onto your stack, play a pair using the discard pile's top card, try to steal, or just discard + refill your hand. Trying to steal means you play a card (or wildcard) to match the top card of someone else's asset stack. BUT, they can then choose to play another matching card (or wildcard). This goes back and forth until someone runs out of matches or gives up, and the last player who played a card moves the whole set of matching cards onto their asset stack.
This means that although you start with a pair, and cannot lose your first pair placed on the table, every set after that gains value as it is stolen. Wildcards in particular make sets very valuable. The goal is to get valuable sets and bury them under other sets so people cannot steal them. We might have played 2-3 times, and at least one of those games we made the mistake of fighting over one set in particular, stacking so many classic cars and wildcards that the set was worth a ridiculous amount. Whoever got it was basically guaranteed to win that round and have a big advantage. My mother ended up stealing it near the end of the round, much to our dismay, and won by a lot as a result.
Valley of the Kings, 8/10
Small deck-building card game for 2-4 players (solitaire rules linked below). Prepare for the afterlife by having the most valuable tomb when the game ends. No expansions, and setup is pretty simple.
I might give this 9/10 as well, but I am not certain if the game is balanced in regard to the two biggest sets (green and blue). More details on that below should clarify. Otherwise, although Neverfade obviously did not like it, I ended up playing it 5 times over a couple of days, and people seemed to find it addicting and enjoyable. The mechanics and cards have a bit of a learning curve, so children and the elderly may struggle a bit at first.
The deck-building comes from each player having an identical deck of 10 starter cards, though everyone shuffles their own deck and you cannot stack it. The starter cards allow you to switch or sacrifice cards in the pyramid (to be described later), cycle your top discard on top of your deck (to guarantee it is in your hand next turn), sacrifice one of your own cards to put a cheaper one in your tomb, or block bad cards other people play against you (trying to force you to discard or sacrifice your own cards).
The art seemed decent, and I liked the Egyptian theme. I have not played Star Realms, but looking at those cards I do not care much for the space theme. Fantasy is likewise a pretty common theme, but Egyptian stuff is more unusual. The cards have little flavor text descriptions of what the Egyptian terms/artifacts mean, and the card quality felt fine to me.
The game's unique (to me) mechanics come from the combination of a pyramid, card actions/gold values, sacrificing, and entombing. At the start of the game and the end of every turn, you make sure that a 6-card pyramid in the middle of the table is filled from the main stock. Anyone wanting to add a card to their deck can only buy from the BASE of the pyramid. When a card vanishes from the base, other cards above it "crumble" down, potentially allowing you to buy higher cards. You can also use one of the starter cards to switch a base card with a higher card (because you wanted to buy the higher one, or because you wanted to potentially make it stay in the pyramid longer).
Another mechanic is card actions versus gold values. This may be a common deckbuilding mechanic, but each turn you can play all the cards you want to / can play. ALL hand cards each turn go onto the discard pile after each turn, so they are wasted if not used in some fashion. Each card can be played for its gold value (to buy pyramid cards) or its action (to do something special), but not both at the same time. The cards with more spending value are also typically worth more in your tomb. The main stock runs out surprisingly quickly, so you want to start putting cards in your tomb. But, if you start with the higher-point cards, you end up not being able to buy the cool expensive cards at the end of the game. So you generally start putting cheaper cards in your tomb first, but you might worry about not getting to entomb all the very valuable cards later. Sometimes I found myself taking turns where I would use all my gold value or actions, and I was getting decent cards, but I was not actually entombing for a bit. It is a balancing act.
Sacrificing and entombing both remove cards from the game (nearly) permanently. There is one special card that lets you swap a card out of your tomb, and maybe two cards that let you get a card from on top of the sacrifice stack. In general however, they are gone from play. Certain actions either let you (or force you/your opponents) to sacrifice a card. This could be from your hand (maybe it's not worth much, and you are trying to make your deck more reliable), or in other case(s) from the pyramid. The pyramid has to change in SOME fashion at least once per turn. Our interpretation was that you could simply swap two cards in the pyramid each player's turn as long as they had a swap card, allowing the game to continue longer without the pyramid going away. Otherwise, you have to sacrifice one of the pyramid cards. You can also play the swap card to INTENTIONALLY sacrifice a pyramid card, potentially because you cannot buy it and do not want your opponents to have it, or because you already have one of that type and do not want anyone else having it in a set.
Entombing gives you points at the end of the game, but there is also at least one action that lets you put a card in someone else's tomb (gives them a point but lets you draw like 3 cards from your own deck). On a side note there is also at least one action that lets you put a card on someone's discard deck, potentially stacking their deck with mediocre starter cards.
In contrast to Star Realms trying to hurt your opponents and bring them down to 0, I liked Valley of the Kings' focus on building your own tomb. Some people occasionally got frustrated when things did not go well for them, but overall everyone is engaging in their own constructive experience which is cool.
Scoring is simple and consists of cards with victory point values (starter and unique cards), and sets (different color artifact cards). Duplicate set cards are 100% worthless, but the more different cards you have in a set, the more points you get. This is squared, making sets extremely valuable. If you have 6 different statues, you get 36 points. The highest pure-victory-point card is only 5 points. This is the part where I was uncertain about balance, since in a 3-player game I got all of both the green and blue sets, ending up with 99 points (versus 60 and 67 opponent scores I think). Presumably as players become more experienced, they will block this from happening, however.
Side note, there are apparently a couple of solitaire variants: http://www.alderac.com/valleyofthekings-solitaire/
Overall, I found it quite solid, pretty fast-paced, and would recommend it even if you are not normally a deck-building player. It's a quick, self-contained, polished package in my opinion.
Lost Temple, 6/10
This is a simple race to the finish for 2-8 players. The players who end up starting further back get extra gold and/or an item to compensate. The build quality of the board, cards, and pieces are sturdy from what I recall. Art is nice.
It basically seems more of a kid's game for 8+ though, so I would not recommend it for the thread as a general game. The gameplay consists of moving your token and flipping mystery cards for random effects (which then switch out so other players get different effects). The mechanic that makes it a little more interesting is that every round, players pass around a hand of cards Citadels-style and choose a helper card. That card determines what they can do that turn -- e.g. special effect plus move, or a boosted move. One card might let you spend lots of gems to move really far, and another card might let you switch places with another player. Yet another one lets you look at two mystery tokens and potentially switch them. It ended up being a fairly close game the one time I played it.
Name Chase Historical Figures Edition, 6/10
This is a basic team trivia quiz game, or you can play it every person for themselves. I imagine you could make it work with anywhere from 3-10 players. My family ended up house-ruling it and just letting everyone have a turn reading cards around the table.
The game is super simple -- each card has 4 historical people's names on it, apparently most from the last 200 years. Each name has 4 clues under it worth 20/15/10/5 points. You read the first clue, and your team (or everyone else depending on how you want to play) tries to guess. It might be something like "American Actor and Director", very vague. If someone happens to get that right, it's worth 20 points. If no one gets it until the last clue (which will be something more obvious like a movie the person was famous for), they only get 5 points. Repeat until you're finished playing.
While it seems well-made, was reasonably educational, and people seemed to have a decent time playing it, I would recommend it only for very specific types of people. It is SUPER difficult since there are so many obscure names. If you have a group of history buffs who happen to know lots of obscure names, you might like it. We only played once.
Grandpa Beck's Cover Your A$$ets, 8/10
Fast-paced all-ages card game for 2-6 players. Try to end up with the most valuable asset stack of cards when the deck runs out. Keep playing rounds until someone breaks $1 million and wins.
I am a bit surprised that boardgamegeek rates it so low. Amazon has 70 5-star reviews, 1 4-star review, and NO reviews lower than that. That's a pretty outstanding breakdown for a game.
I might even give this 9/10 but Grandpa Beck's kind of creepy picture on the front, combined with his name being on every card, were a little off-putting.
I was given this game and did not expect much from it, but it actually seemed quite fun when my family played it. It was simple enough that my parents could pick up the rules, but it is fast-paced and there is quite a bit of entertainment and changing fortunes because of the stealing mechanic.To be more specific, you have a small hand of 4 cards, and every turn you can put down a pair (matching cards or normal + wildcard) onto your stack, play a pair using the discard pile's top card, try to steal, or just discard + refill your hand. Trying to steal means you play a card (or wildcard) to match the top card of someone else's asset stack. BUT, they can then choose to play another matching card (or wildcard). This goes back and forth until someone runs out of matches or gives up, and the last player who played a card moves the whole set of matching cards onto their asset stack.
This means that although you start with a pair, and cannot lose your first pair placed on the table, every set after that gains value as it is stolen. Wildcards in particular make sets very valuable. The goal is to get valuable sets and bury them under other sets so people cannot steal them. We might have played 2-3 times, and at least one of those games we made the mistake of fighting over one set in particular, stacking so many classic cars and wildcards that the set was worth a ridiculous amount. Whoever got it was basically guaranteed to win that round and have a big advantage. My mother ended up stealing it near the end of the round, much to our dismay, and won by a lot as a result.
Valley of the Kings, 8/10
Small deck-building card game for 2-4 players (solitaire rules linked below). Prepare for the afterlife by having the most valuable tomb when the game ends. No expansions, and setup is pretty simple.
I might give this 9/10 as well, but I am not certain if the game is balanced in regard to the two biggest sets (green and blue). More details on that below should clarify. Otherwise, although Neverfade obviously did not like it, I ended up playing it 5 times over a couple of days, and people seemed to find it addicting and enjoyable. The mechanics and cards have a bit of a learning curve, so children and the elderly may struggle a bit at first.
The deck-building comes from each player having an identical deck of 10 starter cards, though everyone shuffles their own deck and you cannot stack it. The starter cards allow you to switch or sacrifice cards in the pyramid (to be described later), cycle your top discard on top of your deck (to guarantee it is in your hand next turn), sacrifice one of your own cards to put a cheaper one in your tomb, or block bad cards other people play against you (trying to force you to discard or sacrifice your own cards).
The art seemed decent, and I liked the Egyptian theme. I have not played Star Realms, but looking at those cards I do not care much for the space theme. Fantasy is likewise a pretty common theme, but Egyptian stuff is more unusual. The cards have little flavor text descriptions of what the Egyptian terms/artifacts mean, and the card quality felt fine to me.
The game's unique (to me) mechanics come from the combination of a pyramid, card actions/gold values, sacrificing, and entombing. At the start of the game and the end of every turn, you make sure that a 6-card pyramid in the middle of the table is filled from the main stock. Anyone wanting to add a card to their deck can only buy from the BASE of the pyramid. When a card vanishes from the base, other cards above it "crumble" down, potentially allowing you to buy higher cards. You can also use one of the starter cards to switch a base card with a higher card (because you wanted to buy the higher one, or because you wanted to potentially make it stay in the pyramid longer).
Another mechanic is card actions versus gold values. This may be a common deckbuilding mechanic, but each turn you can play all the cards you want to / can play. ALL hand cards each turn go onto the discard pile after each turn, so they are wasted if not used in some fashion. Each card can be played for its gold value (to buy pyramid cards) or its action (to do something special), but not both at the same time. The cards with more spending value are also typically worth more in your tomb. The main stock runs out surprisingly quickly, so you want to start putting cards in your tomb. But, if you start with the higher-point cards, you end up not being able to buy the cool expensive cards at the end of the game. So you generally start putting cheaper cards in your tomb first, but you might worry about not getting to entomb all the very valuable cards later. Sometimes I found myself taking turns where I would use all my gold value or actions, and I was getting decent cards, but I was not actually entombing for a bit. It is a balancing act.
Sacrificing and entombing both remove cards from the game (nearly) permanently. There is one special card that lets you swap a card out of your tomb, and maybe two cards that let you get a card from on top of the sacrifice stack. In general however, they are gone from play. Certain actions either let you (or force you/your opponents) to sacrifice a card. This could be from your hand (maybe it's not worth much, and you are trying to make your deck more reliable), or in other case(s) from the pyramid. The pyramid has to change in SOME fashion at least once per turn. Our interpretation was that you could simply swap two cards in the pyramid each player's turn as long as they had a swap card, allowing the game to continue longer without the pyramid going away. Otherwise, you have to sacrifice one of the pyramid cards. You can also play the swap card to INTENTIONALLY sacrifice a pyramid card, potentially because you cannot buy it and do not want your opponents to have it, or because you already have one of that type and do not want anyone else having it in a set.
Entombing gives you points at the end of the game, but there is also at least one action that lets you put a card in someone else's tomb (gives them a point but lets you draw like 3 cards from your own deck). On a side note there is also at least one action that lets you put a card on someone's discard deck, potentially stacking their deck with mediocre starter cards.
In contrast to Star Realms trying to hurt your opponents and bring them down to 0, I liked Valley of the Kings' focus on building your own tomb. Some people occasionally got frustrated when things did not go well for them, but overall everyone is engaging in their own constructive experience which is cool.
Scoring is simple and consists of cards with victory point values (starter and unique cards), and sets (different color artifact cards). Duplicate set cards are 100% worthless, but the more different cards you have in a set, the more points you get. This is squared, making sets extremely valuable. If you have 6 different statues, you get 36 points. The highest pure-victory-point card is only 5 points. This is the part where I was uncertain about balance, since in a 3-player game I got all of both the green and blue sets, ending up with 99 points (versus 60 and 67 opponent scores I think). Presumably as players become more experienced, they will block this from happening, however.
Side note, there are apparently a couple of solitaire variants: http://www.alderac.com/valleyofthekings-solitaire/
Overall, I found it quite solid, pretty fast-paced, and would recommend it even if you are not normally a deck-building player. It's a quick, self-contained, polished package in my opinion.
SillyEskimo
Member
^ Great reviews and pics. Thanks for posting.
Faith in humanity slightly restored: I was almost sure that when I got back from vacation last night, there was no package outside my door. My one and only kickstarter game order was supposedly delivered outside my door back on the 27th.
I was about to head out today to see if it ended up in the office or something, and the package had appeared outside my door. My neighbor's car is also now home. I don't even know them, but maybe they took the package so no one would steal it, and put it out there when they saw I was back. Either way, I'm happy about it.
I was about to head out today to see if it ended up in the office or something, and the package had appeared outside my door. My neighbor's car is also now home. I don't even know them, but maybe they took the package so no one would steal it, and put it out there when they saw I was back. Either way, I'm happy about it.