I don't particularly love this game, but I found a pretty good 3D print for a box replacement for this game, so I printed it. And since the 3D printer I use is at work, that's where my game was located. One day, my co-workers noticed the box and asked about it, so I showed them the game and they (of course) love it and ask to play. So we've gotten a few games in during the last month. This is hit or miss depending on who you play with - if your team doesn't think the same way, then it can be annoying and frustrating. I don't particularly love that kind of game. For party games, I'd much rather play something like Telestrations or Times Up!
I received a copy of this to review and so the kids and I sat down and played a bunch of games to get a feel for it. The game is a little shorter but a nice little family filler. For a little co-op, its just about right for me (not a super lover of the co-op). Generally speaking, my kids prefer to beat each other instead of working together (plus we then have the alpha player issue) so we tend not to play co-ops. It was nice to be able to get them to play together for a little bit.
This was another that was passed along to me as a review copy. I didn't know what to expect from this game, having never heard of it. I pulled it out at my office to play with co-workers to see what was in the box. What we found was a great game that is especially good for four players. There is a little set collection (not unlike Parade) but a lot more player interaction as each turn all players are making selections via blind bids - sometimes you get a card with no competition, sometimes you are not wanting any cards and hoping to stick someone else with cards, but that means guessing what they might try for. One of the better new small games I've played in a long time.
For whatever reason, I started playing this again on my iPad and pulled my buddy Robert into a game online. I am of two minds on this deck building game. Playing it face-to-face on the tabletop, the game wouldn't be all that fun and I'd just want the game to be over. On the iPad? This is a really great 5 minute game. Despite being one of the earliest games out, the game plays fast (I've never run into a bug or seen a hiccup in the game). Async is a little slow since your turns are so fast and then you have to wait for the other player, but it is tolerable. If you get bored with the base game, there is a LOT of expansion stuff for you to buy to freshen up the game. This isn't my favorite deckbuilder by any means, but it is pretty good in its electronic form.
Biblios continues to be requested by our little work group on Fridays. This time around, we taught a new guy that we roped in because the more the merrier! Turned out to be the right move. The next week he brought in Splendor, so I discovered another gamer. I'm slowly building a gaming group at work - and this is the game that kicked it off for us. I like this game because it has that split-the-cake and push-your-luck components followed by an auction. What a great mix of mechanics in a quick game that can be played in 20 minutes. Pretty good with three or four players.
Another quick but fun game I introduced to folks at my office. We try and play a couple small games each week during Friday lunch (or we kick off early on Friday and play). I grabbed this from my shelf since it rarely is played at home and it is a decent little filler game. Your approach depends a lot on the other players, but hey, it is a short filler right? Its always fun to laugh at a co-worker for buying that outhouse...
I made a trade last month for the Civil War expansion to Legendary, which made was prompted by me playing a quick head-to-head match with my son (which he won). I thought all my playing of Legendary DXP (the iPad app) would have given me the edge, but my son had a slick Gambit and Daredevil combination going on that trumped what I had put together. He was piling up the bystanders and Masterminds, while I had a mess of crap most of the time. As fun as it is discovering combos, it is just as fun seeing my son find something cool and flaunt it at me. Hopefully we get to try out some of the new Civil War cards this coming month.
This popped up for $10 on Amazon last spring and it sounded interesting, so I grabbed it. It sounded ok, but after a couple of plays, it just keeps falling flat for me and this last time it was me and my kids and they didn't really seem to find it any more interesting than I did. Oh well. You get a hand of card and play them. The trick is - you can use them to change what the scoring condition for the round is - if at the time you play the card, you would score the most points for the condition. Other players can stop playing at any point to try and keep the winner from gaining tons of points, but it doesn't feel like you have enough cards for that to matter much. You don't get new cards until the next round, so each round is just - whatever you got. I don't know - maybe the deal is supposed to be a whole lot of dropping out right off the bat each round (not entirely unlike how Texas HoldEm is really done), but that seems boring as heck. Sorry, we have lots of little card games we'd rather play.
One of the folks I play with at work likes Rummy, so I thought I'd try this out with the group and see if this held any interest for anyone. It seemed to go over decently, though we were a bit rushed because of time, so we'll have to see if this gets anymore table time. IIRC, this was a precursor to the Mystery Rummy series (Mike Fitzgerald did this and those). It is a decent choice and normally pretty easy for non-gamers to pick up and learn. This was is a little more fiddley than the other Mystery Rummy games because of the rewards and such, but not horribly so.
And that's it for last month. I suspect there is some Splendor in my future (and hopefully more Legendary).
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1 comment:
I like the shout-out to Times Up! Have you tried Monikers yet?
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