Code 777 is a deduction game. Every player has three tiles in front of them which they can't see. The goal is to "simply" figure out what your tiles are. Each turn, players draw a card and read and answer the question posed to them (how many blue 7s do you see). The questions aren't equal and sometime only help one or two players (generally not the person who read and answered), but as time goes on you get more and more information.
I first saw this played at a friend's gaming day when my daughter was with me. She wanted to play (I didn't play) and proceeded to destroy the adults at the table and came to find me later saying that I needed to get this game. What gaming father says no when their child falls in love with a game? Of course, I found the deluxe version and got it for her for Christmas that year. We ended up pulling this out a couple times last month as it hadn't been played for a while (though she asks for it a lot, we just can't keep up, so its hard to get the rest of the family to play with her).
Fellow Punchboard Media writer Eric Buscemi mentioned that he had never played Can't Stop and I offered to teach/play against him on Yucata.de (where I have played over 900 times and won more than half). We got in a couple matches before he decided not to push his luck against me any more. For the record, I have so many games of this played because it is wonderfully fast and a buddy and I used to play head to head many times a day. Yucata's version is also nice in that it has a couple of minor variations (more than 3 columns to win, can't stop on another player's marker) that help make the game a hair less stale.
I love this game. To my horror, I realized that this hadn't seen the light of day all year. What the heck?! Was I insane!? Whatever - I broke it out determined to save the world (solo-ish). The following day, a buddy dropped by and the two of us set out to save the world. In neither case was the world safe, but I got in a couple plays!.
I love the episodic story this tells. Its almost like a creepy Netflix series where each episode is some weird (almost) standalone piece of a large puzzle. Yes, it is sometimes very random and brutal, but it drips with theme and I love it. I'm not a huge co-op guy, but the story and lack of an Alpha player problem makes this one fun to me. With the number of expansions I have (and thus cards), the stories are always different and again, for me they are a lot of fun. The only thing that keeps me away from this is the amount of time it takes to setup and play. The story is worth it, but when I look at it on the shelf, the time thing is often what makes me leave it there. I really would like to get this out a couple more times before the end of the year.
I told my son he owed me a game (rematch from the previous time we played and he kicked my booty). This time around, I had the Civil War expansion, so was able to add some more Avengers to the party. I don't think we got in one shot on the Master Mind, though we were taking out the villains and henchmen left and right. We eventually just ran out of time and lost (I won the score though).
Playing a ton of the Legendary DXP game has just made me hungrier for the tabletop game given the huge amount of expansion material I own that isn't in the digital game yet.
If you haven't tried the Africa map, here is what you should know - it is brutal. Do not play this map with the thin-skinned or those that don't like conflict, because someone is going to take your route and screw you. One more thing - you have to pay attention and score the game as you go. Most of the other maps you can get away with re-counting at the end, but this map gives players the chance to double their route scores, so there are no recounts later in the game.
Now, my kids have a love hate with this map. They love creating angst for other players (but of course hate when you hose them up). There is definitely some risky moves here, but if you can chain your routes together, digging for tickets really can work for you on this map. I think it plays well with 3-5 player counts, so despite only the one map, it is a worthy addition if you don't have it.
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