We are all in the same boat right now. Bored in Quarantine. I'm one of the lucky ones - good job (software engineer) that wasn't really impacted. I just picked up and started working from home. In fact, I got an added benefit - at my office, traffic to "game sites" is blocked, but obviously, not so much from home.
Not that I'm spending all my time playing games, but it is a nice distraction to have an async game or two running. I have been mostly playing and learning games on Yucata.de, but have been spending some time on BoardgameArena.com too now.
I enjoy Yucata.de for the large number of games that keeps growing. It is also free. The games themselves can vary wildly in the UI, but generally are well done and rarely have I had issues with the platform or users.
Without further ado, I thought I'd share what I've been playing on Yucata.de since the start of all the COVID craziness:
- Can't Stop - one of my favorite distractions (I have logged over 900 games on Yucata.de alone)
- Thurn and Taxis - a decent Euro that we overplayed and which I always lose at to my friend Nathan
- To Court the King - another "distraction" game that I always lose to Nathan
- Guildhall - I quick new one I learned to play with fellow PBM'ers Eric B and Brandon K. This is a card game - something of an engine/combo game that was interesting, but probably has a limited amount of life/replayability
- Cacao - a tile laying/worker placement (your workers are printed on your tiles). Interesting, but not great depth. Certainly a bit of a luck factor, but works well for async as it is purely tactical.
- Glen More - One of Nathan's favorites (he always wins). I cannot figure out how to do well - it is just one of those that I can't quite grok how to play well
- Thunderstone - I love Thunderstone and the Yucata.de implementation is well done.
- St. Petersberg - I play this like every other year and as soon as I start playing, I recall why I don't play it. The base game is completely uninteresting - they choices are fairly obvious and luck of the draw early on heavily influence the outcome.
- Castles of Burgundy - one of Feld's best games and one that I really enjoy. I do ok, but haven't played enough to feel like I'm good at the game.
- Pompeji - total luck fest and a ton of take that! This one is fast, so a play every so often is ok, but this is much more fun face-to-face
- Vikings - another new one to me. A tile laying/drafting game. Nothing heavy, but another good tactical async game for the queue.
- Vinci - I like Vinci, especially as an async game. This is another mostly tactical game that is more interesting (to me) than a lot (you choices seem to matter more).
Because of COVID, I was finally introduced to boardgamearena.com - another site where the games can be played async (but also live). BGA has also has a wide variety of games (and with some overlap!). BGA seems to have a nicer interface (generally), though it seems to have less or stricter "undo/reset" options than yucata.de's versions. At BGA, I've been playing:
- Can't Stop - what can I say...
- Taluva - I love this 3D tile laying sucker. I also don't like it except as a 2-player knife fight.
- Hive - This is such a good tense little abstract and the implementation on BGA is top notch. I haven't played in a while, so it was fun to revisit this.
There are a bunch of good heavier games that I need to review the rules on that I want to play and or learn on BGA. Still just a matter of time.
Regardless, it has been nice playing a little bit. COVID has been hard for everyone and its been nice to re-discover a distraction or two.
No comments:
Post a Comment