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Post by Zejety on Apr 3, 2017 10:42:39 GMT 1
I haven't purchased anything since Essen and found a new subgroup of friends to play games with. Exclusive focused on coops though and the ones I own are either very long or have gotten stale. Can somebody recommend a good ~1h coop with not too slow setup?
Stuff we own and enjoy: Pandemic+InTheLab, Pandemic: The Cure, Eldritch Horror, X-Com, Robinson Crusoe, Descent+app
Stuff I did not enjoy much: Flashpoint, Dead of Winter, Elder Sign
I also own Myth with most of the original KS stuff and now a 2.0 upgrade pack but I have never dared to try it after the atrocious reviews.
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Post by Plum on Apr 3, 2017 13:02:33 GMT 1
You might enjoy the recent Unlock game. This comes with three one-hour 'escape the room' style scenarios. It's not replayable and requires a companion app, but those caveats aside it's a really fun experience. My bf and I just finished the third and final one and had a great time with it! In fact the third one was the only one that we managed to escape before the one hour time limit ran out, but fortunately you can keep playing past the time limit so you still get the satisfaction of solving it all.
It's been covered on these boards before I think, but if you like Pandemic then Pandemic Legacy is *excellent* and well worth the time and effort.
There's a big ol' bunch of co-op deckbuilding games out at the moment. Lord of the Rings is old and venerable but still has a huge fan-base, though the upstart Arkham LCG will be hoping to knock it off the top spot. The newer Legendary games are popular at our club, though I've never actually tried them myself. XenoShift is a fun co-op tower defence style game (with an excellent iPad version, if you want to try it). Finally Shadowrun: Crossfire is my favourite of the current crop of card based co-ops, with persistent characters and upgrades as you play through the campaign. Be warned though that it is *brutally* hard and lots of people get put off by the difficulty curve.
If you like Descent, there are a couple of other games using that system. Imperial Assault is a lot of fun and I think they're working on a Road to Legend style app for it. There's also the newer DOOM, based on the same engine, but I don't believe there are any plans to make a controlling app for that.
Finally, you might enjoy super hard Antoine Bauza games Ghost Story and Samurai Spirit. The first is the more complex and crunchy, while the latter is a much faster, cleaner design. Both are a real challenge though so be prepared to lose. A lot. I've never completed either on normal difficulty...
(for anyone wondering where the excellent Mage Knight, Mistfall, Darkest Night et al are, none of those will fit into the one-hour requirement, otherwise I'd recommend them in a heartbeat)
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Post by scymrian on Apr 3, 2017 13:10:11 GMT 1
My local café had its one-year anniversary this past weekend. I didn't go, because uh, it gets crowded when there's no event, but I'm still happy. They're doing so well - I guess a couple weeks ago they had to turn people away due to fire code, when there was no special event on. On a Sunday, which are typically slow? Yeesh. It's gonna be hard to get tables. They're locked into a 3-year lease so they can't look at bigger fronts for another two years, either. Great problems to have
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Post by mysticjuicer on Apr 3, 2017 13:29:09 GMT 1
That's awesome news!
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Post by Bomber678 on Apr 3, 2017 16:31:04 GMT 1
So I am nearly finished porting Chicken Caesar to TTS. All I really need to do is format and paste the rules and then finalise sizes and make everything look pretty when you first load it. Then I'll upload the module!
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Post by Star Slayer on Apr 7, 2017 23:22:36 GMT 1
We played Time Stories for the first time two weeks ago. Unfortunately, we started late, so we got to play only one game. I really want to play it again. I don't expect to win on our second try, but I want to unravel more of the mystery and try to optimize our moves.
A few months ago, my friends and I participated in our first room escape (titled "The Legacy of Doctor Jones"). It was a really cool experience. Time Stories is like a board game version of a room escape. Nice blend of cooperative and narrative elements.
...
Regarding recent and future purchases: Despite telling myself that I would only put so much money into the Kingdom Death Monster kickstarter because I would hold back for the rest of the year, I backed Omen: A Reign of War (Omega Deluxe Edition) less than two weeks later. And now, I am seriously contemplating getting a late pledge for Rising Sun. There is so much stuff and I really fear that I would miss something if I didn't get the game right now with all those cool kickstarter exclusive miniatures. Plum hit the nail on the head when she said " I have the self control of a child". A very fitting description for me when it comes to games.
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Post by Plum on Apr 10, 2017 12:37:36 GMT 1
I really like Time Stories. The hardcore gamer in me wants to go back and figure out the speedrun solutions though, while the rest of my group is happy to move on. It's like a splinter in my soul If you like the escape room principle, I recommend taking a look at Unlock, which offers three single-deck escape room experiences. I just finished the third with my bf and we had a great time with them. They are purely one-and-done and only take an hour each, but we feel like we got our money's worth out of it. **** PSA: Gloomhaven is back on Kickstarter and is still incredibly good value. I highly recommend taking a look if you're at all interested in dungeon crawl style games. The legacy aspects keep it feeling fresh and we've put 20 hours into it so far (in four huge blocks) and are still keen to get our next session in as soon as possible. Definitely my game of the year so far and there's nothing coming up that I think will dethrone it
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Post by Zejety on Apr 10, 2017 16:54:56 GMT 1
Anyone got pre-formed opinions on FFG's Runewars Miniatures game? I thought I had outgrown my Warhammer phase but a mini game with actual rules has a certain appeal, and I already got a bit salty that I've missed the X-Wing hype.
Of course, I'll have to find out if a scene is going to exist here or not... I'd probably still prefer to just get a Blood Bowl League going. :/
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Post by scymrian on Apr 17, 2017 13:29:12 GMT 1
Saturday, we went to the café, and the Kindly Owner plopped a pile of unshelved games in front of us and told us to have at - an employee of the local distributor donated them because they were unsellable (damaged or opened box), and the staff hadn't gotten around to checking them out to see if they were suitable for the library yet.
Partner wanted to try The Card Game of Oz, but unfortunately, the donation was actually the expansion, which did not have all the necessary components or a rule book. In theory it's supposed to be able to be played standalone, but we weren't interested in jumping through the hoops necessary. Kindly Owner decided he won't shelve it for that reason.
We then tried Shadowrun: Crossfire - but it was only the demo kit. I don't have a lot of experience with the Shadowrun IP - I played a little bit of one of the recent RPGs and enjoyed it enough, but that's all. Anyway, Crossfire seems to be a pretty fun cooperative deckbuilder, but since it was a demo kit it definitely felt like we were playing a fraction of a game. Don't know what Kindly Owner will do with that one.
Finally, we got to play RoboRally (the 2005 edition), which has been on my to-do list forever so I was ecstatic to finally get the chance. I haven't actually played a programming game before. It was great fun, Lovely Partner loved it in a way that she doesn't like most games, just a great time all around.
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Post by Plum on Apr 18, 2017 12:58:35 GMT 1
Shadowrun Crossfire is a lovely game that most groups give up on because it's brutally hard, especially at low levels. I suspect that it will be a neat fit for this forum though (and anyone that likes optimisation puzzles really).
<3 Robo Rally!
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Post by Star Slayer on Apr 19, 2017 19:51:59 GMT 1
What a coincidence! We played Shadowrun Crossfire this very Monday! One of my friends is a huge Shadowrun fan. He's been playing the different iterations of the RPG for almost twenty years now. And he buys pretty much all Shadowrun board and video games that come out. Of course, he got himself Crossfire, too. We play it every once in a while and I can attest that it is very hard for a cooperative game. I think on average it is hard, but fair. Unfortunately, you sometimes get a mix of obstacles and crossfire events that make a scenario near unwinnable. And then you draw a combination of obstacles that seem like total pushovers in comparison. We played three games on Monday. One was laughably easy, one was ridiculously hard and one started out too easy, until we realised that we were playing a special rule of the scenario wrong. We switched it up midgame and won, but I am pretty sure that we wouldn't have if we didn't make that mistake. So, in the end, not really a win. All in all, Crossfire is a fun game. Even though it uses deckbuilding, it doesn't really feel like a true deckbuilding game. Mostly, because you cycle through your deck only a few times over the course of a game. You put bought cards directly into your hand though. This means that it is sometimes the right decision to buy a card that you don't really want in your deck, but that would really help your team if you had in your next turn. There are two aspects that I do dislike about Crossfire: 1) The obstacles don't feel that balanced for gameplay, resulting in a high variance of overall game difficulty, depending on how many easy or hard ones you draw. 2) Becoming "staggered" feels too brutal. You are almost out of the game, but technically still in it. Like player elemination that forces the player to still participate. ... Btw, I exhibited the aforementioned self control of a child and late-pledged for Rising Sun.
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Post by Zejety on Apr 23, 2017 21:33:09 GMT 1
Bought Millenium Blades on a whim when I saw it in a local store (not quite a whim, I had an eye on it online for a while). Played the introductiory game today (pre-release + 2 full rounds with no character abilities) and it was fun.
Going by the masses of unused cards in everybody's binders and the lack of trading, I am sure we've all played super suboptimally so I'm looking forward to going into it again and knowing what I'm doing. I feel like it is really hard to evaluate a deck under time pressure, even though the math is somewhat simple. WIll probably get easier when you start to get to know some cards.
Setting up and [whatever the English antonym for setup is] are a bit messy though. I've ordered a bunch of new ziplock baggies to at least keep things organized in the future.
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Post by Plum on Apr 23, 2017 22:04:52 GMT 1
The thing I tend to forget when playing MB is that you can put together an utterly vanilla deck that is just good enough and instead focus on buying/selling and massive set collection bonuses. You don't HAVE to win tournaments to do well in the game - it's just one option
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Post by Bomber678 on Apr 24, 2017 5:15:02 GMT 1
Yeah I forgot to post that I played this with a few BRD guys on TTS. We only played pre release and one round which took a while, but I created a rad deck that destroyed my opponents. It was pretty fun. I'm not sure how I feel about the game as a whole; there's so much going on that it's very hard to focus, and it focuses on two of the things I always disliked about magic; cards and their rarity and subsequent buying, selling and trading, and deck building, which I am usually terrible at.
Still, I did enjoy myself, but it was also stressful.
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Post by Zejety on Apr 24, 2017 6:01:02 GMT 1
there's so much going on that it's very hard to focus For what it's worth, the rulebook points out that this is very deliberate. Dividing attention is the skill that the game wants to test. Btw., great to hear the game is on TTS. Social stuff aside, it feels like the game might actually work better on there than in meatspace.
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Post by Bomber678 on Apr 24, 2017 7:48:16 GMT 1
there's so much going on that it's very hard to focus For what it's worth, the rulebook points out that this is very deliberate. Dividing attention is the skill that the game wants to test. Btw., great to hear the game is on TTS. Social stuff aside, it feels like the game might actually work better on there than in meatspace. It takes longer to drag cards around, which is a real issue.
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Post by Zejety on Apr 24, 2017 13:52:54 GMT 1
For what it's worth, the rulebook points out that this is very deliberate. Dividing attention is the skill that the game wants to test. Btw., great to hear the game is on TTS. Social stuff aside, it feels like the game might actually work better on there than in meatspace. It takes longer to drag cards around, which is a real issue. Hmm, right. I forgot to consider how slow actual interaction in TTS is. You'd probably have to at least increase the timers to make up for it. Would be great to play this without setup and tear-down though. Shuffling that >200 cards stack is messy and sorting cards by set after a game is even more tedious. It's also helpful for everyone to be easily able to read cards in the aftermarket on other players' tableaus at any time. But yes, it's actually cool how the meatspace version gives you very little guidance on how to sort your binder as not to get overwhelmed by the flood of cards. I imagine making multiple stacks and quickly sifting through them is a lot more clumsy in TTS.
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Post by scymrian on Apr 24, 2017 19:38:06 GMT 1
Received my Kickstarter copies of the Megaman Pixel Tactics cards! Haven't gotten to play them yet - Lovely Partner doesn't care for the game. Should be able to get Best Friend to play next time I see her, though.
Passing mention of Pixel Tactics at the café did get one of their employees interested, so maybe it'll end up spreading locally? That'd be pretty sweet.
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Post by Plum on Apr 25, 2017 12:46:56 GMT 1
International Tabletop Day this Saturday! Does anyone have any fun plans? My club will be running our Spring game day which is always fun. Everyone just turns up with a huge pile of games to form a public library and then anyone can just wander in and start playing I'm hoping to get Fief onto the table as it's been a while, maybe Cry Havoc or Forbidden Stars, Feast for Odin... and whatever else the day brings
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Post by scymrian on Apr 25, 2017 13:53:11 GMT 1
I believe International Tabletop Day firecoded the café last year, which was impressive because they'd only been in business like a couple months.
So we're probably gonna pass because, fuck that.
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Post by Plum on Apr 26, 2017 12:35:16 GMT 1
On the verge of buying the new DOOM boardgame. Somebody talk me down from the ledge!
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Post by mysticjuicer on Apr 27, 2017 2:06:01 GMT 1
Bought Millenium Blades on a whim when I saw it in a local store (not quite a whim, I had an eye on it online for a while). Played the introductiory game today (pre-release + 2 full rounds with no character abilities) and it was fun. Going by the masses of unused cards in everybody's binders and the lack of trading, I am sure we've all played super suboptimally so I'm looking forward to going into it again and knowing what I'm doing. I feel like it is really hard to evaluate a deck under time pressure, even though the math is somewhat simple. WIll probably get easier when you start to get to know some cards. Setting up and [whatever the English antonym for setup is] are a bit messy though. I've ordered a bunch of new ziplock baggies to at least keep things organized in the future. I've always heard it as "set-up and tear-down" btw.
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Post by Bomber678 on Apr 27, 2017 6:18:58 GMT 1
Set up and pack up?
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Post by Plum on Apr 27, 2017 11:55:37 GMT 1
I've heard the following for the clearing up afterwards - tear down (probably the most common when combined with set up, as MJ said), clear up, clean up, take down and other things that generally mean cleaning up a mess. I think most people like tear down though because there's something pleasing about setting UP then tearing DOWN. From dust to dust...
No-one stopped me from buying DOOM and now I have accidentally bought DOOM. I hold the set people-who-are-not-Plum responsible for this
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Post by Bomber678 on Apr 27, 2017 12:05:15 GMT 1
Pretty much everyone I know in Australia says pack up.
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Post by scymrian on Apr 27, 2017 13:39:22 GMT 1
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Post by Zejety on Apr 27, 2017 14:17:01 GMT 1
No-one stopped me from buying DOOM and now I have accidentally bought DOOM. I hold the set people-who-are-not-Plum responsible for this Let me know how it plays. I've only tried a demo of the original once and that was back when FFG games were even more fiddly. It was interesting nevertheless, but not enough to pick it up.
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Post by Plum on Apr 28, 2017 11:45:27 GMT 1
Will do, although this version takes all of the things learned through Descent and Imperial Assault on board, as well as hewing closer to the spirit of the new DOOM reboot. Apparently this means that it rewards taking risks and going for glory, rather than playing a careful and cautious dungeon crawl. I have high hopes Also picked up the Bioshock Infinite game in a trade Looking forward to giving that a try too
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Post by scymrian on May 1, 2017 14:41:29 GMT 1
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Post by scymrian on May 3, 2017 20:53:51 GMT 1
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