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A Gaming Life
Friday Night Shots – Playing Low-Rated Games
Hey there! It’s another Friday night!
Thanks for braving the crowd. I made a space here at the bar for you.
Yes, I was joking. You are the only one here.
For now, anyway!
Have a drink. Whatever you like.
Let me turn down the music (remind me to remove the Vanilla Ice songs from the jukebox one day) so we can have a chat.
I realize the title of this post doesn’t give a full description of what I’m talking about tonight.
The rating system on Boardgame Geek is always being debated, especially as to whether or not it’s worth anything.
I’ll be talking later (maybe next week?) about disliking highly-rated games, but tonight how about we talk about low-rated games that we’ve played?
We’ve played a lot of games. Nowhere near Tom Vasel levels, but still. I’m over 500 now.
There are definitely going to be some low-rated games in there.
Read MoreReview – Point Salad
There is a phrase in boardgaming that I’m sure you’ve all heard of (unless you’re new to the gaming scene).
When a game has a bunch of ways to get points, and where every action is going to get you some points but the trick is to figure out how to maximize these points to win the game, that game is often referred to as a “point salad” game.
You can get your lettuce to get you 5 points, your croutons over there will get you 3, and maybe even the radishes (if you like that kind of thing) will get you 25 points if you chain the three different farming icons together.
Back in 2019, designers Molly Johnson, Robert Melvin and Shawn Stankewich, along with Alderac Entertainment Group, decided to have some fun with this concept and publish a card game literally called Point Salad, where you are also collecting literal vegetables that might go into a salad.
That’s like a pun squared!
(ok, not literal vegetables, but just go with it, ok?)
The artwork in this game is by Dylan Mangini (he of Mephisto: the Card Game fame).
The thing about Point Salad is that you are literally just drafting cards or goals and trying to meet those goals to score points.
Read MoreFriday Night Shots – Birthday Wishes of Unplayed Games
Welcome back to the bar!
I’m so happy you chose to regale us with your presence when it’s such a clear and sunny evening out there.
Have a seat, let me turn the music down a bit (who the heck put Air Supply on the jukebox anyway?) and let’s chat.
What?
Why thank you! Yes, it is my birthday tomorrow, so let’s talk about birthday wishes and unplayed (or seldom-played) games for a bit.
One of the suggestions a couple of weeks ago when I was sick and did a shout-out for Friday Night Shots ideas was talking about the Shelf of Shame.
I haven’t yet decided how I want to do that. Do I talk about individual games that are on my Shelf of Shame?
Do I talk about the concept itself?
Do I chastise myself because I really should call it the “Shelf of Opportunity?”
This week, though, as part of my birthday, let’s talk about games that aren’t really on my Shelf of Shame because I have played them. But they are on my “Why haven’t I played this one in a while? SHAME!” list.
Read MoreA Distant Plain – Storage Solution From Rails on Boards
It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these Rails on Boards/Cube4Me storage solution posts!
Partially it’s because I haven’t had any good ones to post about, and partially it’s because I bought this one way back in June and then forgot to post about it!
This one is for another COIN game, like Liberty or Death.
In this case, it’s A Distant Plain, about the war in Afghanistan.
It’s another game that I would love to get to the table one day, and this storage solution is simple and will make that a lot easier (you know, once I find opponents and stuff like that).
How simple is it?
Just one tray and a couple of card trays.
Read MoreReview – Skies Above Britain
Solo air war games are pretty common out there in the wargaming field.
Of course, one of my favourites (though my sample size is admittedly pretty small) is the great Storm Above the Reich, designed by Jerry White and published by GMT Games.
But some people don’t like playing as the Germans in a solo game, rooting against the Allies.
Or maybe you think that game is a bit too straightforward and on rails?
Whatever your inclination, White and Gina Willis have produced a new game that literally (ok, maybe not literally, but it might as well) blows that first game out of the water in my mind.
Skies Above Britain is also published by GMT Games and came out in 2023.
The artwork is by Antonis Karidis, Mark Simonitch, Jeremy White and Gina Willis.
It allows you to run a British squadron of either Hurricane or Spitfire fighters through the Battle of Britain in multiple chapters, trying to stop the Germans from bombing the hell out of Great Britain.
And it is amazing, if you like solo games.
Let’s see how it plays (a bit, as there is too much stuff in there to cover in total).
Read MoreBig Terraforming Mars Kickstarter Opens Tomorrow, September 5
(Edit: 9/5/23) – The campaign is now live!
I thought this warranted its own post rather than editing the previous post, because this is so much bigger than it seemed before.
No new images yet, so I’ll post the graphic that’s currently on the Kickstarter page (which you can subscribe to now so you get notified, but this will also be the actual campaign page when it goes live).
This Kickstarter is going to be huge for fans of the game, as detailed in Enoch Fryxelius’ Facebook post (I’ll post the list here for those who don’t do the evil corporation).
Read MoreNew to Me – August 2023
August was all set to be a banner “new to me” games month.
Hell, I was going to a convention! That’s always a great place for new to me games.
Sadly, it was not to be, with only three new to me games played.
Getting sick and missing a Sunday game day didn’t help in that respect.
The good news for the Cult of the New to Me was that two of the three games were from 2018 or older!
This got me many huzzahs.
And a cookie!
I think the fact that their leader has been walking the walk as far as “Cult of the New” games and not playing too many of them has actually increased their respect for me.
Either that, or they are secretly plotting a coup.
Whatever it is, I’m enjoying cult life right now.
So without further ado (all of my ado was given away for some fancy new machine anyway), let’s get started!
Read MoreFriday Night Shots – Game Clearance Sales & “Mystery Boxes”
Hey there, welcome back to the bar!
I’m feeling much better, thank you. Not 100%, but better.
At least up for writing and meeting with you!
Let me pour you a drink of whatever you prefer and have a seat. I’ll turn the music down (Can’t really talk over Gloria Gaynor now, can we?)
Many thanks to those of you last week who gave me some possible topic ideas for future Friday Night Shots posts, but this one actually occurred to me this week!
So I’ll keep those in my back pocket for the future.
Let’s talk about board game publisher “mystery boxes” and online retailer clearance sales.
The clearance sale item is probably more about US/Canadian online retailers, mainly because I don’t know anything about them from other countries.
Maybe they’re the same?
Let me know if that’s true!
Anyway, this post was prompted by this post on Boardgame Geek about Mayday/Sleeve Kings offering a “Mystery Box” of boardgames for sale.
Yeah, I don’t know.
Read MoreAugust 2023 Gaming
It’s hard to believe August is over and we’re in September now!
August was primed to be a big gaming month but it kind of sputtered with me getting sick.
Missing a Sunday probably took 2-3 games (or at least plays) away from my list, and missing work for a week (and not feeling like playing something at lunch this week when I returned) meant I also missed out on the juicy lunch-time gaming that I’m known for as well.
Even with that, given Dragonflight and everything, I managed a good month.
Here’s my list of games played last month.
I was able to get in 25 plays of 22 games, which is much better than July!
Here’s the list in grid format (I love the grid format)
Both of these are thanks to the wonderful Boardgame Stats!
Dragonflight definitely had an impact, though not as much as many conventions because I only played two “new to me” games there (and only three in total for the month!)
Let’s take a look at the month in total.
Read MoreDragonflight 2023 Retrospective
Dragonflight was my first convention ever, back in 2015 (I think).
It’s held at the same hotel in Bellevue, Washington, as OrcaCon is held (though the hotel rooms are a lot more expensive, being in the Summer instead of January like OrcaCon).
Thus, it holds a bit of nostalgia for me.
I haven’t been since 2019, missing it in 2020 due to Covid (obviously) and then not really feeling like attending the last two years.
But this year I decided to go again!
Not only do I have a contingent of Vancouver friends that I always enjoy going to conventions with, but now that I have some Seattle friends to hang out with as well, it looked like it was going to be a great weekend!
Of course, this post would have gone out last week if I hadn’t caught one of the nastiest colds I’ve had in a while from this very same convention.
If you saw my Friday Night Shots post last week, you saw that I’ve been out of commission and I still feel like shit. Just not as much shit as I was feeling last week.
I’m finally feeling up to writing something!
I have to say that the Bellevue Hilton is a really great hotel. I’ve been there many time for conventions and their service is top notch.
I don’t know how they are to deal with as far as organizing a convention goes, but from an attendee standpoint, I have no complaints.
Read More
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