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A Gaming Life
Friday Night Shots – Are Boardgame Playthroughs Boring? Or Awesome?
It’s Friday and the vodka is flowing yet again.
What does that mean?
That my liver will be complaining for a while?
That is true, but it also means it’s time for another edition of Friday Night Shots!
I wasn’t actually sure what I would write about tonight, but then I got handed a topic on a platter.
The title is quite provocative!
As many people on Twitter pointed out.
Of course, they have changed the title since Rodney and others mentioned that this kind of negative labelling was not very helpful in fostering discussion about the topic.
I have to say, I haven’t watched the video so I’m not going to address the points actually made in the video.
Instead, I’m going to just give my own opinion on the topic.
Read MoreApp Review – Neuroshima Hex by Portal Games
(Edit – 12/14/21: I completely forgot to update this to say that the Steel Police faction is now out. Free if you had it in the app before! Now there are 5 factions to choose from)
The Neuroshima Hex app has been around for quite a while. Big Daddy Creations originally did it and it was actually not bad. But it became buggy as hell and the multiplayer (at least asynchronous) became virtually unusable.
I enjoyed playing it but finally it just subsided and went away as playing it with friends became more of a chore than an enjoyable time.
So when Portal Games announced that not only had they taken over the app, but that it would be coming out in September 2021, a lot of people cheered like never before.
But there was still some trepidation.
Portal hasn’t been brilliant at asynchronous multiplayer, including the Tides of Time app that almost called for it.
I was heartened when they said that not only would it have asynchronous play, but that those who owned the original app would get it as a free upgrade.
In addition, even though only the four base game factions would be available at start, if you owned the expansion factions, they would be free when they were implemented too!
Holy shit!
Talk about looking after your customers, especially when they’re not technically yours! (if we bought the Big Daddy version).
That was amazing news.
So the base game app came out. It’s available on iOS and Android.
How is it?
Let’s take a look.
Read MoreHanamikoji: Geisha’s Road & More Coming to Kickstarter in October
Just saw this on Boardgame Geek over the weekend and since I loved Hanamikoji, I am definitely interested in the new sequel game called Hanamikoji: Geisha’s Road.
Designed by Jerry Chiang and Eros Lin with art by Maisherly, the game will be published by Emperor S4 Games.
In this game, you’re not trying to attract the most prestigious geishas to your establishment.
Instead, you are trying to support a few geishas on their journey from apprentice (maiko) to full geisha (artist), and maybe even have them become owner of their own establishment!
At the end of the game, whoever provided the most support to each geisha is recognized and will score for that one.
Even better, it’s been confirmed that the original game will be available during the Kickstarter (it’s out of print and currently going for major bucks) as well as the seven mini-expansions that I had never even seen before.
I will definitely be checking this out!
What do you think of this game? Interested in Geisha Road? Or even just Hanamikoji, which is amazing all by itself?
I’m in for the mini-expansions for the original as well as this one.
It sounds like it will be very neat.
Of course, we’ll have to see what the Kickstarter says. Right now, we don’t know a lot about it.
Come late October, I will be there!
Friday Night Shots – Score Sheets for Games
Welcome to the first of what could be a series of posts, or might just be a one-shot.
Basically, it’s Friday night, I’ve had a couple of drinks, and maybe it’s time to visit a pressing issue in the boardgame industry.
Or maybe I just need to get something off my chest.
Consider this kind of “guerilla blogging,” as while I am editing it to make sure it makes some kind of sense, I’m basically posting it as is.
What’s the first issue I want to talk about?
Scoresheets (or lack thereof) in boardgames.
This came to mind with most of my favourite Garphill Games entries, but also with a few other games as well.
You’ve just bought a game. It’s a relatively standard Euro game where you total up a lot of points through a bunch of different means.
And the game board doesn’t have a score track for some reason. Instead, you just have to do all the math in your head.
What????
Or, you know, grab a piece of paper and write things down.
But it’s still annoying.
Even my favourite games have had this problem.
Read MoreThe Fox in the Forest Goes Electronic From Dire Wolf Digital
A rare double post day, but when you discover some news right after your scheduled post for the day goes out, you have to do it!
Dire Wolf Digital announced today that on Monday, October 18, they are releasing the really great 2-player trick-taking game, The Fox in the Forest to PC, phones and tablets!
How is that not a good thing?
I reviewed the card game so hearing this news just made my mouth water.
Dire Wolf already has a great history with apps, from Raiders of the North Sea to Root to Sagrada and so many others.
If you’re curious, you can see how to play by clicking on my review. It is an excellent 2-player game, though. I love how you’re trying to take a bunch of tricks but not too many. If you get greedy and take them all, you won’t score anything.
Will it have asynchronous play?
It’s Dire Wolf, so probably.
Does it need it?
It’s nice to have the option, as always. I will love it if it’s in there.
But it’s a quick game and logging into the app just to play one card (and maybe two if you win the trick) does seem like it might get tedious.
But people do it!
Hell, I do it, and probably will with this one too.
Very cool that Dire Wolf Digital is doing this one.
You can wishlist it on Steam (Edit: it appears to be $6.99) and pre-order it on iOS right now ($4.99 US) and it will be available on both platforms and Android on Monday, October 18.
What do you think of this one? Are you excited?
Let me know in the comments.
Review – The City
This review actually has more twists and turns than a City Council meeting trying to issue a policy that will please all of its residents.
I guess I should identify the game I’m talking about first, though.
The City is a tableau-building card game designed by Tom Lehmann with art by Klemens Franz and João Tereso. It’s been published most recently by Eagle-Gryphon Games, which leads me to the story of this review’s genesis.
Early in the Summer of 2020, Eagle-Gryphon Games sent an email to its boardgame content creators list, asking if anybody would like to review a few games.
I had had a decent first experience with The City so I thought “heck, why not ask for a copy to review?” as it was on the list of games they would be willing to send to reviewers.
They sent it out very promptly (June 8, 2020).
And I waited…and waited…and waited. I kept checking the tracking, and it was in Customs. Not sure if it was United States Customs or Canadian Customs, but it was just sitting there.
And sitting there.
It never moved.
I inquired with Canada Post about what the tracking designation meant and they basically said that it meant they hadn’t received it yet and who knows how long it will take?
Finally, I just gave up on it. This was in October or November, I can’t remember when the last time I checked it was.
It wasn’t moving and it seemed to be just lost in Customs.
I didn’t think anything of it. I had given it up for lost.
One day fairly recently (maybe in late August?), a package appeared on my doorstep. I had no idea what it could be as I wasn’t expecting anything.
I opened it up, and there was The City!
Holy crap, I thought. I’d better review this, eh?
So let’s see how it looks.
Read MoreNew To Me – September 2021
Another month and another “New to Me” games post.
This is the 50th!
It feels so good to finally be playing some new games. I’m trying to play some of the many games I bought during the worst of the pandemic (so this is probably where I shouldn’t say that I just bought five more games, right?)
The Cult of the New to Me has been pretty quiet during the height of the lockdowns and everything. They kind of understood that it was really hard to play some new stuff. I wasn’t playing many games in general, much less new to me ones.
But now that things are starting to get back to some semblance of normal, they are getting restless again.
They’re actually starting to expect me to lead them again!
I bought them all tickets to the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra reopening celebrations and that kept them all happy.
But it did have one bad effect.
Yeah, maybe I shouldn’t have bought those new games.
Anyway, without further ado (all of my ado decided to go try to become a Japanese combat master anyway), let’s begin!
(See, Alex? I can spell it right)
Read MoreBoardgame Geek Top 300 – Play or Played – #210-201
Can it really be?
Yes, this is the last post in the BGG Top 300 series, first begun back in February.
It’s been a long, hard year with COVID being alternately defeated and then making a rebound and forcing people to still try and keep separated from other people.
With the vaccines, it’s good that we can finally return to a bit of normalcy, with our game group finally able to start meeting again back in August.
We’re not out of the woods yet, but some of us who actually are willing to do the right thing can get back to a little bit of normal.
It’s been quite the journey, though, and I thank you for sharing it with me (you know, the one or two of you who did actually read all of these)
I value all of you!
Yes, the love is truly there.
As I’ve said before, this will be the last series like this I do. I mainly did it to be able to explore boardgames while I wasn’t able to play that many.
Now that I am playing games again, I hope to have other content instead of just lists.
Like more reviews!
Anyway, the list I’m taking these from was downloaded on February 8, so needless to say, there has been some movement.
I’ll make note of that in the post.
And away we go!
Read MoreApp Review – Concordia by Acram Digital
“Trading in the Mediterranean” has become a bit of a cliche.
But look at designer Mac Gerdts breaking that cliche and making it interesting again!
The boardgame version of Concordia, designed by Gerdts with artwork by Marina Fahrenbach, Mac Gerdts and Dominik Mayer, came out in 2013.
The app version, however, comes out Tuesday, September 28 and is published by Acram Digital.
What a win-win!
Acram has done the brilliant Istanbul (though it needs the expansions!), the interesting 8 Minute Empire and a great rendition of Steam (not my cup of tea, but the app is great!)
The game itself is pretty fun, though it’s not my favourite (it’s probably up in my Top 100 out of 400+ games, though).
The app?
Oh my, it’s gorgeously done.
How does it play?
Let’s take a look.
Read MoreBoardgame Geek Top 300 – Play or Played – #220-211
We’re heading into the home stretch with our look at the Top 300 games on Boardgame Geek.
I may even finish before October!
Wouldn’t that be a hoot?
I’ve actually really enjoyed doing this list, even as I stated last week that it just started as a way to get some content up here during the pandemic.
It’s exposed me to many games that I may have heard of but really had no concept about.
It’s shown me that I haven’t played as many games as I would like to have done. Something I need to improve on!
One more week after this one, so why don’t we get started?
Before we do, just a note to say that the list I’m basing these posts on was downloaded on February 8 (yes, it’s taken that long to finish this). I’ve noted the changes for each game.
Read More
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