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[de5me7]

I played Discworld Ankh Morpork today for the first time

its a good game, very light, play a card, do what it says with each player having different objectives. It's a chaotic game but a good one. Good for playing with non gamers. Can be played out in about an hour.

[Neonivek]

and i do have Arkham Horror but for the life of me i cant figure out to play it :/

Find someone that can teach you. The rule book is awful.

I have to admit your probably right.

I have read the rule book and errata 10 times each and I still make a lot of mistakes with the rules

Especially since the game doesn't tell you things it should.

For example you THINK the movement phase in one phase? NOPE it is two phases. Arkham Movement phase, and Otherworld Movement Phase. It is the reason why you don't have an enemy encounter as soon as your back from the otherworld.

I am probably as close to an "expert" in playing Arkham horror as this board has and even I try hard to understand it sometimes. (Heck I remember when one person had a problem with the game and was outspoken in how he found an optimal strategy... that strategy actually not working, as it ignores the Arkham Movement Phase End and Arkham Encounters phase)

----

I wish I had more friends to play boardgames with... more money to buy boardgames... a place to buy more boardgames... and a way to play more boardgames...

But alack it was not meant to be.

Mind you I guess I should be thankful. There are hundreds of REALLY REALLY Terrible Boardgames.

Anyone want to hear how absolutely wretched the "Saved By the Bell" Boardgame my Sister got for her Birthday is?

[Mephansteras]

If anyone is interested, I've started a thread over on boardgame geek about the deckbuilding game I'm working on. It's a loooong way away from being releasable, but I figure it'd be on interest to people here.

[Neonivek]

If anyone is interested, I've started a thread over on boardgame geek about the deckbuilding game I'm working on. It's a loooong way away from being releasable, but I figure it'd be on interest to people here.

Trying to find out what kind of game it is... MUST FIND OUT!!! O_O

I see a Versus game where you have two seperate armies.

Maybe I should suggest cards *Stars infront of eyes*. Unfortunately my luck doesn't pan out that way.

[Mephansteras]

It's a deck building game. Much like Dominion, although with more options for direct player conflict.

For those not aware of what a deck building game is, it's a card game where you build up your deck throughout the course of the game. So you're both playing the cards and adding to your deck as main components of the game.

In this case, you're the overlord of a dungeon trying to become the most infamous overlord in the land. You do that by raiding the overland for loot, killing off heroes who invade your dungeon, and beating up the other players so everyone knows that you're scarier than they are.

Mechanics-wise, you do that by buying creature and dungeon cards and then using those cards to do various things in the game. Mostly beat people up and take their stuff. You are evil, after all.

[nenjin]

Sounds neat. Dominions was ok for me. A little too "draw until you get lots of cash, win" for my taste. The game definitely has two distinct phases of build up and execution for the win...I just didn't find that much entertaining about it. Good luck on yours, it sounds like fertile grounds for much more interesting options and ways of playing out.

[Neonivek]

Sounds neat. Dominions was ok for me. A little too "draw until you get lots of cash, win" for my taste. The game definitely has two distinct phases of build up and execution for the win...I just didn't find that much entertaining about it. Good luck on yours, it sounds like fertile grounds for much more interesting options and ways of playing out.

I noticed that about quite a few games.

It seems like one of the most deadly ways to kill an otherwise fun cardgame is to have wait periods.

For example in Munchkin, often games ended with the result of over half the gameplay being no one doing anything.

I sort of expected a bit more from Munchkin. Its ONE legitimate flaw that I can say, that I feel I won't be attacked by fans for saying so, is that the game doesn't make a strong difference between curses and item curses (the ONLY difference is size as far as I can tell...)

[Mephansteras]

I enjoy Dominion but I do think it has two flaws. One is the lead time you mentioned. You're often stuck with turns where you have little to do. Depends a lot on the set-up, though. And I do feel that Dominion is much better with a few expansions to give you more options.

The second problem is a bit worse. It's pretty common for people to set up giant action chains in Dominion. And if someone else has a good engine going and yours isn't working your turns can be really short while theirs take a long time. So not only do you feel like you're losing, you're spending a lot of time just sitting there watching the other player win. That's not so much fun. Although I must admit that being the one doing interesting complex turns can be a lot of fun.

So for my game I wanted to make sure that there was more to do each round and that player's rounds didn't end up with quite so much going on so that the other players don't get too bored. I think it's working well so far, but we've only played two games of it at this point.

[Anvilfolk]

For those of you who don't have people to play with, you definitely should check this out:

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/09/25/cardboard-children-downtime-town/#more-75224

Hopefully it will go live soon'ish

[nenjin]

And if someone else has a good engine going and yours isn't working your turns can be really short while theirs take a long time. So not only do you feel like you're losing, you're spending a lot of time just sitting there watching the other player win. That's not so much fun. Although I must admit that being the one doing interesting complex turns can be a lot of fun.

I think that's partly a better explanation than I gave of my problems with the game. It's exactly that. Your sucky turns are like "Get 2 copper", while another playing is dumping their hand of actions, drawing extra cards, spending and generally having their turn take 4x as long. You just sort of sit there getting huffy when you've got nothing to do and no way to slow down any of the other players. I think we played with one expansion, but everyone seemed to treat half the cards in it like cryptonite. It's a game built on escalation of turn actions....which means everyone has to amass a bunch of resources before they start doing it...which is the boring build up.

[Mephansteras]

A lot of it depends on the cards and how well people know how to use them. You can have interesting set-ups that don't involve tons of chained actions, though. The only trick there is picking a set that doesn't make the 'big money' strategy the best one. Since that gets really boring.

I think my biggest problem with Dominion, and Thunderstone for that matter, is that in any given set-up there is often only one really good strategy. There may be other strategies, but trying those will probably make you lose. It's not as bad with 3 or 4 players, since there can be more fluidity (especially with attack cards), but with two players it becomes really obvious.

The nice thing about Dominion is the depth. I've seen people win by doing things that I wouldn't have thought of or that seem counter-intuitive. As you learn more about the game you start to see a lot more about how cards interact and the possibilities that open up when you can see all of that. Which is pretty cool.

I like dominion a lot, but it certainly isn't perfect. So one of my goals is to make sure that my game doesn't have some of the same flaws.

[Neonivek]

It is one thing I often like doing in Cardgames is going for entirely different strategies then the ones that are straight forward obvious.

Though sometimes games sort of delve too far into that and create a "Vortex of straight forward uselessness".

Unfortunately I don't have the talent to make odd-ball strategies work. I still love them though.

For example Mephansteras when I was thinking of suggestions I thought of a monster card that instead of getting the monster after you inticed it, it has a different effect (or possibly an effect for as long as it is face up on your deck...). I really don't think things through, but you see what I mean.

[Mephansteras]

Hmm. I sort of see what you mean. Feel free to post ideas or whatever over on the thread I linked to. I may not use them, but I always like getting different ideas and input!

[nenjin]

Though sometimes games sort of delve too far into that and create a "Vortex of straight forward uselessness".

Everything I know about card games, I learned from playing Illuminati. It's a harsh mistress but it taught me you can't just play along in card games if you want anything more than a random victory. I think the sole reason I'll still play Illuminati at the drop of the hat is its the only game that can produce sentences like "Children's Television, with the help of the Space Aliens, is attacking to control the White House."

The more "fun" a card game has in it, the better chances are you'll wander off into non-importance just trying to play the game to have fun. Games like Dominion, on the other hand, are so pared down to strategies that there's not much fun to be had until you have several games under your belt....in the meantime it's just watching other players exploit the system they understand well.

So these days I tend to prefer card games that emphasize the fun and randomness more than the strategy (although Munchkin takes it to the point of being boring.) Some of my board gaming friends have been doing it so long and so consistently that they tend to approach any board game as a system with holes in that must be found and tested. If some of them have fun breaking the rules, it's a fun game. If the rules aren't too broken, or they aren't broken enough, it's meh.

Example: One friend, when we play Arkham Horror, makes their primary strategy "humping the Golden Camel." They go to the Curiosity Shoppe and just repeated draw until they can get a good magic weapon like the Sword of Glory. If they need money, they hop over to the Newspaper to farm for a retainer. They don't care about gates, and only bother with monsters if they can pwn them. They just want to go toe-to-toe with the Ancient One, that's all that matters.

Now that there are dozens of expansions out and the Unique Item decked is glutted with less awesome stuff....AND we started cleaving to the "You must buy an object from the Curiosity Shoppe if you can afford it" rule....they don't like playing Arkham Horror as much anymore.

[Neonivek]

When I first heard of Munchkin I actually expected a game board where you combine dungeon delving with shopping in some sort of huge game where your goal was to break the game (where it became a race to break the game)... It didn't turn out anywhere close to that...

Hmm. I sort of see what you mean. Feel free to post ideas or whatever over on the thread I linked to. I may not use them, but I always like getting different ideas and input

Thanks, doesn't help that I feel a sense of doom.