Under Falling Skies is really good…except for one really important thing. :( I’m finishing up a review now which I’ll post soon. But I like it more than I thought I would.
-Tom
Just grabbed both of these…UFS was pretty expensive but oh well…will try them both after playing a few solo Dune Imperium games.
Part of the issue sourcing it is that I’m definitely not willing to overpay while stock is low. It’s a smaller game with relatively modest components that retails at £26 in UK. It’s not mean to be expensive. I’ll get it when it gets restocked.
That said, I’m sure you’ll have a great time with it. Looking forward to some impressions.
Sorry if this has been pointed out, but most games on BGA allow asynchronous play, including Quetzal.
Have you checked out Oh My Goods? It’s all cards, but is all about setting up production chains. And it’s super compact; easy to take anywhere.
And if you haven’t tried Rosenberg’s Ora et Labora, you really need to.
True, but we were talking about TTS.
Tom,
I won’t deny the miniatures are a total gimmick but they really do add to the table appeal and theme. That said, the game offers multiple paths to victory, 4 different types of workers, asymmetrical clans to play and tons of modules (all of which are good and make the game feel different).
The cataclysm is a warning bell that the game is almost over. Now actions on the board are going to speed the game up even more. It’s one way to score a lot of points but it’s not the only way and you can win even if you don’t prepare for the cataclysm, but you miss out on a lot of points. I love the puzzle of how many mechs am I going to pay for and hopefully be able to send to the main board this round? Am I going to do that first or use what’s on my board first? What loan am I going to ask for and how am I going to pay off the 3 I already have? I love the constraint of not enough workers, worker spaces or time to complete everything I want to do. You feel the pressure of being under the gun to get things done. I will say watching Anachrony played is not as fun as actually playing it. I can go into more of the game if you want, but I think you really just have to play it. I’m not saying it’s for everyone, but if you like unique worker placement games that burn your brain, take a look. Besides, I’ll take time travel Armageddon over farmers and sheep any day of the week. I have yet to play a bad Mindclash game.
Oh! Did I mention the customer service is amazing? I was missing a piece in the game and wrote them asking if they could send it. A few days later, I realized that one of my mechs was missing an arm ( did I mention I had already started painting them) . Well they sent me one of those too.
Have you tried Agra?
Full disclosure, I haven’t played it and I hear the rules are a bear to learn. That said, once you know the rules game is really, really good (so says, Paul Grogan).
Ora and labora and Merkator are all about resources into other resources.
Yeah, we play Ora et Labora - we love Uwe. One of the guys actually scanned in the Ora cards and tiles and made our own TTS mod for it, which we use.
Haven’t tried Merkator or Agra.
Is this based on the video game or vice versa?
They’re primarily a boardgame company. They decided to do a digital Tainted Grail towards the end of the Kickstarter, which every backer got, but it’s a side project born out of the boardgame. These are the second wave items. (Minus the second minis box and a card pack to make more of the critters Guardians that move on the map, which I opted to skip.)
So I grabbed the demo copy of Under Falling Skies we had gotten at the store. I like to take demos home to try out games and be able to speak better to them for customers in the store. I opened it up to be greeted by this text:
Blurred out? That must mean they have things wrapped in paper or something.
No, CGE printed 8 cardboard sheets plus other components in completely worthless form. This is so wasteful and stupid. It’s taking up half of the box with components that look like this. Now I dislike this game before I even read the rules.
WTH? A printed out “demo” copy? That seems like a …quixotic amount of work to not make a full copy of a game.
That’s bananas.
OMG, I’m laughing so hard at this. I’m trying to imagine the meeting where someone thought this was a good idea.
“Why wouldn’t we just, you know, not include the campaign material?”
“Because we want to be able to show all the stuff that comes in the box.”
“So you’re saying we should pay our printer extra to print worthless blurry components? Really? I mean we don’t actually ship out that many demo copies of the game.”
“Yeah, well that way someone can’t just play through the campaign using the demo copy.”
“But, we could just not include the campaign material…”
I saw those in Quinns’ review of the game on SU&SD. I was like “wait, is he using camera effects to blur those?” apparently not.
Saw that in a few reviews (including SUSD). They mentioned it was too avoid spoiling the campaign. But I agree they should have included a shell without all the blurred components, or normal components under a blurred sheet.
It is wasteful. But I know many people who have gotten a lot of enjoyment from the base game only. So that shouldn’t prevent you from trying it and being a good feel for whether you will like it. By all accounts, it’s worth it.
That is hilarious…hope my copy coming today is a real copy!
Merkator is literally cube pushing into spaces to turn them into other cubes. It’s a race game but very well done. Not my favorite game, but if that’s your thing, I recommend checking it out.