What’s crazy to me is the price difference between the new game and the reprint of the original- $85 vs $205! You’d assume the reprint would be reasonable, because the work has already been done. But it’s almost twice the price from the first KS. And the new one is the same price as the first was? wacky. Glad I already have a copy of the first, and I’ll probably back this.
The $205 is BS though. It includes both expansions, but it also includes “Mac’s Journal” (whatever that is), metal coins, 3D resources, battle mat, and a painted ship mini, none of which you need.
You can individually order the original Sleeping Gods for $80, and the expansions for $30 and $15. Plus shipping, however much that is. So that’s not so bad.
Ah, I missed that. Yeah, those are the current ‘retail’ prices (though the game has never been available enough for retail). Good to see.
nobody played a science fiction themed solitaire card game from 2019 called Lux Aeterna?
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I bought it an I am eager to play. It has some Tharsis vibes. You have like 6 ship systems, and you need to apply 4 event cards every round. The game is played in realtime like 10-15 minutes on a timer soundtrack (website or youtube)
And try not to cross the event horizon of a black hole while fixing your systems. I like the card art a lot!
Each card has 3 possible functions: play it for damage, gravity pull or action. Due to the time limit you have to assign them quickly… I will report back after my first game. (I blame Elden Ring why I have not tried it yet)
That sounds cool. I’m interested in your impressions.
Ugh45
I don’t know, one of my favorite games ever- Space Alert uses that. I’m intrigued to hear impressions.
Sorry, did I post that out loud? It was just an involuntary response. I’m allergic to real-time in my boardgames. :)
-Tom
I do find it a bit funny that someone who hates most co-op games played multiplayer because it’s really just one player split among several people, you have another reason to dislike one of the only co-op games that solves that problem. Heh. Ah, well.
You should see me try to play Space Alert. I just panic and shut down. I’m generally curled up under the table in a fetal position shortly after the timer starts.
-Tom
as it should be! That game should be pure panic for 10 minutes. And then lots of laughing and swearing.
me too… however, I was drawn to the art and theme, and solitaire of Lux Aeterna.
I played a training game without the timer, just to learn the rules and iconography. It’s pretty easy to understand. I don’t think it works as a timer-less game. You are in a defect spaceship spiral-orbiting around a black hole. The game as designed, needs the pressure and wrong decissions.
Coming from Arkham Noir, this is nowhere near as complex or deep. In every round you need to make 3 quick decissions: which module to damage, which action to take and how far do you let your ship be pulled to the event horizon of the black hole ( and a 4th decission, which card you want to keep for next round).
Here is my soundtrack timer for the real game (last 15 min):
Unfortunately, you need to enjoy the card art before or after playing, because during the game, it would be the equivalent of looking out of the window and enjoying the spectacle of being drawn into a black hole, while your ship is malfunctioning.
It’s craaaaaaap!
update on Lux Aeterna. Playing with a 15 min timer changed the game a lot (in comparison to my timer-less practice game). First, I lost on time. And I was trying to be very fast. However, the game got more exciting (duh).
There are 2 ways to win, run through the complete deck of a 100 cards (drawing 4 each round). If the draw deck is empty you won. I was maybe 25 cards away.
The other way is to repair 3 out of 6 modules, and have no other modules in the “need to be fixed” state. So 3 other modules can be in the “dead, permanentely broken” state, suffering the consequences. I had 2 modules fixed, 3 modules were dead, and I just could not get the last module up and running. Since you always need to assign damage first, if possible, fixing the last module is really hard.
I will try again, sad that the card art don’t get much love in the process. It is not a very deep game, though. But it is likeable…
For those interested in horse racing games …
Last month I posted about my experience with Longshot: The Dice Game.
It is a good game, but didn’t feel exciting like I would expect for a racing game.
No Pun Intended did a review comparing it to Winners Circle. For those considering Longshot, I would give this a view
ok, I won my second timed game of Lux Aeterna, with +1 point. A win is a win. Show me your points, then we talk.
Then I played a wonderful game of Coffee Roaster. I love the presentation, the coffee challenges come in an envelope. The game box has trays for each beans, wow, an actually storage solution for playing. And the game is a challenging bag builder. You play 3 rounds with increased difficulty in order to roast a perfect blend of coffee beans.
While playing, I thought it could be remade as a fantasy dungeon crawl. Instead of beans you level up your dudes etc… But then, why? There are so many fantasy themed games, I think I really like it that this game is about something else.
Also I learned, there is a coffee beans variety, where they use cats to eat beans, the cats shit out the beans and give them in this process a very special flavor (Sumatra).
I don’t have many bag builders, if any, but this one works really great. Love it, pure solitaire game.
I like that each coffee challenge has some historic background on the bean.
That’s fascinating, thanks. Do you think it would make a good gift for a coffee-snob gamer? Or would it be too simplistic on the coffee side? (The way that e.g. a medieval historian can get turned off by bad history in a movie.)
I don’t know how “realistic” it is, but the design includes water evaporation, overroasting, failed beans etc … And a lot of background information for each coffee bean on the cards. Some freaks on bgg are putting real coffee beans into the box. So that when they open the box, they have the coffee smell. I might try this as well.
For some reason, I was convinced I didn’t like bag builders. But then I realized they’re just deck builders and now I love them. Well, as much as any other deck-builder, which is to say I love the good ones.
I’ve been playing a ton of Orleans: Invasion lately. Very Euro, of course, and it sure does look messy until you learn to read the clutter, at which point the messy magically turns elegant. Like I said, very Euro. But it’s 100% a deck-builder, about building up your deck with better “cards”, culling the weaker “cards”, and dealing with a whole lot of hand management. It’s just so…chef’s kiss.
-Tom
yes, and they fix what I never liked in deck builders, the shuffling. Doing a good shuffle is a skill. The bag takes care of this, just shake it a couple of times, done.