Boardgaming in 2018!

I hate Magic Maze as much as I hate Mage Knight. Good lord, I hope to never play it again. However, I heartily recommend it to others. What a nifty little design, and utterly unique!

-Tom

Hollandspiele is releasing this soon, @tomchick, a really interesting topic. Kind of a neither fish nor fowl in terms of Wargame/Political game/Historical game. The theme speaks for itself, and he mechanics look really interesting.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/250488/guilty-land

You know, there is no better way to appreciate people’s discomfort playing Magic Maze than in person. Some sacrifices are worth it.

Oh, I agree. I love watching other people’s despair, anguish, suffering, insecurity, and doubt bubble up to the surface while they play Magic Maze. I just hate it when I’m one of them.

And I will say in its favor that it’s one of the few legit co-op games. It’s not just solitaire dressed up so that you can make your friends play it with you. It’s bona fide, no foolin’, honest-to-goodness co-op gaming, and I’d encourage anyone who’s interested in co-op to check it out. And please let me watch when you play.

I also like how it scales, which is partly what makes it good for different types of groups. When you’re playing with all the rules, Magic Maze is not fooling around.

-Tom

Played Steam Works today. Very interesting game to me in that combines design elements (build your own worker placement slots), worker placement and engine building aspects. I liked it but I’m still trying to decide if I really liked it or just liked it OK.

My one concern is that the game looks tailor-made to be the kind of gaming experience that invokes massive analysis paralysis, even in players typically not prone to that, due to the fact that not only are you making choices for this turn but your choices create options for future turns, in a multiplicative/cascading fashion. I’m not one of those gamers who hates all AP 4-evar and evar, but I am a bit concerned this game would bring out the worst in some players.

On the other hand, the game does hit all of my gaming sweet spots. I’ll probably play it again before deciding whether to buy it. On the other other hand, it appears to be available quite cheap…

Went crazy last night…ordered:

Deep Madness
A Distant Plain
SpaceCorp
Pavlov’s House
Nightfighter Ace: Air Defense over Germany.

Now, I gotta decide which to play first…and NOT JUST SET IT UP AND PUT IT AWAY FOR THE NEXT GAME…I do that way too often.

New games this week:

carcassonne dnd_5e_coregiftset_ce_05 visioo

I’m a little late to the whole “old games suck!” argument, but I maintain that El Grande, the game that invented area control (at least in Euros) is still the best at it. Although I haven’t played Blood Rage yet.

If you ever stop doing this Vesper, you have to pass on the knowledge of how you generate these lists! :) I can normally find some resource to track new releases, but a board game one has eluded me!

The board game industry is not known for being very accurate on release date predictions. The only way I can do this is by actually watching what ships out on Mondays.

Ooooo, what’s up with those D&D covers? I kind of want them just for that…I doubt I’ll ever actually play, but those is pretty!

I am not sure that’s just the cover. I think that’s the $170 gift set, with the books, in-store only limited edition.

Looks like it to me, yup.

Correct… $170 special edition gift set of the 3 books + DM screen. We’re giving people a free D&D book of their choice with purchase rather than discounting it.

I’m kind of blown away by how many board games come out on a weekly basis. Given the size of the average game box vs shelf availability, do you try to carry each release? Or are some on a kind of special order basis?

There’s actually a lot more than I’m posting here. I’m only posting what I’m getting for the store. For example we don’t carry any GTS stuff by default but will happily order it for anyone looking. What I get from being part of a franchise is guidance on “here’s what you should pre-order since we think it will sell.” My store, being bigger than the average Gaming Goat, goes a little deeper into orders and gets some things others do not.

But yes, shelf space is tricky at times - it truly is a renaissance of board games these days.

The list above would be a slow week for releases. I’m not surprised it’s filtered.

My local game shop sends me a list with about 2-3 times that amount of releases every single week.

This is a great time to be into boardgaming. So much to choose from in so many genres.

I love the fact that my mum is really into them too and has mandated Christmas boardgaming as a new family tradition about 7-8 years ago. I buy her a boardgame as a present and get to play it when I visit. Win-win. :)

Do you ship internationally?

As long as you are willing to cover the shipping costs, sure!

SHARPE!!!
Had I known, I would have sold you my copy with all the extras long ago. It’s actually really cool. It does character building better than any other board game. If it didn’t take so long to play I would have kept it. That said, It’s a fun race with cool stuff. Hope you enjoy it.
PS Shadows of War is a really great expansion, if you can find it. Burning Crusade is great too, but adds more time. The delving into dungeons can slow the game down, but again lots of good stuff in that box too.

That said,I need to sell off a large chunk of games.
If anyone is looking for games feel free to look at my trade list on bgg

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