Some nice stuff in there. Among the Stars is a great space-station builder with drafting:
Lots of content for the DC Deck-Building Game, which is a snappy little superhero card game that plays well with my group. We’ve even kept a high score list over the years:
Core Worlds is a really solid Andrew Park deck-builder made much better with the expansion:
-Tom
Thanks for posting links. I would have but it’s a royal pain on mobile. I also like Among the Stars, but can’t say as I would recommend the DC Deckbuilding Game. Thin theme, imo seriously underbaked gameplay. The time I played I was unable to do anything productive about 90% of the game because other people kept beating me to the punch and I think also triggering penalties to me from villains. And I don’t mean that I couldn’t get the cards I needed to engine build, I mean I couldn’t do anything useful at all.
PROTIP: next time try beating them to the punch. :)
For what it’s worth, I don’t think of it as a heavy game. It’s a palate cleanser, barely a step above Lovecraft Letter, which just enough interaction to keep it interesting.
-Tom
Hey, how’d you get Terror Below already? No fair!
Also, I think that cat wants to play Champions of Midgard.
-Tom
Vesper
2084
How do you not even take the shrink wrap off? CRAZY TALK.
Pod
2085
At least 50% of your games-hoarding is unplayed?!
rho21
2086
I have a friend who likes to carefully slice around the opening to the box so the shrink wrap can be kept on the lid. For protection against spills or something.
I know, right? The distress of those unplayed games was tangible. Poor things!
Okay, that might be the one thing that’s even weirder than sleeving cards.
-Tom
ಠ__ಠ
You obviously don’t play with children or people who drink at the table.
Also, worn cards are as good as marked. I’d rather avoid that.
Guap
2090
Man, I thought I had played a lot of games, but it’s incredible how diverse the boardgaming hobby is. The only one I recognize there is Ticket to Ride. And Stratego, but that’s older than dirt.
Guap
2091
I wish the XCOM game was card driven instead of app driven. I play boardgames to step away from the electronics, the thought of needing my phone (and support/availability down the line for the app) sounds kinda lame.
Pretty cool look back at 14 years of game design by Corey Konieczka (even if you don’t know the name, you have very likely played some of his games):
Wow, he was involved with some of my favorite FFG games (Eldritch and Rebellion).
As an aside, FFG’s design really checks off a lot of boxes for me and I am more willing to try one of their games without reading up on it.
Mark_L
2094
I agree with his premise, but I disagree with his conclusion- that you are “locked in” to a strategy early on. I think you feel like you’re locked in, but the mechanics of the game allow for more flexibility than he realizes. In any case, I think this is a perspective that might encourage Tom to give the game a shot.
Re: locked in. That depends on which patch version you play. The more recent ones encourage more locking in because of very strong, stackable alliance bonuses as opposed to picking up normal items that can be used by any faction.
It’s a user problem, sunk cost etc etc.
FFG was my favorite game company until they started to follow video game companies in their desperate attempts to wring as much bit of cash as possible out of each game (in my opinion, to the detriment of gaming).
They’ve kind of become the Paradox of board game companies, except their base games offer (for the most part) even less value than Paradox base games. It is so absolutely clear that nearly everything they make now is set up more to pump expansions into the market than actually have a solid, complete board game out of the box.
Kadath
2097
Kickstarter backer. :)
I mean I am. Schultz is big on worker placement games but isn’t fiscally liquid enough to be a super backer.
Yes many are still in shrink wrap. I joined the hobby 2 years ago and have been making up for lost decades. I have a network of bots that alert me to price drops on Slickdeals, twitter and Reddit. I try to get at least one unopened one to the table each week.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Navesink/lists/bgdeals
https://www.reddit.com/r/boardgamedeals
Mark_L
2098
I see them as more or less being the Star Wars production wing of Asmodee now.
I don’t know if they had glory days per se, but I used to like them quite a bit more. Here’s hoping they release more full featured, original games.
