Boardgaming in 2019!

Very nice. Where does the big tree go?

The trays go in the sunken holes in the plastic insert instead of just the loose bagged resources. The tree disassembles and lays flat at the top of box, same as usual.

Really? Bummer! :( I’ve had this one on my list because I’ve been curious about it.

I can’t speak to the colorblind issue, but I loved Broom Service when I played it. It’s longer and requires more multi-action contingency planning than I think you’d expect given the art and theme. I thought it was a really fun, dramatic mid-weight Euro that keeps players invested in everyone’s turns. On the downside, it can be incredibly harsh to bad play. Our end-game scores were not very close, which can be pretty demoralizing.

Yeah it didn’t help that the guy teaching it forgot to mention the end bonus for lightning bolts which dramatically changed the scores. I was very much disliking it even before that. Like I said tho others rave about it so don’t take just my word on it.

The color blind thing is something I wish more people would take into consideration. I have had to put markings on my Blood Rage bases because I can’t tell the difference between them.

Ugh, that’s so unfortunate. A poor demonstration of even a good game can lead to disliking it. I’ll still give it a whirl at some point, but I won’t blindly add it to my library!

Tried Architects of the West Kingdom over the weekend. Euro style worker placement with an unusual game flow: the only way to reclaim workers from the board is to got the Town Center slot and capture a group your workers from a placement slot (including the town center). You can also capture workers of other players and hold them on your player board (reducing the workers available to the other player). There’s a mechanism for players to free their workers from other players at substantial expense. The rest of the game is fairly normal worker placement resource gathering and building for points.

I thought it was decent but found the game flow odd. Part of the issue was that I had tried Manhattan Project: Energy Empire the day before for the first time, which is also a worker placement where you have to take a special action to get your workers back and I liked Energy Empire quite a bit. By contrast, I found Architects decent but kinda odd in flow.

Energy Empire has a mechanism where in addition to placing workers you can supplement the workers with energy to make it more expensive for other players to play in the same worker placement slot and you can also spend energy (or workers) on building you have constructed to get additional benefits. To get your workers back, and gain more energy, you have to take a Recharge action, which involves rolling Power Dice to determine how much energy you get. There are different types of Power Dice (hydroelectric, oil, coal, nuclear, solar) with varying output and varying risk of pollution. The game clock is a series of stacks of pollution counters, which count down when players Recharge, and also when certain building are constructed. Many buildings cause pollution, which the players place on their board, reducing victory point generation. As the pollution stacks deplete, Events occur, which cause scoring rounds and other effects.

I liked Energy Empire a lot: the flow of worker placement, varied by the amount of energy you spend, vs the Recharge rounds and the resulting pollution, provided a nice balance. I also liked the Power Dice system and the pollution mechanic added an interesting layer.

I ordered Energy Empire and am hoping to receive it today. It has currently shot into the top of my list of worker placement games. Architects of the West Kingdom, not so much.

Slow week for new games:





I thought Castle Panic was basically My First Castle Panic. Is it really that necessary?
I need to pick up the kid version of Scythe one of these days.

I was going to say the same thing. I basically used regular castle panic as a way to get my kids into board games. I can’t imagine making that game any more simple.

For a 4 year old, yes. Remember 4 is like just getting ready for kindergarten, not reading, might have played a few games beyond memory and like a 20 minute attention span. For like say an 8 year old, probably not.

Ha, I have a 4yo and 7yo so I’m good with the ages, just surprised they’re simplifying such a simple game. Would much rather see something like My First Gloomhaven or Kingsburg instead.

Well I know every child is different but there is no way my 4 year old nephew would get through a 60 minute game. He loves mobile games and he likes Spot It, but Castle Panic would be too much and too long, at least for another year or so. 20 minutes, slightly simplified, sounds perfect.

It’s also adorable. It’s the first thing his mommy said. He’ll love the art.

Wouldn’t My First Kingsburg just be Yahtzee?

Thanks for the tip on Dice Forge: Rebellion. Just called reserved it at my local Gaming Goat. :) I think we play Dice Forge with more people than any other newer game.

My son is 5, and for his 4th birthday I got him Ticket to Ride Junior. It’s about perfect complexity for him. It seems that, generally, he’s good for 30 minutes of complex tasks. Be it games or Legos. For example we have the Scuttler from Lego Batman movie. It’s almost 800 pieces and fairly complex. It takes us a week to do. Which is why I love the new small numbered bags thing they are doing!

All depends on the kid. I suspect my now 2 year old will have a higher threshold at his age. My nephews notably lower than my son. I definitely push different ways to get him into games. Codenames Disney was a great option for the same reason Sorry Sliders was.

Yeah my nephew is good for about 20-30 minutes and then he kind of loses focus. I’d say in a couple of years, if he becomes really interested he’ll go longer.

Tablets though hours… But he changed games or videos constantly.

Well, that’s not the only way. The main way is to rescue them from the tower after someone else has thrown them in there :) It’s a bit of a “waste” to go on the town centre spot simply to lasso your own people, especially as it slows down your resource acquisition.

I remember @Nightgaunt reported that they played a game of this and was highly critical of it, and it turned out no-one lassoo’d anyone else’s people, so they had to resort to spending an entire action to pick up a single person, or going to the town centre to lassoo back their own!

Nightgaunt, did you ever manage to play the game again with a more aggressive (read: normal) group? :)

It looks like a kickstarter for the new deluxe version of Age of Steam is launching today. Over on BGG, Martin Wallace was quick to respond: