Yeah, i saw that. The last week or so has been a roller coaster of drama on BGG over this. My favorite part was when John Bohrer apparently posted on the Winsome Games Yahoo group that most of the games published by Winsome were designed by him using pseudonyms (including some published under Martin Wallace’s name). If that’s true (which some people have suspected before), John Bohrer might be one of the greatest train game designers of all time. He’s still a huge asshole online though.
Also, apparently Martin Wallace used the money from this settlement to pay off debtors who called him out on BGG. Amazing how such an acclaimed designed of economic games can be such a poor businessman.
Anyone played Unlock! Secret Adventures? If I were to pick one to play with a group (not sure they’ve done real or board escapes before, but generally smart people), which would you choose?
Are you specifically set on the Secret Adventures series from them? @SadleyBradley is correct, I have played a bunch of the Unlock games.
Admittedly the Secret Adventures are a fantastic entry. I’ve only played the Wizard of Oz one from that set. But it is one of, if not their, best.
For Unlock I have played the following:
The top tier (9+)
Wizard of Oz
Scherezade’s Last Tale
These two are my favorites by a wide margin. They have improved their craft over time
The Very good (7-8)
Tonipals Treasure
Squeek and Sausage
Solid (5-6)
The Formula
The free print and play demo games available online
The Bullshit
Nautilus Trap
So Brass is… fine. It’s not my favorite. Personally I am partial to Railways of the World. It’s a matter of personal preference and taste though. Brass is good, Age of Steam, Steam, and Railways are all variations on a theme, with slight mechanical tweaks that give a different flavor. My suggestion is look up a few gameplay videos to see how they vary and which suits your taste best.
But if you’re asking me, I push towards Railways of the World, especially since the new reprint does a nice job of polishing a few minor things (i.e. coastal tiles, does this count as water? they added a center hex dot for that). I also like the map varieties offered. The expansion maps for Railways are really nice, and offer more replayability.
Yup! It’s pretty simple and quick compared to the giant train games, but still very meaty (and 2ish hour playtime is certainly long compared to most other board games). I prefer Steam, but they’re all great and honestly pretty similar. (Assuming you play Steam with the Expert rules. Steam in Basic mode is a whole other beast.) Steam is currently available and cheaper than the edition of Age of Steam EGG is currently Kicktstarting. Unless you’re a huge fan of Ian O’Toole’s art, I’d suggest going for the cheaper, available alternative that in my opinion looks better.
Hrmmm… I dunno. I played a lot of Age of Steam back in the day, and enjoyed it for what it was. But it is a very weird game, all about making the least efficient deliveries possible. And about not screwing up the turn order bid.
I’m not sure what I would recommend though. I don’t really play a lot of train games these days (except Russian Railroads, which definitely doesn’t count). I mean, 18xx are good, but I’m not sure what to recommend there. 1830 just got reprinted I guess, which is a great game, but long, and not the least complicated of them.
Agree with Craig that Oz is easily the best of those, followed by Noside. Tombstone Express was decent but there’s a really gimmicky dexterity bit that annoyed me. It just seemed like a weird addition as a time suck. We just ignored it since it had zero impact on the actual game other than stealing time.
If you have time to do all three, would do them in the Noside, Tombstone, then Oz order. I think it’d be best to have at least one other Unlock under your belt before taking Oz on.
We haven’t played Last Tale but I also agree with Craig on the others he listed. We’ve also done The Island of Dr Goorse, which had a really neat final puzzle for us, though a good chunk of the early part of the game has you split up your group. My wife & I usually do the Unlock & Exit games on our own as we feel they work better in a really small group.
I suspect I’m only going to have time to play one tonight. I bought the pack to play with the family over the holidays, but we never did in the end. So I’m bringing it to a gaming night as a fallback if the main game doesn’t go over well, or we just fancy some variety.
I’d go with Noside in that case, if you think they might be up for another later on. Oz is great but it’s more complicated than some of the others and I’d hate for the fun to be tainted by any complications.
If it’s truly a one-shot then maybe go with Oz and see how it goes!
Looks like it’s part of a newer 3-pack - will pick that up when we finish the Exit games I just bought a couple weeks ago. I need to make a list of all the ones we own, the ones we’ve done, and the ones we haven’t picked up yet so I don’t lose track!
