Oh. I was just thinking about that one this week and wondering where my copy is buried. It’s so Ameritrash and a bit overlong. But, at the same time, you can’t go wrong with cheesy cliffhangers and fighting nazis dropping from a blimp. I enjoy it when I manage to get it on the table. Not too often though. :)
Some members of my gaming group here in Sacramento are going up for that next week. I’m not going to that con, but I’m planning on going to Kubla Con in the Bay Area at least for Saturday, in May.
Are any of our Bay Area board game folks going to Kubla Con this year? Maybe we can meet up for lunch or something.
I played Andor with my (then) 10 year-olds. It was fun, but I failed my alpha gamer roll 1 out of every 3 times. Andor, for me, is all about planning out a bunch of steps and then executing it (and dealing with the occasional bad rolls). My one son really liked it still, but I had more than my fair share of “are you sure you want to do that?”
As much as I generally dislike roll-to-resolve games, I think they just work better for kids. It’s harder to alpha game, and kids still think it’s fun to get a huge dice roll and do tons of damage, find more loot, etc. We played Mice and Mystics a few years ago and they really got a kick out of it. My only real complaint with it is that you roll for just about everything. Attack a bad mouse? Roll the dice. How far can you move? Roll the dice. Searching? Roll the dice. Can you get out of the running water? You get the idea.
It’s not the stereotypical campaign dungeon delve game, but if it were still being published today I would suggest looking into the Warhammer Adventure Card Game. It’s got progression between scenarios, moves pretty quickly, and it’s got a dice mechanic that my kids and I both like, exploding dice (if you roll a critical success, you get to roll again). Fantasy Flight lost the rights to it, but re-released it as Heroes of Terrinoth. I haven’t played that version, but I did watch a playthrough and they seem to have brought forth a lot of the fun elements, and tweaked the rules a bit. It’s also fairly cheap ($32 at Amazon). I find the Terrinoth setting horribly bland, but if you don’t mind that it might be worth looking into.
I’m not sure Hawthorne can be blamed for Tail Feathers. It seemed to me that it was trying to get in a space that was heavily dominated by X-Wing, which was an easier game to get into. The rules for Tail Feathers seemed a bit complex (at least from the Watch It Played video) too. I don’t think it ended up with the broad appeal it needed to succeed, and Plaid Hat (I think this was before the Asmodee merger?) likely pulled the plug on it.
Dang, if I knew earlier…
Would have love to join you for Marvel Strike Force. But the date doesn’t work, and cons are pricey! While I’m sure it’s a blast, I’ve got to pass on $45 for Saturday games.
I’ve heard Gen 7 has issues (and a lot of typos) but I WANT TO BELIEVE. The setting sounds cool, the connected story sounds cool. I just wonder if there’s some fun to be found in there despite its issues.
Hey Craig,
I played it again last week and liked it more than our first game (which I already enjoyed). addressed a few of the rules we got wrong and it plays very smoothly, and feels surprisingly ‘superheroey’. I think the expansion is pretty vital for enjoyment however, as without it, the options for hero/villains are too light.
I have played it since it release lol. I’m looking forward to getting it to the table again, and actually half the games Im hosting are games Ive either not played in YEARS or games I’ve NEVER played. It should be fun absorbing that many new games in that tight of time!
Had an absolute blast at #Unpub9 today. Highly recommended if you are anywhere within 2 hours of Bmore. I got to play a bunch of prototype games and attend kick ass seminars. Got to meet Rob Daviau and ask him a dumb question in front of a live audience.
Are you really going to make us ask? Okay, fine. What was the question?
-Tom
“Did you really like SeaFall?”
I will be at UnPub in a few hours! Always love attending every year.
I have gotten to ask Rob many dumb questions via the Game Design Roundtable podcast (as write-ins.) He’s gracious.
Anyone here have an opinion on Big Trouble in Little China?
Fun movie.
If I was a game designer, I would make Big Trouble in Little China Flix. The tagline on the box would be “It’s all in the reflexes.”
-Tom
Duh, that’s my dumb question on screen. He took question cards and answered them ALL, in order.
His answer was “Making pancakes legacy”. Second worst was “Terraforming Mars”. He was mostly joking there but he has a point. You terraform mars into a livable world in the base game. How do you make that legacy? There’s really no story in the original. So, no offense to the devs working on it, but we are all a little stumped as to how it’s gonna work out. He had a really cool quote that I like: “Legacy games are GREAT at making players actually care about rules.”
I’m going back tomorrow. If you get a chance check out Rune Slingers. The guy is really onto something there and a publisher should snap it up.
Terraforming Mars on Steam got updated with draft mode and some UI fixes. Anyone try it out yet?
Naaaah, it should be a bag building game. Fire, wind, that sort of thing.
I poked at the latest build of Terraforming Mars a bit and was happy with what I saw in terms of implementing draft mode. But I still have some UI issues with the port. Probably because I’m spoiled by the digital ports of Through the Ages and Evolution. And Sentinels of the Multiverse, by the way. I just took a look at that now that it’s pretty much got everything ever released for Sentinels. Man, that port does an amazing job wrangling a metric ton of information and UI elements.
Like! So like!
-Tom