Digital Boardgaming opinions?

It is self-pluggy, but I wrote a thing about how the virus affected my gaming group, and well, everything.

I just ran acress this on Steam. Did not know that Blood Rage was coming:

I am in the KS, and therefore the beta. It’s worth the $17-20, but not much more. The UI had a ton of issues they said they are addressing: They planted a big tree in the middle it was hard to see the board; you couldn’t tell what regions were getting nuked in future phases.

The AI, though, is a joke. This is not a game I win the physical version of much. I could clean house with all the difficulty modes.

crossposting from Bargains thread

I have been using Board game Arena extensively the last month.

Anyone who is considering it, I can confirm it works well.

Does it have async, or just live multiplayer?

I’m not sure. The beta was one- build only. I think it’s just live MP, but will let you know when it comes out.

Ok, thanks.

I am on the fence about that Humble Bundle top tier. I’ve had Scythe on my wishlist for a long time, and the Lord of the Rings Adventure Card Game looks really nice. Can anyone confirm if both of these are worthwhile to play if I am only ever going to play single player? I know LotR supposedly has a campaign/story? Is it complete and entertaining played solo?

I got about a dozen enjoyable solo hours out of the LotR card game. It’s pretty clearly a “starter set” of a game that they hoped to do years worth of new campaigns and card sets for. Everything there, from the play mechanics to the deckbuilding to the production values, is solid, it would just be nice if there was more of it. But they never found a viable business model, and the developer is shut down now.

Each “quest” represents maybe a half-hour play session, consisting of a sequence of 3-5 encounters to survive, linked by nicely voiced narrative sections. Five quests make up a campaign (the campaigns tell a contiguous story, but you start fresh mechanically on each quest, so you can change decks between them). And there are three campaigns in the game, plus a handful of standalone scenarios. Once you’re done, you can try harder difficulties, build different decks, or try and complete a bunch of tricky achievement-style challenges for each hero to unlock additional cards, but there’s only so much to see.

So, I wouldn’t tell someone to buy it at list price, but if it looks appealing to you it’ll easily justify its share of the bundle cost.

It’s on Gamepass. Also bear in mind they changed the rules from the physical version quite a bit.

Thank you, that was exactly the kind of information I had hoped to get back about the game. It definitely sounds like something I would enjoy. If Scythe is even halfway decent solo, then the two games alone will make the sale for me.

Anyone tried this? im insanely tempted to get it!!

I could have sworn that there was a board game based on this? Seems like a fine idea for a PC port.

It is indeed, from a company called Tiny Battle Publishing (but if you told me it was SSI I’d believe you).

This is also on mobile, FYI.

Tabletop Playground just hit Early Access, $15, 10% off til next week. They’re doing a live broadcast right now showing off what it can do.

oooh thank you!

Not sure if this has been posted yet but anyways Quill is tempting me … anyone played it yet?

We are three games away from finishing our (first?) campaign of Charterstone (game #10). It has certainly been interesting. And buggy- but I think most of the bugs have been fixed now.

The app is a mixed bag. It’s very cartoony and cute which makes you want to not take it too seriously, but underneath it really rewards strategy, planning and engine-building. The flip side is that the play space is also very ‘busy’, which makes it difficult to keep track of what all the other players are doing and the overall state of the board. We can now see overall campaign points (you can’t see them until a certain point in the campaign), and I’m solidly in 3rd place out of 5. Which is kind of good/bad- on the one hand, I know there’s practically no way to reach the frontrunner, but eh, I should have played better. On the other, I’m in that position also being the only player to have never come in first in a match. I might be able to pull 2nd place overall…

I’d certainly play through it again, especially with a group that (probably) knows what’s going to happen- it would certainly be a different experience. I’d also like to try the physical version- I have a feeling it would probably be easier to follow what’s going on.

Thank you so much! That tipped me over the edge, I am snagging it :) For whatever reason naming things in boardgames has an appeal to me as well.

Fair warning on that point- the only thing we’ve seen so far that you get to name is your region of the board, and that’s during initial setup of the first game. That said, there are branching paths at the end of every game (the criteria for who gets to make that choice changes every game), and it’s possible (but IMO not likely) that other paths not taken maybe let you name stuff?