3081

This is fantastic. Added.

I actually made one myself a while ago, specifically for Cthulhu mythos games (arkham horror, mansions of madness, call of cthulhu pen & paper).

check it!

Feel free to add and remove entries. The current playlist is a cursory one, put together from a lot of random recommendations I found on bgg. Seems to work pretty well for atmosphere.

3082

Jason, have you had a chance to play Survive! yet? I’d be very interested in hearing your reactions to it. Same goes for anybody else who’s played it. Robert Florence had good things to say about it in his Cardboard Children column at Rock, Paper, Shotgun back in March.

3083

Survive is one of the few “non-gamer” games from my childhood that I think still holds up today. Not enough variation to really have legs with jaded gamers, but an excellent entry game for kids, in particular other folks’ (non-gamer) kids who want to join in but aren’t really ready for something like Agricola or Rune Wars.

3084

Is it interesting for adults who haven’t played it before or does it end up being almost Ludo-level simplistic in practise?

3085

For those who were turned off by the art in Glory to Rome, there’s a kickstarter up to fund a new edition of the game with non-terrible art.

3086

Theres some seriously weird shit on the internet.

Tony

3087

Oh, it’s a fine game, and I wouldn’t say it’s simplistic like Ludo appears to be (I’ve never played Ludo).

Survive involves a steady measure of strategy, difficult movement choices, combative cooperation, and bluffing in the face of randomness, hidden information, and a running clock. It’s easy to learn and plays quickly too.

That said, I prefer rather deeper games with somewhat less randomness, so it’s not really my favorite game. Once you’ve settled on a general strategy it doesn’t vary much from game to game, which is why I don’t think it has much replayability.

3088

Major Lazer better still be on that list. After 12 hours I think Mary Jane better represented what was going on in-game than anything else.

I wasn’t able to check out your list, but I’ll give a quick plug for Selected Ambient Works, Volume 2 by Aphex Twin. Some of those tracks were key for a King in Yellow session I ran a year back.

I can’t wait to see what else you have on there!

3089

That’s tempting as hell to support. It would be the first Kickstarter program I’ve pledge to, and I’ve never owned Glory to Rome. Hmm…

3090

The Blood Bowl: Team Manager game was released at GenCon: Here’s a quickie once-over:

Game says it’s for 2-4 players, but can support six players:

Game comes with six teams (Humans, Dwarves, Wood Elves, Orcs, Skaven, Chaos)

Each team race has 12 “generic” players (by Generic, I mean not-named players, but named by position: For example, in my demo game, where I was the Wood Elves, it was Lineman, Thrower, Catcher, Wardancer). This forms the base of your player deck.

There are also two “Star Player” decks: One for Dwarves, Humans, Elves, the other for Orcs, Chaos and Skaven. These are stars of the game, Names Blood Bowl Fans would recognize (Griff Oberwald, Varag Ghoul Chewer, etcetera). One fun fact: Morg’th N’hth’rog appears in both decks (although only one Morgth can be out at a time)

The primary stat for each player is their star power (rated 1-3 for generics, up to 4 or more for stars). Each player has two star player ratings, one for when they’re standing, one when they’re knocked down.

Each player also has one or more special abilities: Some are explained on the card, others that are common are represented by symbols: The symbols are:

“POW”: Allows you to attempt to tackle the opposition, hopefully knocking down their players and reducing their star power

“ARROW”: Allows you to draw extra cards from your team pile… this allows you to cycle through your team pile quicker (allowing you to use your stars and top players more often

“BALL” Allows you to get the ball (which adds to your star power when it comes time to resolve the highlight)

“SKULL” Cheating: For each Skull on a card, you draw one cheating token: Cheating tokens are placed face down on the card and only revealed when the highlight is about to be resolved: Tokens can provide bonuses to stats, additional fans… or the referee can see the cheating and eject your player!

Now, the winner of the game isn’t necessarily the player who wins the most games (although winning highlights and/or tournaments does help!), but accumulates the most fans by the end of the Blood Bowl tournament:

Each week starts by issuing a week card and one highlight for each player playing (for example, if there’s four players, you draw four highlights).

The Week Card is either a global modifier to that week’s highlights (for example, rain has flooded the pitch) or a tournament (one of the four majors)

Each manager has six player cards in their hand for each week, and in turn plays a player on a highlight or a tournament. For highlights, you have to decide which side of the highlight to play on (Each side of the highlight has three rewards, one on each side, and the “winner’s prize” in the middle). This means Highlights can only have players from two teams (one on each side), for example, one side may offer a fan reward, the otherside allows you to draw a star player, Tournaments are open to all teams.

Basically, to win a highlight you need the most star power. As each player is played, you resolve their skills (for example, if a player has the POW symbol, he can attempt to knock down an opposing player). Once all players have been played, you resolve highlights. The manager with the most star power at each highlight wins the central reward (Fans, star player picks, or coach abilities). Ties go to nobody (so you can play spoiler and deny people victories at highlights).

Tournaments are decided the same as highlights, but there are three rewards: Winner, Runner-Up, Loser: You get the Loser award if you just show up but don’t finish in the top two. Runner-Up is a decent award, and of course, the Winner gets the big prize: Again, if there’s a tie for the winner, no one gets it (they both are treated as runner ups

Anyway, I’ll end my quick review here, although I can explain/expand on things if people want

3091

Major Lazer is from the future so of course he stayed on the list. I was tempted to add more ML tracks, but the auto-tune haters held me back.

Thanks for the playlist Thomasch, I’ll try and find more unearthly tracks for you.

3092

It’s not a review until you weigh in on the gameplay :) You like?

This is a very expensive time to be a card game junkie…

3093

Thanks for the preview, Fozzie!

What did playing the game feel like? Fun, boring, awkward, fluid, simplistic, too complicated, …? I guess it could be hard to tell after one trial game. Did it capture anything of the spirit of Blood Bowl?

3094

It was interesting: It was a three “week” season, so each of us went first once in our three player game (the game suggests the youngest player gets the coin indicating who goes first for the first week)

There was strategic considerations a-plenty. For example, I realized that my opponent was targeting one highlight where I had the ball, because it looked like it was going to be close, so I played a Wood Elf LIneman, which had the special skill Guard, meaning that the player could substitute himself for any player being tackled).

Also, there’s a strategic factor at play… it IS possible to remove downed players from a highlight (you have to tackle a downed player to remove them)… so it’s possible to gang up on a player who’s in the lead. (Remember, only two players to a highlight, so if you remove the only player that someone has at a highlight, another player can step in and possibly lock that player out from the rewards)

Each team has its own flavor (for example, when I played my demo game, I had the special Wood Elf coach ability “Touchdown Dance Assistant Coach” which gave my Wood Elves extra fans whenever I had the ball when a highlight was resolved), and the generic coach ability “Apocathery” which gave me the ability to POSSIBLY stand up a downed player)

It was fairly quick, we played the three week season in 45 minutes, but that was with the demo giver explaining the rules with us, handing out cards, clean up, etcetera. The last week (which was only the three of us, the demo giver having been called away), only took 5 minutes to do, even without the hand-holding.

It felt both simultaneous simplistic (Star Power is the god-stat) and complicated (special abilities),

3095

Thanks for the playlist. Has anyone looked at Eclipse. It sounds too good to be true. I’m interested in seeing how it does.

3096

That’s neat. I think I might kick in a few dollars.

3097

Played my first game of Ghost Stories today (on iPad) and managed to win. Neat game.

3098

And Puerto Rico dropped yesterday for $8 (and looks like a competent port). I may be able to get rid of much of my physical board game collection at this rate.

3099

I agree with Jasper’s assessment. I prefer deeper games, but Survive! is entertaining, light, and plays relatively quickly. It’s a great one to play with non-gamers, or as an opener to a heavier game night.

3100

Played Elder Sign at GenCon today. I really like it. It’s very much like Arkham Horror “lite”, with the same general theme and a lot of the same ideas. I bought a copy right away. Seems to scale better for number of players as well. No time to write a real thorough writeup right now, but will do so when I’m back from the con.