dogbert
1881
I wouldn’t compare Pandemic to Arkham to be honest. I love both, but they scratch different itches & play on a very different scale. Pandemic’s a lunchtime game. Arkham’s an all afternoon affair.
That’s the thing, though. When I game, the evening has at least 6 hours in it. Some people prefer to maximize the number of games that they get played in that time, but I’d prefer to maximize the amount of fun that I have, and Arkham is way, way more fun for me.
Ghost Stories is probably a good coop alternative from what I hear, and I’m sure others here can make a case for it. I didn’t mention Arkham simply because you have to want the theme first and the coop second, and have a good chunk of time set aside for it that simply isn’t comparable to a title like Pandemic. Traitor coop has mostly pushed aside normal coop for me, though I think Space Alert does a fantastic job of developing a credible chain of command (especially with the full four players) and using communication against you as much as it is an advantage. It’s marginally more complex than Pandemic, but does a much better job of having uncertainty and meaningful decisions paired up.
Dominant Species: Saw this at the board game shop but it looked so damn ugly I put it down again. Is it worth another look? Hmm, 3 hour play time…
And High Frontier looks insane and awesome. I kinda want to play it but am also never sure I could find people to join me.
I picked up Bohnanza the other day, which I will try on my parents :O
Will be trying out Dixit, Say Anything, and Word on the Street with family and friends this Christmas. :)
Some people can’t get past the look of the game, and that might be the end of it. You can see at BGG endless pages of bitching about the look, and I think they are missing the point. It’s beautifully designed and I appreciate the clean look of the game, as when it starts to click your brain really makes it a much more vivid and engaging picture than it seems from looking at the back of the box.
It is a long game, but there are a lot of meaty decisions at all points and virtually no wasted downtime…it’s really about as much as you need to get your act together and make your next choice. I suppose with the right miniatures it could be agricola-meepled or something, but I have a tough time envisioning more stuff on a board that size that wouldn’t make it very difficult to gauge your choices.
Naturally, there’s the FFG approach to things which has its own merits, but I’m very satisfied with it. Just about the only thing I would change in a reprint is the use of Comic Sans, but even that becomes background noise once you dig into it.
High Frontier is all meat, and if you read that walkthrough I linked (especially if you do it while looking at one of the online color versions of the player sheets) it should give you an idea of whether it’s complex but doable or too much to be worth it. I think now that I understand it better, I could a credible job of pitching it to people on the edge.
Also, here’sthe kind of rules discussion you get about potentially overpowered patents in the game. You can completely ignore ALL of that and focus on the the 4 key numbers on each card, but it’s all there if you want it. I have no idea about the quality of the rocket science in high level terms since the speculative is so freely mixed with the tested from what I can tell, but it’s definitely enjoyable from a layman’s perspective.
Lilan
1888
Seems that Xmas father will be generous next week end… I heard he could bring me Twilligth Imperium 3rd ed. and shattered empires…
I’m like a kid, just can’t wait…
I pretty sure that the answer is “yes” but i’m asking anyway : anyone laready played it? I would like to know how “children-friendly” it is… (actually, i would like to know if my niece would be able to play or if i must take something else…).
Pandemic and Arkham Horror are weird, in that in high-level terms, their gameplay is VERY similar – but in the actual feel of the games, and what you’re doing moment to moment, they’re completely different. It’s like someone took the outline of the same game, then gave it to Reiner Knizia and Fantasy Flight to develop, and got the games they’d expect out of that. (I know Pandemic isn’t actually Knizia, but you get the analogy, hopefully.)
I know lots of people that like Pandemic a lot, and I’ve enjoyed it when I’ve played it, but it’s soooo logic-puzzly that if you’re not in the mood for that sort of thing, it’s not going to work for you.
peterb
1890
Isn’t it a 4-hour game? I guess it depends on your niece’s attention span, but I pretty much try to pick games with no more than about a 1-hour duration when playing with younger relatives.
Skinner
1891
Twilight is fantastic. The more players the better. Unfortunately I’ve only played the game about 5 times in the years I’ve owned it. I’ve never tried to play with less than 5. I always figured if got less than 5 people we’d play something else. Also, I’ve never played with anyone less than 18 years old. It’s not a complicated game to learn a 12 year old could grasp it. I just happen to have a shortage of 12 year olds…
However, the depth is amazing. I just love playing that game. It would be easier if your niece is a wargamer/strategist. Also, 12 might be a bit young to fully appreciate the wonderful design.
Edit - 4 hours? Hell. By the time the rules are explained and everyone sets in I’ve never finished in less than 6 hours. However, we play it so infrequently we kinda have to re-learn the rules about every time we play.
ckessel
1892
Yea, I’ll never play TI3 again. Played one, played next to one (at a game convention). Both took over 10 hours and it’s 10 hours with too much downtime. It’s a game that’d be theoretically great, but I’ll never get people to play it often enough to drop that time down to a reasonable level.
I probably would have given anything to spend the hours I did on crap like Risk and Monopoly when I was a kid on something much more substantive. That said, I’m not sure TI3 is a good place to start if you’re not already familiar with it and have specific reasons for choosing it with that person…something like Starcraft (the board game) would seem like a reasonable adjustment to your ambitions without compromising your vision of sharing magnificent space conquest with another person, and that seems to scale a lot better.
Perhaps if you gave the reasons why TI3 rose to the top of your picks this conversation would more useful to you.
Skinner
1894
You got to have buddies to play it with because of the downtime. At least you can fuck with each other when it 's not your turn. I couldn’t play it with people I didn’t know and like well.
You should try Red November. That is a cutthroat coop game if I ever saw one.
Also, I picked up merchants of the middle ages. I haven’t opened it yet and I’m starting to have buyers remorse based on the fact that I haven’t seen one review for the new version and that it sounds like there’s a lot of diplomacy involved which tends to go over very poorly with my game group.
LK - thanks for the tips. Some things to think about!
No problem, these are exciting games to talk about. Also, here’s the 30 year story of High Frontier and how he came up with the primary ideas in the game. You know, just in case I can further damage the case for the game with my enthusiasm.
malkav11
1898
It’s been floated as a possibility a few times at my gaming group and the host does own it, but somehow it’s never actually made it to play.
SlyFrog
1899
I’ve found with my kids that it really works well to break games like that up into 1-2 hour settings and have a half day or more break between playing them.
We (my wife and I) recently played Merchants of Venus with our 11 and 9 year old, for example. It went very well. We’d just play for an hour or two, get up and go play outside, run of some steam, watch a movie or something, eat some food, etc. Much later that evening or in a day or two they were all ready to go again and excited to get back to the game.
I’m currently trying to decide if I should buy Agricola, 7 Wonders or other for a friend for Christmas.
