- easy to learn, simple turns
- how does luck or RNG play a role? (tokens)
- table space needed
- if you run out of table, moving pieces can be difficult
- strategy to use specific tokens to shape towards or away areas; certain tokens give more or less points (farming vs roads)
Week 5 Game reviews
This week we played Splendor, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I had played it once before and got my ass kicked, but this time I had an inkling of an idea of what I was doing. I think the fun in Splendor comes from both trying to get to your goals and also trying to guess (and stop, if you wish) your opponents from getting to their goals. From past experience, I knew the points mattered more than the nobles, so I was going after gem cards that could be used to buy nobles but that could also be used as points regardless. In this way, I ended up with the most points (9) by the time class ran out. I would 100% play this game again and would even buy it for my own collection of games.
Collecting Game Ideas and thoughts on “Bang”
1. Diced Up is a game where players compete to collect dice by rolling higher than their opponent. The winner is decided when no more dice are left in the pool.
2. Retyrant is a game where players use cards as money and compete to see who can retire with the most.
3. Stockpile is a game where players have to work together to get rid of all of their cards (collecting in reverse) while still remaining competitive by collecting other cards to avoid nuclear war.
4. Elevation Is a game where players use dice to collect cards, and the player with the highest stack at the end wins.
5. Amazing Trace is a game where players have to trace an original drawing in a limited time and vote on whose is best. The first to collect five “best drawings” wins.
Thoughts on “Bang”
The premise of Bang is a spaghetti western movie, which is a wild west themed movie produced in Italy or by Italian filmmakers. In this regard, the game manages to capture the spirit fairly well. Every card is written in Italian as well as English, and they are themed after old western films.
In “Bang,” Each player has a different role to play, and a different way to win. There is a sheriff, some deputies, outlaws, and one renegade. The sheriff wants to maintain order, so he and the deputies win if the outlaws are all killed. The outlaws want no law, so they win if the sheriff is killed. The renegade wants to be the new sheriff, so he wins if he is the last one standing when the sheriff dies. You kill other players by shooting them. This is accomplished by playing a “Bang” card on your turn aimed at them. Every gun only does 1 damage, but different guns have different ranges. The winchester rifle, for example, has a range of 5, meaning it can hit a player 5 spaces to the left or right of the user. When a player is out of lives, they die. There are also cards that can cause damage to one or more players, give them items, heal them, and more. All in all, I think Bang is a simple game with a lot of depth to it.
Week 5- Thoughts on “Bang”
I liked this game more than I thought I would. It was fun to see everyone try to figure out who was who as well as trying to kill the sheriff. I played with 5 people and I wonder If we played with more the guns would come in more handy. Some guns allowed you to shoot at certain distances but because there were only 5 you could pretty much shoot everyone with whatever gun you got. The mechanics of the game were pretty easy to follow and the instructions were easy to read and look back on if anyone had any questions about the cards. One thing I did notice was I found it odd that we used bullets as our lives when initially I thought we would use those to shoot other people. Otherwise, I felt this is a well crafted game where practically any age group could play and understand.
Bonanza review
- farming beans
- simple rules
- plant your beans in the order you get them
- most money wins
- can buy a 3rd field
- long game
- go though the deck 3 times
- can trade cards with other players
- must plant your beans
- first round is the longest
- last round is the shortest
- number of cards in the deck changes with number of players
- starting hand size changes with number of players
Week 4 Discussion and Game Discussions
Game Reflections:
- Dominion: Dominion first appeared like it would be a hard game to get the hang of, but I was surprised by how easy it was to learn. The game also had a great level of strategy to it, I had to be constantly planning out my next moves as well as dealing with unexpected circumstances such as pulling cards I didn’t need at the time or when other players would play cards that disrupted my hand. Overall a fun game that appears to have many interesting strategies that I would need multiple runs to learn.
- Carcassonne: Carcassonne was a game I have actually played a bit beforehand so I already knew some things going into it. I just had to be given a brief refresher on the rule and I was ready to go. I feel the game is easy to understand but there is still a lot of strategy and luck that goes into playing this game well. Overall the game was as fun as I remember it being and I’m sure this won’t be the last time I revisit this game.
5 Game Ideas
- Captain’s Lost Treasure: Captain’s Lost Treasure is a competitive card game in which players draw character, item or loot cards in order to be the first player to reach the Lost Treasure by defeating all other players or amassing the greatest wealth.
- Luck of the Flip: Luck of the Flip is a board game in which players flip a coin in order to move across the board, the amount of spaces they can move is equal to the amount of identical coin flips a player got in a row, the goal is to reach the end before the other players by landing on the most beneficial spaces and getting the best luck.
- Land Ho!: Land Ho! is a board game in which players amass an army before landing on an undiscovered island, the players then fight to take total control of the new land by destroying the other players armies.
Dominion and Carcassonne review
Carcassonne
- simple rules
- game ends when all tiles are placed
- get more turns with less players
- multiple ways to get points
- different tiles have different values
Dominion
- simple rules
- most green cards wins
- each player has there own deck
- build your deck as you play
- long game
- limited interaction with other players
- many different types of cards
- buy cards for your deck
- complex set up
Week 4 game reviews
Ronin, Delaney, and I played photosynthesis, the game about growing your trees to get points. It was a little strange at first, especially with the rotating sun mechanic, but I feel like it only took a round or two for us to get how the game worked. I had a lot of fun just trying to block the other two’s actions and generally planting my trees in annoying, obtrusive spots. Delaney grasped the objective pretty quickly and immediately went into gaining points. It was about 3/4 of the way through the game when we realized the rules said you could not use the same space in the same turn, which we had been doing. Despite Ronin’s monopoly on the four leaf square in the middle up to that point, Delaney ended up having the most points and winning. I of course had the least amount of points, but the greatest amount of ‘nyehehe’ energy.
Ames gave us a wee version of Carcassone to play afterwards. This one was really hard to understand because we didn’t have the rules in front of us, Ames kept getting pulled into other games, and we only had about 25 tiles. However, we did have fun collaboratively making a city in the shape of male genitalia before the game was over.
Week 3 Discussion and Game Ideas
Game Reflection:
Tokaido: Tokaido had an interesting premise of going on a journey and seeing and doing as much as your can before the end. While the game was not overly competitive, each of us playing still ended up slightly competing against one another as we started to reach the end of the game. Each of us also developed our own strategies on how to gain the most points, I ended up going for as many complete panoramas as I could get, this however did not lead to me having the most points. Overall the game was a relaxing and fun game that we still ended up bringing a competitive attitude towards.
5 Collaborative Game Ideas:
- Blind Trust is a collaborative game in which The Navigator, who gives simple directions, and The Saboteur, who gives wrong directions, with the goal of either guiding or misguiding the Blind Player to a destination by giving their directions.
- Card Flip is a memory/strategy game in which the players throw cards down onto the ground and try to determine what the last card in the deck is by analyzing the face up cards and knowing which could be left.
- Testers is a guessing game in which players must guess an object or edible item by blindly interacting with it and working together to guess the mystery object.
- Rock, Paper, Defense is a team game in which players must face the enemy team in games of Rock, Paper, Scissors with the goal of protecting their ‘base’ or destroying the enemy ‘base’ by beating each member of the enemy team three times and reaching their ‘base.’
- Circle of Letters is a memory game in which players gather in a circle around the main guesser and each of them take turns saying letters of the alphabet, the guesser must then guess what letter is not being said by carefully listening and determining the correct letter.
Pandemic Game Review
I really enjoyed the game Pandemic. I don’t think I’ve played many board games where players are playing against the actual game rather than each other, so the collaborative element of it really stood out to me, and made it much more interesting and fun.
The game centers around a group of four different spreading diseases, and our goal as players was to cure the diseases. The first time through, we only managed to cure one disease, and also got caught off guard because we hadn’t realized that the game ends as soon as the cards run out. Realizing this, and having a bit of knowledge about the game now, we went into our second play through with a bit more strategy and managed to cure three of the four diseases.
Cooperation Game Ideas/ Hanabi and 8 Minute Empire Reviews.
1.Quicksilo is a card game in which players cooperate in teams of two to build a nuclear defense system before time runs out.
2. Appointment is a board game in which players cooperate to make it to an important meeting on time.
3. Sprawl is a card based city building game in which players cooperate to create the largest and most prosperous city possible by managing resources and construction.
4. Man on the Inside is a card game where everyone must work together to determine who among them is the Russian spy using deception, investigation, and espionage.
5. Stack is a dice game where players cooperate to build the tallest tower possible without knocking it over by stacking blocks.
Reviews:
Hanabi
Hanabi is a card game about creating a fireworks display. Everyone is on the same team for this endeavor, but players cannot look at their own hands, meaning teamwork is vital. During a player’s turn, he may play a card or give a single piece of information. He may also discard a card to return a token to the board, which must be paid every time information is shared. The game ends when the draw pile is gone, and points are earned based on the number of fireworks of each color that were placed on the board. The game is pretty quick and easy to learn, but the rules lead to some interesting situations. Managing information and holding important cards is a tough tightrope to walk.
8 Minute Empire
This is a more competitive game where players compete to build the biggest empire possible. Actions taken and bonus resources are based on cards that are drawn from a queue, with higher cards costing money. This means there is an element of uneasy cooperation as players draw cards to try and get the cost of the more valuable ones down while also trying not to give anyone else an advantage. The rules are not written particularly well, though, in my own opinion, so the game was not easy to learn, and it took us more than 8 minutes.
8 Minute Empire and Hanabi review
Hanabi
- the payers are firework makers
- simple basic rules
- is corporative play
- needs at lest 3 players
- win by creating 1 of each firework type
8 Minute Empire
- build an empire
- compete against other players
- rules are complicated
- does not tell you if you can get more money
- mini more complex and shorter version of risk
Week 3 game reviews
This week we focused on collaborative games. My group (Mia, Delaney, and myself) first played Pandemic with Professor Ames’ help to set up. We didn’t read the character cards, but rather just picked the colors we wanted and went with the corresponding character cards. I had the contingency planner, Delaney had the medic, and Mia had whatever the dark green character was. In terms of acts, it took us a bit to get a hang of the rules, even with Ames helping us out. We finally got into the swing of things after 4 or 5 rounds, which leads us to act 2. At this point, we had cured but not eradicated two of the viruses and we were really getting into the swing of things. We were working as a team to try and get the other two cured… when we ran out of draw cards. Which Ames gleefully told us meant the game was over and we’d lost.
None of us realized that lose condition for the game and were, understandably, shocked and upset. Ames asked if we would play Hanabi, but the three of us unanimously decided to play again. This time, we read the character cards and talked it over with each other to decide which roles would be the best. Delaney stayed the medic, Mia was the scientist, and I was the dispatcher. We were able to get into it a little better this time, and thankfully those stupid epidemic cards all came up relatively early. It took a round or two to fall into our new character roles, but then we were off. We had cured but not eradicated three of the viruses when we all simultaneously realized there was only two more draws worth. This started act 3, and though we tried valiantly in our last two remaining moves, we did not win.
In the last fifteen minutes or so of class, we picked up Hanabi. This also took us a bit to figure out because a) the board was circular and b) neither Mia or Delaney had ever played chess before, which Hanabi is based on. I think we got a decent way through the game in ten minutes before just packing it up and leaving class as it ended. I am unsure that I would play that game again, unless it was with people I knew had played chess before.
Week 2- Thoughts on gloom munchkin and love letter
I wasn’t a fan of gloom munchkin, mostly because I thought the game rules were too complicated and a lot was going on before starting the game. However, I enjoyed the love letter. I feel this game was straight to the point and was easy to follow. It also seemed to get more competitive when other players started to collect the tokens of affection. I also enjoyed how each round of this game could either go fast or slow. As well as determining how fast you can be out of a round, there were some times I was out on my first turn and then there were others when I made It to just me and another player.
Week 3- Thoughts on pandemic
I actually quite enjoyed this game and want to buy it for myself. The metaphor it used was fighting off infections and trying to stop the spread as well as find a cure. I liked how this game made you work together and try to strategies the best way to clear the diseases. At first, my group almost completely failed since we only cured one disease but the second time we played we got the hang of how the game worked and we started to read more about the characters we were playing and chose which ones would be best to try to beat the game. We still ended up losing but we ended up curing three diseases which were further than the first time.