That looks really fun! No idea if a good game, but certainly a fun collection of thingies.
The original release is probably the fave boardgame of my wife and I. Its a euro where you’re all trying to build the best little Suburb city you can. Think of it as similar to something like Agricola/Caverna. It has a very Sim City kind of vibe.
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It’s a pretty great game overall. Definitely scratches the Sim City spot, but in a parallel competitive environment. Agricola is a good comparison, but I like this way more.
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It’s pretty good. I just realized we never did a formal review of it.
I plan to correct this oversight.
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I look forward to your Suburbia Episode!
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Interesting list:
Based on the criteria used, this is a decent enough list. Although as someone who doesn’t really play COIN or GMT games, I haven’t played any of the games recommended by Volko Ruhnke.
Yeah, Anthony and I were having a chuckle at how… scattershot? Esoteric? This list is. Volko is the closest to my current gaming interests (ie. I’ll take a look at anything he’s worked on) and I’ve played almost everything in his list, including the follow-ons in the descriptions - This Guilty Land and Root (but not Pericles).
7 Wonders prominence in the list threw me, I guess it did popularize drafting as in, “the game is card drafting.” Still like Fairy Tale (from distant 2004) more.
But Time Stories? I’m not convinced that Exit was a response to Time Stories.
They might not be directly related, but Tim Stories, and really Legacy Games in general, popularized the “one-and-done” model for select board games.
Without the popularity of Time Stories, I don’t think you get the Exit games.
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Fuck Time Stories, and fuck anyone that reminds me it exists. What a disappointing garbage fire.
I’m going to have to rewatch SUSD’s review now.
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Man, I’d much rather play Tim Stories.
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Tom Russell is on a Slack instance where I hang out, and he seems like a really, genuinely kind/thoughtful person. Now I know what the announcement he was alluding to yesterday is.
The thing that surprised me the most is that if you make a game that sells as well as Infamous Traffic, that can make you enough money that you can publish games full time.
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Yeah, it’s probably only possible because Hollandspiele has two employees, Tom and Mary. Plus the print-on-demand thing, so there’s almost no upfront cost other than preparing the games for publication and paying for art.
Probably don’t live in NYC either.
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Sooooooooo anyway @no_fun_girl and I tried out the Aegean Sea PnP via TTS (I may toss it up on the Workshop if folks are into it), and the first game was good enough that I want to continue trying it out!
It’s definitely complicated. It feels like an effort to fix the failings of Impulse, but in the process he took his usual MO into very unfamiliar territory. It really doesn’t map cleanly to any of his other games, so there was definitely a bit of “fish out of water” going on.
The rules recommend ignoring Customs for the purposes of learning the game, and I can see why. There’s a lot of complexity and consequence without adding on other strategic options - but I can also see that once you have a grasp of the fundamentals, Customs are necessary for the full experience.
We’ll see if I like it enough to buy it when it’s done.
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This is the “eat your vegetables” arc for learning High Frontier, too. The basic game isn’t very interesting… but you do pretty much have to bootstrap yourself into the full game.
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To continue feeding my unhealthy Chudyk obsession, I made the Aegean Sea PnP in Tabletop Simulator:
It uses minis and colored tokens to represent tucked cards. Slightly clunky, but better than nothing.
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Third game of Aegean Sea finished, this time a 3-player game with full customs.
I think I finally have a grasp on the rules, flow, and language of the actions. It’s definitely a game with a couple of learning curves, and at least one un-learning curve. I keep wanting this to play like a Typical Chudyk, and it really doesn’t. It’s not some haphazard engine careening wildly towards the finish line - it’s more like a thoughtful, purposeful march.
The asymmetry is strong, but not wild. Everyone’s still got the same options, more or less, but they manifest differently, and different factions wind up being able to affect the game state in powerful but unexpected ways.
It doesn’t seem to have big swings, but it allows you to set up and execute decisive moves.
I’m not quite used to the points scale, either. The games that have felt right have been tight. You spend 3 of your actions setting up a chain of events to get one Good back to your Home, all the while trying to make sure you don’t get thwarted on the way there.
It feels really good.
I am also now familiar enough with the game that the TTS version feels like it’s in the way. I’m using miniatures instead of tucking cards, and it’s requiring an extra step after you would’ve just tucked a card in the real game. The tucking step flows nicely and is intuitive, but having to generate the figure so TTS can actually represent the game takes you out of the experience. It’s very “meta,” as @no_fun_girl put it.
I’m trying to figure out how to recolor the PnP to be black-and-white and colorblind friendly, but I think I just don’t have those design chops.
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PAX Unplugged
Demos
Flotilla - Somewhere between Concordia and Anachrony. Users a hand of Card/Actions similar to Concordia, but the game changes from Exploration/Resource gathering to Development/Resource trading. Basically you’re building a city on the water, there’s a central pool of VPs and game ends when the pool runs out.
Kamigami Battles - Anime Ancient Goddess-theme PVP deckbuilder from the makers of Heart of Crown. (and cough other anime-themed deckbuilding games cough) This was actually a game from 2013 called Kanzume Goddess that was reworked and is being re-released. Honestly, the game reminds me of SMITE in terms of theme. In addition to standard deckbuilding there’s also a chaining mechanic similar to Nightfall. (Each card has 3 colors and the next card you play has to match one of those three colors.) There’s a certain element of “I only play this for the gameplay” to the art style, but it’s the least cringe inducing compared to what has come before.
Star Wars: Outer Rim
Demoed several turns. It’s Firefly, but much more streamlined and fair. Also there’s no overarching meta plot that favors certain builds or characters, just get 10 Fame points.
Full Playthroughs
Terraforming Mars - Played the new Turmoil expansion which is basically random events, but you generally have 2 turns to prepare for an event. There’s also the Terraforming council, which can enable several bonuses depending on the party in power. We played the base game with Prelude and Turmoil on the Elysium? Map (The one that isn’t the South Pole) and it made for an interesting game. The events can change up the timing of your planning where it might be. I waited a turn, let the Green Party get in power, then got 4 credit refunds on Greenery.
The Works (aka the Girl Genius card game)
Had helped Kickstart this manage moons ago, finally got play it. It’s a good mix between casual game that’s easy to set up and chat while you’re playing, and thought-intensive strategy. It’s equally possible to score 18 points for yourself or 10 points to another player. So it’s about setting up the board in such a way that it forces bad moves on the next player.
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