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Cards Against Humanity is functionally identical to Apples to Apples, but with a surface level of juvenile humor that you must pierce before you get to the inside joke central group exercise. Both games are vastly inferior to Say Anything, which has a similar atmosphere but manages to be humorous, more intelligent, and reduce the amount of clique-ish bullshit.
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Nov 19, 2012 09:05
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Ramsus posted:Anyone have any thoughts regarding A Touch of Evil? Archenteron covered this pretty good. AToE has a great theme and awesome production values. But the game play is admittedly only so-so despite being one of my favorites. If you don't mind some ameri-trashy mechanics and love a strong theme and narrative flow, then you might like this game. Between all the expansions and free internet villians, there's a lot of variety out there. You can also play the game in two ways, competitive or cooperative. Competitive is most balanced out of the box. Coop is the most preferred mode it seems, but it has some wonky balance and scaling issues (potentially fixable with house rules) that can make the game a cakewalk.
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Nov 19, 2012 09:13
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Although Cards Against Humanity is kinda boring and a paper thin Apples to Apples ripoff, I don't hate it for those things. I instead bitterly resent that game because I didn't think of it first. That drat game is selling really well, ridiculously well for an indie title. I still think Pictionary is one of the best party games 
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Nov 19, 2012 09:27
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Cards Against Humanity is hilarious approximately one time. A single session over the course of an hour or two in which you go through all of the black cards completely taps it of all potential, at least with that same group of people. It's already been said; the humor relies on raunchy, punchy non-sequiturs and falls flat when the shock value is taken away by way of having already seen the cards. But those couple of hours are pretty good.
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Nov 19, 2012 09:42
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al-azad posted:Giving everyone their own set of dice cut my 4 player games by almost 20 minutes. I'm sure there were other factors but a good bit of time is wasted passing the die and trying to figure out where you're assigning numbers. Oh most definitely you have to give everyone their own set of dice. Not to mention the FFG dice have rounded edges so the roll all over the god drat place. Why do people make dice with rounded edges?? Oh and gently caress you im not using a dice tower.
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Nov 19, 2012 10:39
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BlueInkAlchemist posted:Should the Thunderstone base game be skipped, in your opinion? The cards are compatible with TA as long as you don't mind the different layout, so it's a nice way to expand the card pool as long as you don't mind the different art. I play both versions, on their own and combined, but I only play with the TA ruleset since it improves the base game a lot. I'd say, buy the base sets if you can get them for cheap but only use the TA rules.
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Nov 19, 2012 10:44
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Cocks Cable posted:Archenteron covered this pretty good. AToE has a great theme and awesome production values. But the game play is admittedly only so-so despite being one of my favorites. If you don't mind some ameri-trashy mechanics and love a strong theme and narrative flow, then you might like this game. Between all the expansions and free internet villians, there's a lot of variety out there. You can also play the game in two ways, competitive or cooperative. Competitive is most balanced out of the box. Coop is the most preferred mode it seems, but it has some wonky balance and scaling issues (potentially fixable with house rules) that can make the game a cakewalk. Between Archenteron and Cocks Cable, I don't have much more to add other than my enthusiasm for the game. It was much better loved by my group than Arkham Horror, which we had played quite regularly beforehand. If you value theme and simple, fast gameplay, I'd recommend it. Both Cocks Cable and I have experimented with house rules and custom villains/expansions, and there is a bit of design depth thats able to be exploited if you're up for it. I haven't played it in a while, and haven't even looked at the Coast expansion yet, but I can probably be talked into running a PbP again soon if theres any interest. CC has a pretty big overhaul for Co-Op that he's working on, and that I'd love to test out which introduces some more euro-elements to the game and takes out some of the pure randomness. As for whether the game needs expansions, I don't think so- the base game will serve you well for a long while, I think. It certainly isn't like Arkham Horror where you almost need Dunwich Horror to make up for some shortcomings in the system.
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Nov 19, 2012 11:08
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My first time playing Cards Against Humanity with friends was a lot of hilarious fun. Every time since that has been a cold, calculated effort to understand the nuances of other people's sense of humor for maximum points.
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Nov 19, 2012 11:46
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For those genre of games I generally prefer Absolute Balderdash although it has the limited replayability factor. It feels closer to Dixit to me, offerring the same sort of creativity present within that game than the simpler 'select a card' aspect of Cards Against Humanity and Apples to Apples.
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Nov 19, 2012 12:01
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So my brother went ahead and ordered Last Night on Earth and A Touch Of Evil. Of course since he was placing an order with Cool Stuff Inc I just had to order something (hey, it made the shipping free). So Galaxy Trucker and the Arkham Horror expansions The King in Yellow, Dunwich Horror and Innsmouth Horror will be here next Monday. I now have more games then time...and now I really want Twilight Imperium. Ramsus fucked around with this message at 13:21 on Nov 19, 2012 |
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Nov 19, 2012 13:18
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People trying to game Cards Against Humanity seriously and then wondering why it isn't funny anymore is sure a thing.
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Nov 19, 2012 14:18
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I think I've played Cards almost every weekend with the same group for a couple months and it hasn't really gotten old. Granted every time we have been drunk/high off our asses, exhausted, or actually playing at the bar. Dominion posted:People trying to game Cards Against Humanity seriously and then wondering why it isn't funny anymore is sure a thing. They might need to play with better people (better people may include not playing with themselves)!
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Nov 19, 2012 14:48
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Countblanc posted:Yeah it's cute when you play the first hand or two and then you realize that every card is some sort of sexually deviant behavior, a famous figure who you typically wouldn't associate with said deviancy, or a complete nonsequiter like "Bees?". FWIW, I'm pretty sure the "BEES?" card is a reference to this.
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Nov 19, 2012 16:38
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I enjoy some Cards Against Humanity. But will take a game of Eat poo poo You Cat over it any day I want to laugh so hard my face hurts. We played at a sports bar the other night and left our drawings on paper towels as a bonus for our waitress.
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Nov 19, 2012 16:49
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So I posted a full report for newbies over at the blog, and I'm going to dilute things down to general impressions and stuff here. I'll leave out the Artemis discussion as it isn't a board game. I'm sure there's a thread for it somewhere. Ditto for NetRunner. Dominion - Finally got to play this and I see what all of the hubbub is about. I love the replayability, and how I wanted to play again immediately after the first game ended. Until now I had Eminent Domain & Ascension as comparisons for deck-builders, and playing Dominion live really showed me how it's still seen as king of the mountain. Crokinole - Like curling & shuffleboard, this can get a lot more complex than it might seem on the outset. Also like curling & shuffleboard, it's better with beer. Lords of Waterdeep - I am never playing this game with the Mandatory Quests again, unless someone really insists on them. There's definitely enough potential for dicking over another lord without laying one of these on them. I see how they can be viewed as flavor ('Oh no! Orcs are attacking! Defend the city!') but they're pretty much universally accepted as terrible. Either way, it's still fun, especially if you're into D&D at all. That said, if you're really into D&D you might be wondering why you're not out slaying dragons yourself, and if you're really into worker placement there are better games of that type to play. It's balanced between the two camps really well, but if you lean one way or the other very strongly you'll be playing something else. I still like it, though. Escape - Jesus tapdancing Christ was this tense for me. I'm not all that familiar with real-time games of this nature and boy, was this an eye-opener. Yelling "I'm completely cursed and I'm not in the pit!" happened more than once to me due to lovely die-rolling. That aside, it was a hell of a lot like being in Raiders of the Lost Ark complete with big-rear end boulders rolling after me, the boulder in this case being the soundtrack. If Space Alert is anything like this, sign me right the hell up. I brought Chrononauts back from the mists of yore. Seems to hold up pretty well. It's got both a theme and a sense of humor that I love. Carolus Magnus is one of the most interesting games I've been introduced to by the co-worker/compatriot/friend who ran the weekend, and playing it with him and another experienced player was awesome. It's a lot more rewarding to manage a win due to canny use of turn order, wooden cubes, and a little math rather than a roll of the dice. I like nautical games. I enjoy Merchants & Marauders but that game takes for-loving-ever. Navigador could also have run a bit long, but one of the players was making a beeline for Nagasaki from the very start. Putting us on a clock like that kept the game shorter, and while I might have scored more if the game had gone longer (I was pretty invested in colonies), I can see how just about any strategy is viable for victory. I really like games where there's more than one way to win. Or, in the case of Pandemic, many ways to lose. Last game of the weekend for me was Legacy: Gears of Time. I love the theme and the aesthetic, and I'm trying not to let the fact that I got royally buttfucked by my fellow players, both of whom had played before, sour the experience. I guess they didn't like the fact that I played Internet so early in the game and the timeline, and my signature tech was the Analytical Engine which clearly needed to get shut down with the Fate card that makes it generate 0 score. Lessons learned, and all that.
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Nov 19, 2012 17:04
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Mr. Glass posted:FWIW, I'm pretty sure the "BEES?" card is a reference to this. I'm aware what the reference is, but references aren't inherently funny despite what the 16-32 year old demographic seems to believe.
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Nov 19, 2012 17:41
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Countblanc posted:I'm aware what the reference is, but references aren't inherently funny despite what the 16-32 year old demographic seems to believe. Old Bear...He likes the honey alholdem91 3 months ago 101 thumbs They don't allow you to have bees in here. goodturnbymacheda 1 month ago 38 thumbs
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Nov 19, 2012 17:47
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I still enjoy Cards Against Humanity, but it really depends on the group. A lot of people will go nuts over every "lol OH MY GOD" white card, and just pick the wackiest one each time, even when it doesn't agree with something as basic as part of speech. One time I gave my copy to another table at a board game day in Cardiff (I think I was playing Revolution!, a Steve Jackson game that actually manages to be pretty good) and I could hear them going nuts every five seconds and picking winners that didn't even work when you said them out loud. I think if that was my first experience with CAH I wouldn't have wanted to play again. Obviously, playing it for the shock value of the cards only works once, but if you're playing with a group that doesn't just go to pieces every time they see Two Midgets making GBS threads Into a Bucket there's plenty of fun in making actual jokes with the cards provided (the Virginia Tech Massacre: Betcha can't have just one.) That being said, in CAH the jokes are usually not so well-defined and the judge needs to creatively interpret a lot, so it's inherently not as good as party games where you can elaborate on the joke yourself. But still pretty fun.
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Nov 19, 2012 18:02
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hito posted:I think I was playing Revolution!, a Steve Jackson game that actually manages to be pretty good. Revolution! seems to be hitting my table every game night (since most game nights it's with casual players). I just bought the 5-6 player expansion and I'm looking forward to trying it with my family (and in-laws) on Thursday.
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Nov 19, 2012 18:30
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Dominion posted:People trying to game Cards Against Humanity seriously and then wondering why it isn't funny anymore is sure a thing. Hrm... nope, your stupid strawman doesn't work here. Try again next time, like you always do! (USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST)
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Nov 19, 2012 19:52
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Short assessment of post-Essen gaming (note very Euro focused, I don't play Ameritrash/party games)Also nearly every game I like has to have some kind of interaction, I don't like engine type games. Great Zimbabwe is really really good. Both strategic and tactical. If you take advantage of newbies, the game can be over in 15 minutes, but if everyone knows what they are doing, the games should last an hour hour and a half tops. The art is minimalistic but very well done. The rules are B/B+. There are some ambiguities in there but if you game a lot, you'll know what they meant. First player auction is awesome in that you have to give others money in order to win. Well implemented. Keyflower also is very very good, but there is no theme whatsoever. It's an everlasting auction game using auctions in a very different way. Lasted about an hour and a half including teaching. Richard Breese the designer was at BGG Con and I was able to have him teach. Iconography is pretty good and the mechanics are very smooth, you feel like your intuition won't lead you astray. Terra Mystica I just played yesterday with three. It needs more than three players. There's a lot going on in the game and no apparent strategy seems superior. 20 pages of rules is a lot for a Eurogame but I got through them. I'll see how it stands up over 10 plays, oughta be really interesting. Palace of Carrara was the surprise of the show. I had not heard anything about it, but after playing it I had to have it. Uses the rondel mechanic in a cool way, doesn't take too long to play and plenty of tactics. Be careful of letting one player load up on green buildings! Games I was neutral on: Played Ginkgopolis which has gotten a lot of Euro buzz. Didn't understand what I was doing, so I'll re-read the rules and try it again. Same with CO2. Although CO2 is far less complex than the designer's first game, Vinhos. I understood the game somewhat but didn't get the semi-cooperative part. Games that disappointed: Mymres. Just another engine game. Whoever gets their engine going first wins. Boring. Well the ants were cute but that's about it. Tzolk'n (the Mayan calendar game) Trajan is much more elegant and interesting than this game. And that's about it. I just got Fantastiqa as a kickstarter so I'll be playing that later this week hopefully. Felt overall that the Essen offerings were a lot better this year than they were last year. Last year had a lot of unfinished games or games that had an interesting description but failed to excite me while playing. A lot less of that for me. For one thing there's none so far that I bought that I want to sell. (Didn't buy the Mayan calendar game nor Myrmes). Mayveena fucked around with this message at 20:36 on Nov 19, 2012 |
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Nov 19, 2012 20:06
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BlueInkAlchemist posted:Escape - Jesus tapdancing Christ was this tense for me. I'm not all that familiar with real-time games of this nature and boy, was this an eye-opener. Yelling "I'm completely cursed and I'm not in the pit!" happened more than once to me due to lovely die-rolling. That aside, it was a hell of a lot like being in Raiders of the Lost Ark complete with big-rear end boulders rolling after me, the boulder in this case being the soundtrack. If Space Alert is anything like this, sign me right the hell up. Escape got a ton of hype at BGG.CON because it was quick and readily accessible due to a sponsored event where copies were being given out, but I think the game is really short-lived. I've played with 3 different groups and won the base game in 2 tries each time. After that, you're forced to add expansions in to keep it fresh; the problem is that you're still rolling the same 5 dice with the same simple rules, so there's not actually anything new to do after the first few plays. With a 10 minute game, that's pretty awful. Space Alert is way better than Escape. Speaking of Space Alert, Artemis, while not a board game, is basically like playing Space Alert in real-time (it is a joke) and was the most fun I had at the convention. It is insanely good. Lorini posted:Tzolk'n (the Mayan calendar game) Trajan is much more elegant and interesting than this game. I have to disagree somewhat, Tzolk'in is plenty elegant. The gears pull everything together in a way that makes everything easily digestible. The point scoring may be more restricted than Trajan, but there is still a lot to work through in terms of strategy. I only got one play out of both though, I really want to try them again. Your post on Great Zimbabwe interests me, I passed over it initially. Will have to check it out next month. Tzolk'in and Suburbia was the biggest hits for me, although I didn't get a chance to play Terra Mystica or Ginkgopolis. Kiranamos fucked around with this message at 20:25 on Nov 19, 2012 |
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Nov 19, 2012 20:22
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Forgot I played Suburbia. I try not to hate games but Suburbia pushes that button for me. I got behind, couldn't increase my population because then I'd be more behind. Bleh. It was a poor experience to be sure.
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Nov 19, 2012 20:39
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Kiranamos posted:
A great deal of it was played over the weekend. Even my wife, who declares board games as "boring" and "stupid" in spite of having enjoyed some in the past, played Artemis and, if I read her correctly, enjoyed it.
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Nov 19, 2012 20:54
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I have played quite a few games of Eclipse now, but have never played with more than three. I am absolutely sick of getting steamrolled by the one dude who gets lucky enough to grab the plasma missiles and fancy computer. Once that happens, it is game over. That guy ends up rolling 8-12 dice that only miss on ones. I am thinking about removing plasma missiles from the game, but there has to be a way around it other than hunkering down and attempting to buy shields/hulls before he creams you. Has anyone else had this issue? It has happened to me a few times now and it makes the game an exercise in frustration.
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Nov 19, 2012 21:37
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We've played Cards Against Humanity a few times, and the next day our jaws were aching from laughing so hard. I can see where it can get stale once everyone has seen all the cards already, but until that point it's pretty great. We had a few people in their 70s show up to say hello at a get together I was having just as we got the "What do old people smell like?" card. I had tears running down my face as the answers were read aloud. Philthy fucked around with this message at 22:40 on Nov 19, 2012 |
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Nov 19, 2012 22:38
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Lorini posted:Forgot I played Suburbia. I try not to hate games but Suburbia pushes that button for me. I got behind, couldn't increase my population because then I'd be more behind. Bleh. It was a poor experience to be sure.  Hope you'll give it another go, I thought it was really clever. The guy teaching our game gave us a tip to try to get income up as a buffer before going for population, which made sense and worked out pretty well.
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Nov 19, 2012 23:05
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Is there a cheap and effective method that would help preserve cardboard game pieces similar to what card sleaves do? Maybe there is some kind of laminate I could use. I don't necessarily need every piece protected, just specific ones that tend to get beaten up.
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Nov 19, 2012 23:07
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Ramsus posted:Is there a cheap and effective method that would help preserve cardboard game pieces similar to what card sleaves do? Maybe there is some kind of laminate I could use. I've heard of wargamers coating cardboard counters with Krylon matte finish or Testors Dullcote for this very reason.
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Nov 19, 2012 23:34
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Philthy posted:We've played Cards Against Humanity a few times, and the next day our jaws were aching from laughing so hard. I can see where it can get stale once everyone has seen all the cards already, but until that point it's pretty great. I've only played it once but it was a riot for sure. The highlight was when this immortal combination came out: Q: "Lifetime presents _________, the story of __________." A1: "A can of whoop-rear end." A2: "Land mines."
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Nov 19, 2012 23:36
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Kiranamos posted:
Yeah I think I will, but I won't be buying it so I'll have to hope others buy it in my group. And yes, it would have been nice to have some tips.
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Nov 19, 2012 23:49
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Ugh, I need to start using a mental checklist for Dungeon Lords. I had the trap-making room at the start of my dungeon, due to first-turn mining being locked out and being 2nd choice in picking rooms. No biggy, I am swimming in traps so I'm confident I can take out the heroes without losing it. Then I start working out how I'm going to kill everything before the last action round, because I've got everything I need. Except the gold I need to pay for the taxes, that is. Completely forgot about the bureaucrats coming to take away my hard-mined money. If I hadn't forgotten, I wouldn't have bought the 2 traps for 2 gold and I could have won. Instead, because I was feeling pretty dumb and didn't want to hold up the game, I did some very, very quick calculations and decided I could beat the heroes if I shorted the tax-imp 1 gold. Which I couldn't, of course. I needed that 1 extra gold for the cursed ring  This game is so drat unforgiving, it's actually awesome. Because I made a pretty big blunder, I lost 3 points to unpaid taxes, 2 points for losing the room, 2 points for losing the tile, 3 points from the exclusive unconquered tiles title and I would have been able to attract and beat the paladin in year 2, considering I'd be getting loads of free traps. At least I learned something that game. My cat is dangerously intrigued by the little imp figurines. Tried to paw them off my board 3 times.
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Nov 20, 2012 01:50
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You really need to squirrel away your tax or feeding money to another spot on your board so you're not tempted to spend it unless it outweighs the penalty. That never fails me.
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Nov 20, 2012 01:54
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Double post butKiranamos posted:I picked up a couple of these pins if any grognard (Tekopo) is interested: PM me if want one of these, I think I have like 4 now. I assume they can just go in a regular stamped envelope or what?
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Nov 20, 2012 04:56
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Kiranamos posted:Double post but I... I.. I don't have PMs 
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Nov 20, 2012 11:10
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To those of you that have played Suburbia and have also played City Tycoon how do you compare them? This probably only applies to Lorini as City Tycoon seemed to have slipped under the radar in the U.S. Also there's a Might and Magic: Heroes game coming out, so yeah I gotta buy that! I guess it's out in Polish and there was an English copy demoed at Essen. I can't imagine that it's better than Mage Knight, but hopefully is different enough for me to want to own both games.
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Nov 20, 2012 12:12
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I've been playing and enjoying Race for the Galaxy lately. The iconography is a bit confusing but otherwise it's a pretty stellar (pun!) 2-player game. What's the consensus on the expansions? Do they add anything meaningful to the experience? How well does the solitaire variant in the first expansion work?
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Nov 20, 2012 14:46
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Lawen posted:I've been playing and enjoying Race for the Galaxy lately. The iconography is a bit confusing but otherwise it's a pretty stellar (pun!) 2-player game. What's the consensus on the expansions? Do they add anything meaningful to the experience? How well does the solitaire variant in the first expansion work? The first two expansions are essential, the second adds a mechanic that's unpopular and optional, the third adds a mechanic that's unpopular and mandatory as well as some stuff to deal with the fact that it makes the deck too thick to really work anymore. You should add an expansion once you start feeling like you have a good handle on the flow of the game and discover how wrong you were.
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Nov 20, 2012 15:29
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So I got Seasons in the Dice Tower secret Santa the other day and gave it a play last night. It was kinda the wild card on my wish list, figuring I'd throw on one I didn't know much but was hearing a lot of hype about. I was digging the mechanics, how it finds a good application for 7 Wonders' drafting and makes a lighter but more-fun-for-it type of engine building. And the artwork is really attractive. But as much fun as I felt like I should be having, it fell short mostly because I was winning incredibly lopsidedly. About halfway in it became clear that I was sweeping it, and she was left with very, very few options, and that makes it hard for either person to enjoy it. I think it's because I'd gone through the rules twice already and intuited that the drafting was about engine building, while she figured that she might experiment with the cards on the first play-through. Hopefully when we play it again that disparity will even out. Is that a common problem people have had? Also, one of our beloved goddamn rats chewed up a card, but Asmodee seems to have their customer service down, so it ain't so bad.
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Nov 20, 2012 16:43
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SinetheGuy posted:But as much fun as I felt like I should be having, it fell short mostly because I was winning incredibly lopsidedly. About halfway in it became clear that I was sweeping it, and she was left with very, very few options, and that makes it hard for either person to enjoy it. I don't think this is a criticism specifically for Seasons, but it's just inherent to any drafting game. If you draft poorly in MTG or 7 Wonders, for example, you probably know you are going to not win or at the very least, be severely disadvantaged. This is mitigated in MTG by player skill and 7 Wonders by the fact that the cards don't do anything else besides give you points (ie, they don't change the state of the board), but it's still a factor. I think the main problem with Seasons' draft, and I don't think it's too big a deal, is that there's no real signaling mechanic, which is a pretty big skill component in an MTG draft (if it isn't obvious, this is my gold standard draft game), so you can't really hate draft too much. Rather, Seasons' draft seems to be about figuring out the best combo and hoping you can pull it off, sort of like Agricola's draft mechanic but without a 2 hour long game attached to it, but in Agricola's case, the draft mechanic isn't what is front and center. 50 cards is sort of a shallow pool to choose from too, so hopefully an expansion or two will help with that, because I really like the game. And the art is incredible.
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Nov 20, 2012 16:53
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