The Game – Paper Dungeons

It’s an interesting topic to think about when look at a game. Why do some games hold up over multiple plays while others drop off? And it’s one that I might dive into further. But let’s look at it with Paper Dungeons. Now that I’ve played this game around 15 times, is it going to be one that fades over time?

I do think that a bit of the game has faded over time. In particular with the story element of the campaign. I keep on harping on it, but it’s not great. The story jumps around, this tournament, you can probably tell that it’s just a head scratcher for me. So with the campaign element of the game, I still come back that I want more. And I want better writing. And I want more and different monsters to fight.

That said, the game itself. I still like Paper Dungeons a lot. I suspect once I’m done with the campaign I’ll not play it for a bit. But it won’t leave my collection. And the competitive play is very different than the solo play. Fighting over who does the most damage to the monsters. Racing to get the gems. All of that gives the game an added depth.

The Drink

Last night it was bad for beers for me. Two of them, Slugfest Juicy IPA and Cabin Crusher both from Summit Brewing. Summit is a local to Minnesota brewery that does a good job with their beer. I would say that Summit is a brewery where everything is consistently good. Nothing is maybe amazing, but they really don’t have anything bad either. When you want a solid drink, Summit is going to be a good option.

Both of these brews are just solid. I think I prefer Cabin Crusher out of the two. But Cabin Crusher is a great beer for a very hot day. The lemon works well with the clean beer flavor to give a refreshing finish. Now, yesterday wasn’t warm enough to have it really, but it is still enjoyable.

Upcoming Streams

So I want to correct something I said last night. My plan had been to stream a new game, start a new campaign on this upcoming Wednesday. I now suspect that is going to get pushed back a week. Not because I don’t want to, but with the holiday weekend and family in town, it is going to be harder to learn a new campaign game.

That said, I will stream something next week. And this Wednesday at 8 PM I’ll be finishing up the campaign of Paper Dungeons. The following week will just likely be a smaller game one last time before I jump into a bigger campaign.

And if you want to help me figure out what that bigger campaign game is going to be, you can vote in the poll. I have been sharing it a number of places, and well, we’re getting a lot of votes in, so help determine what I’m going to play next.

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The List

This list was a little bit tricky to put together. I think I have generally valid reasons for not liking these games, though some more than others. Or often, I know that they are solid games but they just aren’t the game for me. I did leave a few off the list that I feel like I didn’t give a fair shake to, or something like Cards Against Humanity which I liked as a fine game. It just has a very limited life to it.

1. Concept
2. Codenames
3. Dominion
4. Forbidden Island
5. Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game
6. Red Dragon Inn
7. The Resistance: Avalon
8. Spot It!
9. Tsuro of the Seas
10. Dr Eureka

I’m sure that I have some on that list that you really like. Dominion, Codenames, The Resistance: Avalon, Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game, and Concept, I know people like those a lot. And, I think I do have some valid reason for them, though you likely will disagree with them.

The Beer

The Key Lime Supreme from Surly Brewing in St. Paul, Minnesota. This is a really enjoyable beer. It’s what I’d call crushable. I can get through three or four of those pretty quickly if I wanted to. They are especially good for a hot day. It also isn’t too tart, it’s more like drinking a nice tart lemonade than something like Duchesse where it has almost more of a vinegar flavor to it.

Upcoming Streams

So, I will try and get all of these onto the calendar so you know what is coming up. But I want to, I think next Monday, do the follow-up Top 10 to this past one. 10 Games that I like that I’m probably wrong about.

Wednesday, 8 PM Central, I, of course am playing more Aeon’s End Legacy. I’m excited to dive into the next chapter of that game.

And I talk at the end of the video of wanting to do a Pub Meeple Ranking Stream. The idea for this would be to stream, probably on a weekend, and just chat with people while I go through and do my Pub Meeple rankings for my played board games. To be determined when this would happen, probably a Sunday evening would be my guess.

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Let’s Meet the Fighters

Splendor

Splendor is a game all about collecting gems and becoming the best gem merchant in wherever it is set. It is a fairly generic theme, but it works for the game. Splendor, like I said, starts with you collecting gems to buy cheap cards that then give you more gems. However, the gems you get from the cards are permanent and in a tableau in front of you. So you collect more gems, but now you need less to get your next card. And if you can figure it out, you can build up those cheaper cards to then get more expensive cards for cheaper, or for free, and those cards generally give you points.

Century Golem Edition

Another game with gems, but this one is a little bit different. This one gives you a hand of cards that you add more cards to. You are trying to build your most efficient hand play combos of getting gems, and upgrading gems. When you get the right combination of gems, then you can trade those gems in for a Golem. And the golems at the end of the game are worth points. So with Century Golem Edition, you are trying to build up that perfect engine in your hand. Super fast turns and a really fun game.

Homebrewers

Finally, my favorite theme, we have brewing beer in Homebrewers. In this game you are competing to have the best beers in four different categories, ale, stout, porter and IPA. You can brew them and get some base points, but one of the big things in the game is that you can modify your brews. Maybe you have a card with yuzu on it, you can then make a yuzu IPA. That might give you more money, points, or raise you up in another beer. Twice during the year, you are then judged on how good your brews are, player with the most points wins.

Similarities

Al of the games allow you to get better at doing things as the game goes on. In Splendor it is because you have more permanent gems and with Homebrewers you have the ingredients on the beers. Century is a bit different, but you have an improved engine because of the new cards that you’ve add to your hand.

There is also that every game is about points. In Homebrewers you get points for brewing the best beers. Splendor you get points with the cards that you buy. Century Golem Edition, you get points for the golems and coins that you have. They also give the players a chance to catch-up. Though, Splendor is the one where this stands out most. Because the end game in Splendor is triggered by someone reaching a point threshold.

Differences

So, I already kind of talked about one. Century builds up an engine of card play. Homebrewers and Splendor have a tableau. Now even between Splendor and Homebrewers there is a difference. Homebrewers you trigger part of your tableau when you build, Splendor the whole power of the tableau is always available. So the engine building piece itself, while similar that there is one, how they each handle it is different.

And while the theme is an obvious difference, I think it’s worth pointing out that Century Golem Edition and Homebrewers feel like they have more theme than Splendor. If we go back to the clean versus messy games article I wrote this week, Splendor is the cleanest. This isn’t that it is massively more clean in game play than the others, but just that all of them a very neat and tight games, Splendor just removes more theme while doing that.

The Battle

They come out swinging, Splendor gets ahead with some fast and simple moves getting Homebrewers into a corner. But it, like in a button mashing video game, just seems to be doing the same basic moves over and over again. Homebrewers and Century Golem Edition get the upper hand knocking Splendor out of the ring.

Homebrewers and Century Golem Edition keep on duking it out in the middle of the ring. Every time Splendor tries to get back in, they dump it back out. The battle, in the end comes down to the two of them. Century Golem Edition keeping some cards back and changing up their moves. But Homebrewers builds up several solid sets of moves to keep pace… and the winner is…

Homebrewers

Homebrewers just beats out Century Golem Edition, though, it is really close. Both are engine building games and both are a lot of fun. I think that I just like the theme of Homebrewers better. It is fun to sit down and play that game, and it plays fast, and at the end talk about what weird beers you’ve made and if you’d try them. Both are really good games though. And I know a lot of people really like Splendor, but to me, I’m kind of done with that one. It was fun, but I know how it plays out most of the time now, so I don’t need to play it again.

Which do you prefer?

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The Games

Well, no spoilers like last time, the list will be at the bottom for those who don’t have time to watch the whole video. But let’s talk a bit about how I picked these games. This is a bit different than a lot of lists. The other two I’ve done, they were cooperative games and small box games. A game is either in a small box or not, though small can be debated. And a game is either cooperative or not. Or at least it has a cooperative mode anyways. For this list, it was my choice of what I had on my shelf.

There was an even split of cooperative and competitive games on the list which surprised me. And if you know my taste in games, there were five campaign style games on the list. Though, that’s only half the list, I thought I might have picked more. And there were some games that I left off the list that definitely could have made it.

So they are honorable mentions that I didn’t mention, but Forgotten Waters and Dice Throne Adventures are two of the top ones on that list. Lost Ruins of Arnak , Yggdrasil Chronicles and Detective: City of Angels also could have made the list. I skipped games like Vienna Connection because while I haven’t played it, I have played Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game which is the same system.

The Beer

Last nights beer was a local one again. This time from Lift Bridge brewing, it was a Kolsh beer, Lemon Bar flavored. It is an okay beer. I saw lemon in the name and I was excited for it, but like the pink lemonade beer that I had from Tin Whiskers a stream or two ago. While a lemon bar should be sweeter, the sweetness basically overwhelmed the lemon flavor. The lemon should have been a stronger punch of flavor with a sweet finish versus what it was to make it a more enjoyable drink. Still, for a hot summer day, I think it’d be a solid option, just not the first one I’d reach for.

The List

1. Nemesis
2. Dwellings of Eldervale
3. Middara: Unintentional Mallum Act 1
4. Clank Legacy: Acquisitions Incorporated
5. Reichbusters: Projekt Vril
6. Solomon Kane
7. Deep Madness
8. The Reckoners
9. Kohaku
10. Heroes of Land, Air, & Sea

Upcoming Streams

So a few options for what’s coming up next. No Monday stream next week, but I’m thinking some reviews and maybe a topic instead of a Top 10 for my next stream. So let me know what topic sounds good.

And on Wednesday, I think my plan is to play Railroad Ink Challenge, but I had so much fun playing Aeon’s End last Wednesday that following that up, I mght actually start playing Aeon’s End Legacy two handed for a bigger playthrough. Let me know your thoughts on that, I as I learn how to play it, I might have some polls for whom I should play as.

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Super-Skill Pinball 4-Cade

Like I said at the beginning this is a very fun game and a thematic roll and write. A lot of times roll and writes end up being very mechanical. There might be some theme wrapped around them or it might be completely abstract like Ganz Schon Clever.

Obviously, this is imitating a pinball game. And that just works really well for me. You can see more thoughts on my TableTopTakes review of Super-Skill Pinball 4-Cade.I’m not sure where it currently falls in my Top 10 roll and write games, but fairly high again. I think that the basic machine is fun, but I do like the hacker one more just because it gives you more to do and more choices. The game does a good job of simulating a pinball machine while still saying mechanically sound.

The Beer

I believe that I drank before on stream, Fantasy Factory by Karben4 Brewing out of Madison, WI. It is a good solid IPA. A good one for hot days, which is what I want around this time of year, especially with it being in the 90’s. I give a little breakdown on the loose rules surrounding the different types of Pale Ales from Pales Ales to EPA’s to IPA’s and just what that difference means.

Upcoming Streams

Assuming no more migraines, I am going to be doing my Top 10 cooperative games coming out on Monday. And then with Loki probably streaming some shorter games, maybe more Marvel United or other roll and writes so that I can watch Loki on Wednesday evenings as well. Let me know if there is a roll and write that you’d want to see played, assuming it can be played solo.

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The Game

Floor Plan, like I said, is a roll and write game. This one is actually a roll and write versus a flip and write, which are part of the roll and write family. So you can get a lot of interesting combos of dice. The dice are used to do one of a few different things. You can use the dice combo to create rooms. So if you roll and 2 and a 6, you can create either a 6×2 living room or washroom. The 2 is for the washroom and the 6 is for the living room. Or in the rooms and as landscaping, you can place things like doors, trees, furniture, windows decking and more.

Placing all of these things is how you complete your ideal building objectives. So, someone might want a pool in their place. So you get a set number of points of you create a pool with a deck around it of the right size outside of the house. And there are five of those objectives that you can score multiple times. You also score points at the end of the game for a certain criteria, such as doors with a stone outside of them or doors with decking outside of them. And the scoring changes each game.

At the end, the player with the most points wins. Or in my case, since I play solo on Malts and Meeples, I was going for a high score. Overall a fun game, it is a bit silly you don’t need doors in your room, but everyone wants some house projects, right?

The Beer

So, of course on Malts and Meeples we are going to drink a beer as well. Last nights beer was a tart ale from Surly Brewing Company based out of Minneapolis, MN. Grapefruit Supreme is definitely what it sounds like. A beer with a lot of grapefruit flavor that has been added. Now added fruit flavor in a beer is generally not my favorite, but I do like it in Surly’s tart ale collection. Mainly because a lot of tart beers can end up being too tart so this balances it out. On the flip side, a lot of beers with fruit can be too fruity, so this also balances out because of the tartness.

Upcoming Videos

Thanks to everyone who is checking out the videos. I hope that you are enjoying them. I am thinking about adding in another stream that is maybe done once or twice a month on the weekend. The idea would be to create more of a chat type of scenario versus game play. I love doing the game play and getting in 3 games for my trek to 365 plays this year is nice. But I don’t always engage with the chat as much.

So I was thinking, maybe a series of videos talking about some Kickstarters, or maybe some board game news and then dropping into a topic, talking about a game or a genre of games and just chatting about that. Of course, if people join live I’ll be interacting with the chat, answering questions and seeing responses. I will probably try this out soon, but let me know if this is something that sounds interesting.

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The Game(s)

Only one game this week, but it is a game that I have had a fair number of plays of now solo. And I wanted to highlight it as an interesting roll and write (flip and write technically) game.

Metro X

This game I originally got interested in when I saw Tom Vasel play it on the Dice Tower. It seems like a good puzzle and one that is nice and easy to teach. Now, I haven’t had the opportunity to teach it yet, I’ve only played it solo, but I will say, it is a very enjoyable puzzle of a game.

In this game you have a collection of routes that you are trying to complete on your metro transit system, one side is tubes and the other bus routes. You flip a card from the top of the deck and then fill in that number of spots along one of the routes. That sounds simple, but there are a few small rules that make it interesting for me. Firstly, the routes intersect, so you fill in a spot and it can count for two routes. But because the routes interconnect if you hit an already filled in spot on a route, you stop filling in bubbles.

And then there are also the transit locations. These give you points if you get the card flipped, but they also limit how much you can fill up. Each route can only use a certain number of cards. So while you have to use the transit stops when they are flipped, pretty often you don’t want to because it’ll mean empty spots at the end of the game, and the more empty spots, the more negative points you get.

Overall a fun game and you can see my review here. I will say that while I am enjoying this solo quite a lot, I think it’ll be better with multiple players. There is a lot of randomness from the cards, but when everyone one is getting the same randomness it will be interesting to see how much score vary. In my three games my scores vary a lot, but that is because of the card flips. So it is hard to compare.

The Beer

So last nights beer was a pretty boringly named one Schells IPA. Schells is a Minnesota brewery based out of New Ulm, MN. And I was not a huge fan of their IPA. I talk about the different ways to use hops and how different hops have different profiles. I tend to like the money piney hops and the more citrus hops. This was more in line with tropical fruits. And while that can be okay, it isn’t my preferred. Mainly, the tropical fruit flavor in this was a bit muddied between a number of flavors and the bitterness didn’t match with the flavor set. I tend to want my IPA’s to be more focused on the bitter.

Have you tried Metro X, what do you think of that roll and write?

And if you are a beer drinker, what hop profile do you look for in your IPA’s? Or do you even like IPA’s?

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The Games I Played

I’ve done a big board game battle with these three games before. I talk about them all in some detail and about what my favorites of them are. Really all three of them are good games and they use the same mechanic, roll dice three times, keeping one die and getting rid of all the lower ones. Then on the opponents turn, all the dice they didn’t use, you can use one. And as you fill in things, you get tons of combos which will give you more ways to fill things in.

Ganz Schon Clever

The most straight forward of the three. Ganz Schon Clever follows the basic rules that I described above. It has the simplest game play because the other two add in additional mechanics. That, however, makes the game easier to learn than any of the others and faster to play because the decision space is a bit more limited. I really like this one solo or at any player count.

Doppelt so Clever

I’d say that Doppelt so Clever is the most complex of the three of these games. The play is basically the same, and you have a new ability of unlocking. In the stream, my score is way above anything I’ve scored before. My previous best was around 230, I scored almost 300. Doppelt so Clever definitely scores higher at lower player counts because you can manipulate the dice more.

Clever Hoch Drei

Clever Hoch Drei is up there with Ganz Schon Clever as my favorite. You can get extremely high scores in the game. I really like it, because there are so many combos and the combos are fun. The game does have a few more complex rules than Ganz Schon Clever, but the basics are easier to understand than Doppelt so Clever, in my opinion.

Which of the three is your favorite?

Next Weeks Stream

My plan, as of right now, is to stream two handed play of Marvel United. Now, if that goes fast, I might play solo as well, demonstrating how that goes. The question that I have is, what heroes should I play. Right now only the base box is out there, so I can choose from the likes of Iron Man, Ant-Man, Wasp, Captain America, Hulk, Captain Marvel and Black Widow.

Who should I play as?

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The Unboxing

Heroes of Land, Air, and Sea: Order and Chaos

This takes the base game from four players all the way up to six players if you want. It adds in four new races, Goblins, Undead, Lizard Folk, and Lionkin. One of the main reasons that I picked this up was that the base box has pretty standard races. Order and Chaos adds in some more interesting races. Goblins might be pretty standard fantasy, but as at least playable races, the rest are fairly unique.

Heroes of Land, Air, and Sea: Pestilence

The pestilence expansion is smaller, but it is more of the same as well. It only comes with two new races to play, the Merfolk and the Birdfolk, but they are pretty unique. The Birdfolk come with an island that floats above the board. And the Merfolk come with a transparent plastic sheet that you put on the board covering up an island to make it submerged.

The Game

Since the unboxing was shorter than the previous week, I pulled a game off of the shelf to play as well. Deadly Doodles is a roll and write game that I’ve talked about and reviewed before. It has a fast solo mode, so I decided it’d be fun to play through a couple of games of it on stream and talk about how the game is played. I did poorly my first game, but the second time was a decent score.

The Beer

So, finally, but not least importantly, is the beer. This streams beer was a Chocolate Imperial Stout from Arbeiter Brewing out of Minneapolis Minnesota. I talk some about the differences between a stout and a porter or really the lack of differences that truly define it. However, the Chocolate Imperial Stout, at 9.7% ABV, was really enjoyable and had a very bitter taste to it, like a very dark chocolate. I am a big dark chocolate fan, and I like very dark chocolate, so I enjoyed the beer quite well.

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Cons Coming Back

Now, I’m not sure that I’ll getting to any this year. I’m hoping that GenCon can happen this year and that I can go. Though, I would expect it to be slightly smaller or at least slightly different this year. But I expect by the end of the year, Cons like Essen Spiel will be happening in person again since that happens in October. But I still hold out some hope if vaccines get distributed quickly enough that some version of GenCon can happen, if not 2022 for me, I’ll be back.

The Olympics

This is something that should happen this year. We’ve had the NFL season go off with some limited hiccups all things considered. And the Olympics should be able to be separated and played in a bubble like the NBA and NHL did no problem. So it’ll be fun to have an event like that happen, it is the summer Olympics so I’m slightly less excited, still, it’ll be a fun activity for the summer, and since we have a solid spot for a projector set-up, it’s going to be a good outdoor activity, watching them.

Dark One Vol 1

It’s Brandon Sanderson and not only is it Brandon Sanderson it’s a graphic novel as well. I am really interested in seeing what he can do in that medium. I love his novels, mainly the Stormlight Archives and the Reckoners series, so this feels like it’ll be something new and interesting to come out.

Backyard BBQ’s

Wait, how is that all that nerdy? Well, it is when you are really into smoking meats, I am excited to try a whole bunch of different things this year. I’d love to do bacon, finally. But also with that, I want to test out a brisket on the Traeger that I got last year and see about how I can improve upon the pork shoulder that hasn’t turned out as well as I’d hoped the past few times. It’s also such a fun time because I can experiment with different rubs and BBQ sauces as well. So sure, it is an excuse to sit outside most of the day and have a few beers, but there’s some nerdy stuff going on behind the scenes.

Going to Breweries

It’s another one of those obvious things because of Covid that didn’t happen much in 2020. I did and do try and support our local breweries by buying their cans from liquor shops or ordering from them directly, but to sit out on a patio again sounds great. And I want to do that fairly often if I can, just to continue to support places more directly after Covid as well because it’ll be easy to do what I talk about above, just sit out in the backyard and drink some beers there, but getting a growler fill isn’t bad as well. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to try some beers that I’ve missed out on this year.

And I could really wrap up with a lot of the repeats from before. I’m looking forward to a lot of the sporting events that will happen, the Royal Rumble, the NFL Draft, and those sorts of things that I like to nerd out about. And I’m really excited for some lesser things as well, such as being able to have an in person board game night again, getting the board game club back up and running. Just some of those normal things happening again will feel amazing.

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