downtime | Nerdologists https://nerdologists.com Where to jump in on board games, anime, books, and movies as a Nerd Thu, 12 Sep 2024 11:51:39 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.1.1 https://nerdologists.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/nerdologists-favicon.png downtime | Nerdologists https://nerdologists.com 32 32 The Codenames App – Better Than Codenames https://nerdologists.com/2024/09/the-codenames-app-better-than-codenames/ https://nerdologists.com/2024/09/the-codenames-app-better-than-codenames/#respond Thu, 12 Sep 2024 11:50:12 +0000 https://nerdologists.com/?p=9146 There's a Codenames app out, it's much like the base game. But I think it's better than just playing Codenames for two main reasons.

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I think that Codenames is an okay game. There is one main issue that I find that I have with it. So when there was an app announced or at least previewed on the Dice Tower, I thought, okay, this might be fine. Now, the app is out and I’ve been playing it. How does the app for Codenames compare against the game, and is it an enjoyable time? I’m not going to tell you have to play the game, but I am going to talk about the app, so let’s dive into what the Codenames App does better.

Why I Don’t Like Codenames

Let’s lay the groundwork. I expect that a lot of people like Codenames a lot. And for me, it is basically always a miss. I know, in fact, that my opinion is less than popular because Codenames sells really well, which means that people are trying it and buying a copy for themselves. Which, even though it isn’t for me, I like because more people are playing games.

But what is it about Codenames that isn’t for me? Firstly, it bills itself, or gets treated like a party style game. It really isn’t a party style game. There is a lot of downtime of people thinking and staring at the board. Either the spymaster who is coming up with their next clue. Or the guessers who are using the clue. And that doesn’t make for a party like experience. It is only even okay as a social experience or a lighter game that way. So first issue, there is too much downtime.

Secondly, you are either clever or wrong. Let me talk about this one a little bit more, but when you give a clue either you give a good clue and people get it. Or people mess it up, or you mess it up, and it goes wrong. In Codenames, which is already tight with your creativity, it is a game that can make you feel bad or make you feel dumb. This ties into the first issue, for a game that is supposed to be lighter, that doesn’t feel good.

The App Is Better

Downtime

The app fixes a lot of these issues in a lot of ways. Firstly, let’s talk about that downtime. The great thing about an app is that the downtime doesn’t matter. How does it not matter, like almost every app you expect that there is going to be time between when you take your turn or action and when you can play again. Apps always teach us that, there is a timer before you get another life or attempt in other games. We know you can’t just sit there and wait with an app.

Plus, downtime is less of an issue when you have five or ten games going. And it is easy to play that many games. Again, why? Because Codenames is a game where context doesn’t really matter. I need to know the word you give as a clue and how many guesses I have. That’s going to be it. If I missed one the previous time or sometime before, I look at the history and see that. I don’t need to hold anything in my head. So when I check, I play a few different games.

Finally around this idea of downtime there are solo challenges as well. Somethings that you play, either giving clues to a group of others or trying to solve those clues yourself. But it’s a one off, get the clue solved and call it good and that’s it. Nice quick hits that you can play. They refresh even more slowly, but it’s a filler activity between game play, or can be the only way you play the game and you know your exact timings.

Cleverness

I think that the app also encourages some more cleverness. Let’s start with the solo challenges. When I play as the spymaster, I get rewarded for giving more answers for the one clue I give. So it encourages me to push for some risky clues and guesses. And that is great because it takes away the pressure of winning all for the sake of winning. Yes, that sounds odd, but I don’t have feedback across the table of people thinking it was a dumb clue.

This then spills over into the regular games as well. I play with real people in those games. But there is no one sitting across the table from me. There is no immediate feedback on if I did a good job or not. And if I make a mistake, it’s easier to gloss over it because I am playing a bunch of other games. And because there wasn’t five minutes of me sitting in front of people only to give a bad clue or only to make a bad guess.

It takes away that human element from the game. Now, normally I find that to be a bad thing. On BGA (Board Game Arena) it is often a bit of a miss. Things take so long and you lose context and reads on people for games that might need them. But here, it’s easier to just brush it off and move onto the next thing.

Final Thoughts on the Codenames App

I expect that there is more that I can talk about this game. There are likely going to be more features that I can talk about. And there are even some elements, like getting words and unlocking certain modes of the game that I didn’t talk about. A lot of that falls into standard app stuff. And I mean that in a good way.

But in terms of what it feels like to actually play the game, I really like it. I think it is a much more preferable way to play the game. And I hope that I laid out why I thought that well. I realize that your milage might be different because you might like Codenames a whole lot more than I do. But even if you do, I think the app will scratch an itch that gives you a similar feeling to playing it. I don’t think it’ll have people getting rid of their copies, but playing it alongside and if you don’t like the game that well, like I don’t, it might help you enjoy it more.

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Good Big Group Board Games https://nerdologists.com/2023/03/good-big-group-board-games/ https://nerdologists.com/2023/03/good-big-group-board-games/#respond Mon, 13 Mar 2023 13:02:07 +0000 https://nerdologists.com/?p=7853 I play with a larger group of people, six or more, pretty often. For sure once a month, and sometimes we pull out party games.

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I play with a larger group of people, six or more, pretty often. For sure once a month, and sometimes we pull out party games. Or party games are going to be in the mix. While I enjoy some party games, there are a lot of others that just rotate through my collection. They are fun a couple of times and then I move on. This is very common for party games where this is one hook or joke to the game. Once you play it, you know it, and additional experiences aren’t the same. What are some other options for big group board games?

So looking at this topic, I don’t just want to give you a list. I will give a few at the end that I like. But instead, I want to create, like I did for campaign games here, a guide to help you find good big group board games for yourself. What are some qualities to look for?

How To Find Good Big Group Board Games?

All my categories are going to be compared, at least to some extent, against party games. Because what I am looking for is an alternative to party games. Something that can play at six or more, it might only be up to seven, but offers that fun experience and offers that big group experience.

Downtime

So firstly, the game should limit downtime. Downtime is an major enemy in big group games. Or even in a lot of games. If a game plays in the time frame given with two players does it with four or six players. Often times that time frame grows considerably the more you add players. So a good big group board game is going to keep to a minimum.

For party games this is often done by putting you on teams. So half the time you are playing some element of the game. Or another way is when everyone is doing something, writing an answer, picking cards, at the same time. Everyone is engaged. To successfully move from party games, keeping downtime to a minimum is going to be key.

Via Magica
Image Source: Hurrican

Complexity

Next up is complexity, keep it simple, stupid. Again to compare to party games, they are dead simple. Often times the most complex part is how scoring is done, and that is a detriment to the game. And with moving out of party games into big group games, keep it simple.

There are a few reasons for that. Firstly, it keeps downtime to a minimum. So see above how that is important. If the decision making space is simple enough, turns won’t take a long. Secondly, it makes it easier to teach, and you will teach this game a lot if it’s a good one. Because with a larger group you are more apt to have someone who doesn’t know the game. You might not, but it is more likely. Thirdly, it keeps the stakes of the game lower. And you might want them higher, but we are replacing a party game, so nothing too cut throat or where it feels like a wrong move and you lost the game.

On the flip side, as you try and replace a party game. Do not go too simple. The goal is not to replace a party game with another party game. So the complexity is going to be higher, but just keep in mind that Twilight Imperium and Heroes of Land, Air, and Sea play over six but wouldn’t be a good replacement.

Game Length

This one there is more wiggle room on. But I would argue that is because of a mistake that party games make. They don’t give you a good end point. This is again part of the too complex rules for scoring. If it is too complex, no one knows how or when the game ends, so you just play as long as you want. Often times this is until after the game has worn out it’s welcome.

So there is room in this one, but often times you want that filler length game, that twenty minutes, maybe up to forty. Something that can fit between games as a bit of a breather. And the reason for this is that with a lower complexity the longer a game goes, the less interesting it might be. Now there are ways around it, it might be simple but you do more or have more choices as the game goes on. So that is a smart build. But often times with a more limited decision making space, you want to limit how long the game goes.

Theme

Theme matters here, because a party game generally has an innocuous theme. Now, an easy exception to that is Cards Against Humanity with has a very specific target audience for it’s theme. But most of them give you a friendly theme or no theme at all.

As you move away from big group games just being party games you need to consider the theme. If it’s a bloody heroes killing monsters with dark artwork, that might not work for your group. Keep the theme more generic when you play a big group game. That is going to cast a larger net and catch a bigger group who might want to play.

The Great Split
Image Source: Horrible Guild

Decision Making

Finally, and this one I touched on with complexity, but give a good but limited decision making space. And I think this is where a good big group game diverges from a party game. Often times you can, at least in some party games, put in a random card or answer and win just as often or more than if you put in thought to it.

So a good big group games is going to add in some real decision making while keeping the game pretty simple. You don’t want it to feel like you are playing the next big game. But at the same time, you don’t want it to just be another dumb game or a game purely with luck. A good replacement big group game is going to offer a limited window of choices.

What Are Some Examples?

Via Magica

Via Magica, and another below, I qualify as a gamers bingo. Something is drawn and everyone places in this case an animus or spirit on a portal that they are trying to open. Then another is drawn, and you do so again. You try and complete opening portals and first to seven ends the game, then you tally up points.

This one works well because the basic actions of the game are simple. You draw and place. And everyone is doing that at the same time from a single draw of a token. The decision making comes in two areas, firstly where you place on your portals, though that is a bit of a looser decision space. The other way is in what portal you get so you can push for more points or getting bonuses. That is where the game gives you most decision making.

Sushi Go Party

Sushi Go Party is another great options. This one offers, I think, a larger decision making space. But it keeps it limited. You setup a group of sushi and other food from a Japanese restaurant and shuffle those cards together. Then over a series of three rounds you draft cards. And that drafting is all done at the same time making it the speed no matter the player count.

This is definitely one with a few more decision. While the core mechanics stay the same, you need to learn the set of cards you are drafting from. Once you know them, it makes the turns simpler. So the game actually picks up speed as time goes on, because you learn more about the pool you are drafting from and what you want to go for.

Super Mega Lucky Box

This is the other bingo game. And it is much more bingo. As you complete columns or rows on cards you get bonuses that allow you to complete more. And you get points for completing 3 by 3 grids completely. Much like Via Magica, as cards are flipped with numbers for your bingo grid, you fill in a spot. And everyone does so at the same time.

This one I think offers more decision making, though, because of the bonuses, you might really be pushing for a bonus. And it offers more ways or more consistency in manipulating the number. While Via Magica lets you turn some things into wilds, if you get the right cards, Super Mega Lucky Box, always offers a way to do that, assuming you collect the right resource.

Super Mega Lucky Box
Image Source: Gamewright

The Great Split

Next up we have The Great Split. This one kind of has the feel of drafting but the main mechanic in the game is I split and you choose. That I think makes it different for a bigger group game. Because everyone is picking a combination of things and splitting it into two groups.

I also think that The Great Split is one where it does offer more decision making space. Creating that good split where you’ll get back what you want but you won’t be giving your opponent too much is an interesting conundrum. For that reason, this game might run longer because some players will need more time to create that split. But every player is overlapping on when they create their split.

The game is really about going up on tracks to get the most points possible. And it pulls that off well. You are nudged in a direction by the starting card you get, but then you can really play around with it. And there’s enough variability to keep the game feeling different.

Welcome To…

Finally, and I could have picked a number here, we have Welcome To… It’s like all the rest in that everyone is doing stuff at once. You have a a setup of three pairs of cards and you activate one to work on building out your perfect town. Plus there is more going on with it.

This one has a bit more of a teach than some of them. Mainly because there are a number of moving pieces and how scoring in a lot of different areas works. But the game offers you just the right number of choices, so you always are considering what is going to be the best option for you.

Final Thoughts

There are a lot of good games out there for bigger groups. But getting that one that hits the right combination is big. Because so many when you go below this level that I put out here, tend to not offer anything more than a party game. But going too far in the other direction, now you out of that almost filler type of category. So it is a balancing act.

Now, with all of this said. If you enjoy a good party game, that is great. I have party games in my collection that will stay because I really enjoy them. But sometimes you get tired of always pulling out a party game for a big group. Hopefully this helps find games that work for big groups, but aren’t too much to handle.

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Board Games Without Too Much Downtime https://nerdologists.com/2021/03/board-games-without-too-much-downtime/ https://nerdologists.com/2021/03/board-games-without-too-much-downtime/#respond Tue, 02 Mar 2021 16:37:37 +0000 https://nerdologists.com/?p=5398 A complaint of board games is that there can be too much downtime. How do you limit that in the games you play?

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One fairly common complaint is that board games have too much down time. People get bored waiting for this next turn to come around. And I can get that, especially for a few types of people. If I can decide what I’m going to do on my turn and then I have to wait 15 minutes for another person to take their turn, then do mine in a minute, the disparity can get annoying. Or if you aren’t interested in board games as much, maybe more of a video gamer the time between turns can be longer than you might want.

So how do you keep this from happening?

Now, I could talk about analysis paralysis players here, but often they can cause some of the problems. But I just want to touch on that type of player briefly. It’s hard to remove downtime for any game that they are playing. It is going to be somewhat incumbent upon that player themselves to fix the problem simply by having an internal clock and being aware that they need to make a decision. And even then, it can be hard for some analysis paralysis players to make a decision.

The other big thing that you can do is play game where everyone takes their turn at the same time. Or at least there are things that people do on the other players turns. There are a lot of roll and writes that I’ll be using as an example here. Welcome To…, MetroX, Railroad Ink, Criss Cross, Second Chance, Dungeon Doodle, and more, all have players doing things at the same time. Then there are games like Ganz Schon Clever, Twice as Clever, and Clever Hoch Drei for games where players take actions or use dice on their opponents turns. For a non-roll and write game, would be something like Dice Forge where you are rolling dice every turn, even when it’s not your turn.

But You Want to Play Other Games?

There are a ton of board games out there, though that aren’t great for people playing at the same time. But it’s hard to not play some games in your collection because they don’t work for everyone in your group. So how do you get them to the table?

For me, I think it’s about creating time and space with the people you want at the table for that game. Fairly often, or the goal anyways, is to do a couple of board game nights a month, as well as some of my campaign stuff. I look it my board game nights as two different groups. There is a casual group where I focus on games with limited downtime or limited strategy so that we can chat through them for at least a little bit of the night. Then I have another game night where the point is to play a larger game. And that group, I tend to pick players who can get through a big game in a night. I know that some games would just not work in a night with some people, and no real knock against those people, but knowing the audience is important.

Image Source: Board Game Geek

The challenge can arise, however, if you don’t have a ton of people to play with. And to get these other games you have to play with people who get distracted or take a very long time on their turn. There are a few things you can do to help.

Set the Expectation that you are there to game.

Too often the confusion arises because people who show up to play games distract themselves with non-gaming things. Now, I’m not a stickler on this one, I don’t make people turn off cellphones or keep them away from the table. But the expectation is that people might glance at their phone, but no scrolling of Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook while playing a board game at the table, no playing an app game while you play another board game. The majority of the focus should be on the game and the people at the table. Just doing that will mean you don’t get as much downtime as people won’t be as likely to miss when the turn moves to them.

Set the Expectation that you try and win but winning isn’t everything.

This focused more on those analysis paralysis players. But it can be for competitive players as well who might try and quarterback other peoples moves in a cooperative game. Games work best when all the players are trying to win. But winning shouldn’t be everything. So having some chit chat around the table, letting people take their turns, and not taking too long on your turn to get the perfect turn help a ton with the downtime. I’m not always the best at letting chit chat happen at the table, but my goal is to never slow down the game, especially early game, with long turns. Maybe if there is an important decision if I try and win one way or another way, I might take longer, but make decisions faster, most of them don’t matter that much.

Play a Variety of Games.

This one can be the hardest thing for some people. They are stuck with only liking certain types of games, and I talk about playing the bigger games. But sometimes you need to just play those littler or lighter games with no downtime. Yes, someone can AP over what to do in Welcome To… but not nearly as much, and there is overlap in players doing actions. Also, when a player is creating downtime, it stands out more so than just then taking a turn amidst a lot of other turns that they are taking longer, if everyone is always waiting on them. And this can be a learning experience for other games as well. But sometimes just go towards games that help remove it.

Those are just some thoughts on downtime in board games, it certainly is something that can push some players away from board gaming who might be interested. So when thinking about your games, think about how you can limit it and how it can be made more fun as you play for everyone at the table.

What are some of your favorite games with no or little downtime?

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Descent: Legends of the Dark – Spiel Digital Announcement https://nerdologists.com/2020/10/descent-legends-of-the-dark-spiel-digital-announcement/ https://nerdologists.com/2020/10/descent-legends-of-the-dark-spiel-digital-announcement/#comments Fri, 23 Oct 2020 13:28:38 +0000 http://nerdologists.com/?p=4861 As a “good” board gamer, I get excited about new games all the time, there are always new games that come out and while I’m

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As a “good” board gamer, I get excited about new games all the time, there are always new games that come out and while I’m excited about them, I generally don’t write about them, unless it’s a Kickstarter Back or Brick article, or maybe something gets mentioned in Point or Order. The ones that I can think of that I’ve written about before they came out have been Pandemic Legacy Season 2 and Frosthaven, two games based off of or similar to games in my Top 10 games of all time, Pandemic Legacy Season 1 and Gloomhaven, so that made sense that I’d be really excited for them. Descent: Legends of the Dark is different. I haven’t played Descent 2nd Edition, though I did get it so I could paint the minis and play eventually, and I don’t have a strong connection to the game, so why am I writing about this one?

There are a number of things really that got me interested, the IP is interesting in that Fantasy Flight is making a non-Marvel/Star Wars/Game of Thrones/Lord of the Rings game, and making one that is based off of their own properties that isn’t Arkham Horror. That is fairly rare for them, so to have them go back into the world of Terrinoth, super fantasy name activate, was a lot of fun and interesting to see that they are keeping up some of their own lines. The app integration was also interesting as well as the game play and the cooperative nature. In Descent 2nd Edition, that game was a one versus all game. One person played as the “overlord” who ran all of the bad guys in the scenarios against the players. This is fully cooperative because of the app, and while Descent 2nd Edition had an app that gave it a cooperative campaign, that was not how it had been built to play.

So why am I talking about this now, well, because of these two things.

Fantasy Flight had a big kind of trailer kickoff and announcement for the game. So there is now a whole lot more known about the game, in fact, there is a ton more known about the game. If you are interested in knowing a whole lot more, watch the second video, if you want to read my recap and have a trailer, watch the first video and then read my recap, it won’t cover everything, but I am going to talk about some highlights.

First off, highlight wise, this is an app assisted game along the lines of Mansions of Madness or Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle Earth. Fantasy Flight has been doing app assisted games for quite a while, and for some people that has been a turnoff, they want to get away from technology while playing board games, which I can understand, but I don’t mind an app assist when playing a game, as long as I’m not doing everything on the app, and I don’t feel like I have been with Journeys in Middle Earth or Mansions of Madness. But there’s even more with this app, and I’m going to get into some details, but first, I do want to say that this app was built from the ground up for this game, in previous games they have leveraged their old app design and framework in order to make it faster to market, and that has some limits built in, such as it being really hard to have an undo button if you clicked the wrong thing, this has an undo button. This is also important because that means that this is going to have a different feel and probably a more modern feel to the app.

But let’s talk about features in the game, because that’s what people are going to care about more, than me nerding out over an undo button or the fact that they have built a new framework. There are a lot of cool things they talked about with the app, and I’m just going to highlight a few of them, the first because of how the app is built and because it’s their own IP, they are able to have really big branching storyline changes in it. They’ve done that to some extent in something like Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle Earth, but obviously you source material to that requires the world be left in a certain state, in this, it’s their world, they can do a lot. Next were two things about the bad guys in the game. That was tactics and weaknesses. Weaknesses are what they sound like, something that a bad guy is weak to, a bandit might be weak to slashing damage, but as players, you get to find that out in the game. As you try different weapons, it might tell you something like “You swing with your sword, and it did more damage than you thought it would as it slashes through the bandit.” Now you know swords are good, so next time you see a bandit you’d want to remember to use a sword, and the game keeps track of that you know it for you, so you don’t have to remember because forgetting and discovering the game thing over again wouldn’t be as fun. With tactics, certain bad guys are going to be apt to do certain things that are foreshadowed. For example, again, at the end of a round a bandit might be eyeing a chest, that the game narrates, you don’t know what is going to happen the first time, but after you see them grab a chest from the map and run away, you’ll know that you will want to stop a bandit from doing that again, basically, you have a round to kill them. Another thing that the app helps handle is downtime. Now with this I don’t mean downtime in the set-up or between turns, I’m talking about between missions, what your heroes are doing. A character might decide to do a side quest and they can pick between two, one might give you valor and one might give you honor. You have to decide which one to do, and the game will remember and make decisions about how people react based off of what you’ve done before. And there are more examples of the game remembering or knowing who you are, one person might get a different reaction and conversation based off of their character type and who they are than someone else would. Or the game might know that you are a big fan of using your war hammer in combat or opening chests, and it can tailor challenges and rewards to your style of play.

That’s a lot on the app, so let’s talk about some other things, like the heroes, the bad guys, and the terrain (some might still tie back tot he app).

Let’s actually start with the terrain and the components. The minis themselves are a harder plastic than Fantasy Flight has used before, though the ones in the video are resin, the reason for that is that they are still very strong, but because it’s harder plastic, they are able to get more detail in, and the detail on the minis looks really good in the resin prints. Resin is going to be closer to a hard plastic in the detail that you can get. But enough weird nerding out about that, because the terrain is awesome as well. The terrain is not only just flat map tiles and maybe some tokens to represent objects, it is cardboard 3D terrain where you build up your maps and put items on them. So a map could have multiple levels and some abilities might move bad guys, so you can maybe push them off the edges of things, which seems important. But not only can you interact with the height, you can interact with the objects, if there are trees, you can climb a tree, a well, you can hid inside it, that sort of thing. And how one character can interact with a thing might be different than another character. The reason I added in the app caveat is that this would be really hard to do without the app, so the app keeps track of who is doing that action.

Next we have the monsters, I don’t have a ton to say about them, except that there are 11 different types of monsters. But really, there are more than that, there are 11 different types of monster minis. Because they introduce a concept of factions. If a group of bandits are off by themselves, they are just bandits. If they are working with the Uthuk, the evil magic users or those corrupted by evil, they would be Uthuk bandits and behave differently.

But finally, let’s talk about characters, because really, a game like this is all about playing the heroes and how you play them. Descent: Legends of the Dark, has both cards and dice used in the game, so it’s kind of a hybrid between a few different games, but dice chucking is mainly going to be where it is at for combat and for taking actions. But you’ll use the cards, and their fatigue in an interesting way. A lot of things causes fatigue which is bad, in Descent 1st Edition, there were just turns of resting and doing nothing because you were fatigued in order to be able to do something again. In this, they’ve changed that up. You place fatigue on your character or your card, if that card hits it’s limit, you have a choice, you could leave it there, or you can flip it. Flip it gives you a different ability and you can use that one and start to put fatigue on that side since the fatigue clears off on a flip. It creates an interesting puzzle of a character. They have also made it so that you change up your character very easily. You have your unlocked skills and you have an XP budget, you can try whatever build you want with that XP budget, so a card might be 2 XP and another 1 XP and you have 3 XP so you take those two into battle with you, then the next one you decide to try three 1 XP cards, you can do that. Thematically, does it make sense, probably not, but game wise, it makes it a lot of fun, because you aren’t stuck playing a build you don’t like, in fact, if a character just isn’t your style period, you can swap in a new one, overall, an awesome idea to make sure the game is fun.

Now, in that hour and forty minute video, there is a whole lot more that they talk about, and they show off minis and things like that. If you want to know more, check it out, though, I cover some of the bigger highlights for me of things that are really interesting. But let’s also talk about the price tag here, before we wrap up, this is a $175 game, that is expensive. Now what you get is a lot, they were asked about game play and said probably 50 hours if not more in the base box. But compared to some other games, though with less minis, Gloomhaven you can find around $100 now and I probably have 200 hours into base Gloomhaven. So does that mean that this is too expensive, I’d say no. Gloomhaven doesn’t have an app built specifically for it, this does, and it is a brand new app, there was a ton of story work put into this game, and if you play through the whole game, that’s probably way more time than most people would put into a single game that costs $60. Plus there is the experience factor as well, I realize that the price will turn some people away because they just can’t afford it, and that’s a shame, if you have a group, make it a group buy if you can, but I get that it is a hefty price tag and why it is. It is still one that I’ll want to pick up, just for the cool factor if nothing else.

So, what do you think of Descent: Legends of the Dark? Does the game sound interesting to you? Does the price tag or app worry you?

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Gaming in a Big Group – Part 2 https://nerdologists.com/2018/07/gaming-in-a-big-group-part-2/ https://nerdologists.com/2018/07/gaming-in-a-big-group-part-2/#respond Thu, 12 Jul 2018 13:05:02 +0000 http://nerdologists.com/?p=2373 I want to start this article talking about some of the pitfalls with bigger player count games. It’s one thing that party style games generally

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I want to start this article talking about some of the pitfalls with bigger player count games. It’s one thing that party style games generally do pretty well, but can be issues with other games. The big pitfall is some of these games have too much time between turns. Elder Signs, a game that I enjoy as a lighter Lovecraftian game, has a player count up to eight players. The downside is that the  rounds last too long so there is too much down time between turns. This if the big pitfall for a lot of higher player count games where once you’ve taken a turn, you have time to converse, and you don’t stay involved in the game. Now, cooperative games like Elder Signs do cut down on this some, but with that large a player count, not everyone can easily see the board in order to give advice.

Image Source: Fantasy Flight Games

The other one is too many rules and or roles. While it’s fun to have one group of players doing one thing and another working on yet another thing, that can be challenging. Some of it can be a challenge just to play, but more so, there is a fair amount of time setting up the rules before the game. People lose track of what they are doing, rules are explained multiple times or a rule can even mean different things for different people. The point of playing a larger group game, most of the time, is to start off the game night with something simple and getting people into the game playing mindset. If a game is overly complex, it’s going to be harder to teach to that large of a group. To get that type of game to the table, start with a smaller group and add one or two people at a time.  Now, there are exceptions to this rule, which I’ll give an example of as a larger group that people can play.

To move away form pitfalls or things that could be difficult in larger group games, what are some categories or types of non-party games that people play with a larger group? There are times where party games are good, but what games can you branch out with?

The first category is actually just a game itself, but it’s been themed and reskinned so many times, I think it’s one that you can qualify now as it’s own category. That is Fluxx. Any theme you can imagine has been put on this, I have the Lovecraftian one, but there is environmental fluxx and there is space fluxx. Whatever theme works best in your group, you can probably find it in Fluxx. To explain how fluxx works, you are trying to match cards you’ve played to the objective, however, the rules of the game are in a constant state of flux as people play new rule cards or change the objective of the game to keep someone from winning or to get themselves closer to winning. It’s draw a card, play a card sort of game as the base though. It’s okay as game, but it can run long, so I’d lean towards playing this when I know I’m waiting on someone for a little bit.

Image Source: Looney Labs

The second category of games is social deduction games. Most people are familiar with the concept of mafia. It’s a game where some people are citizens or police and others are mafia. The mafia try and kill off the citizens and the police try and get the mafia. That’s the basis for a lot of these games. They are trying to figure out who is some character or role and keep them from winning. There are three games that I would most strongly recommend out of this category of game: Deception: Murder in Hong Kong, Secret Hitler, and Donner Dinner Party. Clearly they are all nice and happy things here.

There are other games like The ResistanceAvalon, or One Night Ultimate Werewolf, that are also social deduction games, but these games are missing one important aspect. These games miss an important aspect that the others have, which is the introduction of imperfect but useful information.Yes, there is very imperfect information in these games, and you can find out more information, but at the end of it, they all fall closer to the mafia basis of the games. This just means that they end up being a little bit simplistic at times.

Image Source: Board Game Geek

Deception: Murder in Hong Kong introduces a component of the forensic scientist who is trying to help the investigators find out who committed the murder and who is the accomplice. Each player in front of them has four clues and four weapons. Then the standard thing is done, everyone closes their eyes, except for the game master, the forensic scientist, who asks the murder and accomplice to open their eyes and the murder to select a murder weapon and clue from in front of that player. Then everyone closes their eyes again and everyone opens their eyes. The forensic scientist then, without speaking, selects options from cards that they have to give clues to the investigators to help them narrow down who is the murder and what the weapon and clue were. The investigators eventually end up guessing, and if one of them gets the combo right, we catch the murder. But the murder and accomplice are trying to distract people but not too obviously.

Secret Hitler and Donner Dinner Party work on similar mechanics. The imperfect information combo. In Secret Hitler, the two people who are it, chancellor and president and that changes each round. Each player has a role, and the fascists are either trying to get Hitler to be chancellor or to complete so many objectives. These objectives,  however, are completed each round, but could be good for the players or could be bad for the players who aren’t fascists. But what works well with this game is that the president draws three bills and then has to pass two on to the chancellor who then selects a bill. So you have some information, but it’s possible to draw three fascist agendas, in which case, you’re stuck with what you pass. In a similar way, the Donner Dinner Party has you hunting for food. Each player, minus the current camp leader, gets to draw too food cards and pick one to play. Poison is bad as it poisons the whole food supply, squirrels are good, because you can feed two people with squirrels. But it’s possible that you can be a settler who just happened to draw two poison cards so you have to screw over the group. Add in to that the played food cards are shuffled up means that no one really knows who played what, but let the accusations fly.

Turns out that there is going to be a part three to this, because while I’ve gotten to some games here, there are still even more games to go. These have all fit into a certain category, minus Fluxx which is it’s own category, but what are some other games that can work well, that’s what I’ll come back with next time.

What is your favorite social deduction type of game?


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