Silver Amulet | Nerdologists https://nerdologists.com Where to jump in on board games, anime, books, and movies as a Nerd Wed, 20 Oct 2021 16:48:03 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 https://nerdologists.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/nerdologists-favicon.png Silver Amulet | Nerdologists https://nerdologists.com 32 32 Spoopy Halloween Board Games https://nerdologists.com/2021/10/spoopy-halloween-board-games/ https://nerdologists.com/2021/10/spoopy-halloween-board-games/#respond Fri, 22 Oct 2021 14:10:00 +0000 https://nerdologists.com/?p=6262 What board games would work for a great spoopy Halloween game night. I have a few in my collection that I'd pull out.

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I talked about horror for Halloween, board games that are going to stress you out. You can see those over here, this list is games that are a bit lighter and more fun and goofy in style. Why, because sometimes you want spoopy instead of spooky, depending on your group. These are going to be those lighter games for a fun evening getting into the Halloween mood without scaring anyone as you play Monster Mash in the background.

Marrying Mr. Darcy – With Zombie Expansion

If you aren’t familiar with it, there is a book called Pride Prejudice and Zombies. This takes the story of Pride and Prejudice and turns it into a zombie book while keeping the snark intact. There is also a movie on the book that is highly entertaining as well. But Marrying Mr. Darcy gets you playing as one of the Bennett sisters or other main characters trying to get enough wit, beauty, charm, or whatever it might be to get your perfect suitor. There is a small expansion for the game that adds in zombies.

This game is a lot of fun to play and is quite silly to play. It also handles a pretty large group. The game play is very simple but there are some good laughs in it as you play and decide if you want to get turned into a zombie yourself. The zombie expansion doesn’t add in all that much, and really doesn’t add to complexity, which makes it a nice easy option for Halloween.

The Bloody Inn

The Bloody Inn is an interesting one to put on the list because I haven’t played it yet. It’s theme also isn’t spoopy. You run an inn and it turns out that it’s more profitable to kill off the people who who up and hide their bodies and steal their stuff. But if you aren’t careful the police will show up and now you have to deal with them. The theme is just too absurd to be really horrific. Thus it makes it onto the spoopy list. You’re going to be telling stories about how you stuffed a body under a rug as the police showed up.

Choose Your Own Adventure: House of Danger

You are a paranormal detective, as a group, going through this cooperative game. It is very much a choose your own adventure with a little game on top of it. You collect items, go into crazy rooms, probably die, and then continue on further into the story trying to figure out everything that is going on. This one barely qualifies as a game, but it’s a lot of fun.

The best way, I’ve found, to play this game is to just pass around the cards. So each person gets to read and gets to make decisions. You can make them as a group or discuss them, but the reader is the person who has the final say on what you do. It’s fun to just be surprised what happens when you’re not the reader.

Image Source: Zman Games

Gloom

This one falls into the category with The Bloody Inn, if you actually think about it, it’s kind of horrific, but really it plays as spoopy fun. In this game you have a family and you are trying to get them to die as miserably as possible so you have the fewest points. You are playing cards on your own characters and narrating the miserable things that happen to them. And then you give your opponents good things, or at least maybe less miserable so they aren’t as negative in their points.

The game does require story telling. For some groups the game won’t work then because you do need to dive into the absurdity of the stories. Getting left at the alter and then stung by bees and chased by wild boars is all fun, but if you can narrate it well, it’s a grand old time with that horror them and also being very spoopy.

MonsDRAWsity

Another one that I haven’t played, but this is going to be party game and drawing game entry onto the list. You are all basically police sketch artists trying to get as close to what the actual monster looks like just from descriptions. IT’s a goofy premise, and one that is going to give you a lot of weird looking monsters and a lot of laughs.

If I were going to pick one game to pull out for a Halloween party, MonsDRAWsity is the one that I’d pull from my collection. some of the others would work as well, but this one is going to be maybe the lightest. Choose Your Own Adventure might be lighter, but this will keep people more engaged throughout.

Similo: Spookies

Okay, this one might also be one I bring along to a party. But for it to be really Halloween you need the Spookies which just came out. In this game one person is trying to get everyone else to eliminate the right monsters by giving clues based that the monster is either like or not like another monster. That can be trickier than you think. You might have great monsters to give a clue or a bad one, is a swamp monster similar or not to a vampire more so than a werewolf to get the right one eliminted.

I talked about this recently on my Top 100 games list as well. You can get multiple different sets of this, so you could mix in animals for the clues about the monster, or mythological figures with giving the monsters as clues. It makes the game really easy to expand and a whole lot of fun.

What Spoopy Halloween Games Do You Like?

Are there any on the list that you’d play of mine? I have a few others that just missed like Werewords which I don’t love but would work well. Or something like Silver: Amulet and it’s standalone expansions that have a werewolf theme on them without feeling like that. Definitely Silver: Amulet would be a good one as well.

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My Top 100 Board Games 2021 Edition – 90 Through 81 https://nerdologists.com/2021/09/my-top-100-board-games-2021-edition-90-through-81/ https://nerdologists.com/2021/09/my-top-100-board-games-2021-edition-90-through-81/#comments Thu, 23 Sep 2021 13:08:10 +0000 https://nerdologists.com/?p=6167 It's time for 90 through 81 on my Top 100 Board Games of all time, 2021 Edition. Will a favorite of yours be there today?

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Last night I streamed my next ten, 90 through 81, on my way to doing my Top 100 Board Games Of All Time (2021 Edition). Thanks to everyone who joined me live for that. And I enjoyed chatting with you all.

If you want to join in on the live stream and see the games as I talk about them as well as comment on my choices, you can join on Wednesdays from now until November 17th. I stream over on Malts and Meeples on YouTube at 8 PM Central Time. And if you need to catch up on the list.

100 Through 91

Top 100 Board Games 90 – 81

90. Skulk Hollow

Skulk Hollow
Image Source: Board Game Geek

A fun and pretty simple and fast two player asymmetrical game. One person plays as foxes who are trying to take down the other players guardian. The guardian has it’s goal, to take out the foxes leader to some other objective. The foxes are trying to get onto the guardian and hit it, taking out all of it’s health locations and disabling abilities. This is all done through some pretty simple card draw that makes the game easy to play.

Buy On Miniature Market

89. Titan Race

Titan Race
Image Source: Board Game Geek

This might be the first racing game that I ever got. It is a light and silly little one, which is what I look for in a filler. In this game you are racing across one board three times or three boards. You use special powers to stop your opponents, knock them off course, and get further ahead. The game play is fun too because you are drafting dice to figure out what your movement is. It’s a good game that can probably be played with all ages.

Not Available

88. King of Tokyo

King of Tokyo
Image Source: Board Game Geek

A classic game at this point, King of Tokyo is about all those monsters you know the names of hitting each other to get into Tokyo. Granted none of the monsters are actually named right because of licensing costs. But this is a great game that uses the Yahtzee style mechanic of rolling dice, keeping, and then rolling up to twice more. You can win by knocking out the other monsters, the most fun way, or by points. This is a game I don’t always pull out, but when I do, it’s a good time.

Buy On Coolstuff Inc

87. Tokyo Highway

Tokyo Highway
Image Source: Board Game Geek

Keeping on the theme of Tokyo, we have Tokyo Highway. A game that is as much a piece of art as it is a game. Now, don’t get me wrong, there is a game there, but when you finish playing it looks amazing. In this game you build highways through Tokyo while going over and under other roads. The trick is you can only raise or lower your road by one each time, and can’t touch the table with your road. If you go over or under another road you get to put out cars, but that’s harder because you can’t touch the other roads or knock them over. A fun and beautiful dexterity game.

Buy on Miniature Market

86. Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle

Harry Potter Hogwarts Ballte
Image Source: The Op

Not even the first deck builder on my list, Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle is one of the easier ones to teach. First there is the theme that makes it easier to get to the table, people know Harry Potter. And a lot of people love Harry Potter. So it’s something that people can jump into as they know the spells and characters you add to your deck. And the game grows and progresses the further you play into it. Even just playing the first book several times, it’s a fun game that is very accessible.

Buy on Amazon

85. Dead of Winter: A Crossroads Game

Dead of Winter
Image Source; Geek Alert

This is the zombie survival game in the lines of The Walking Dead. Yes, you have to kill zombies in the game, but it’s about how you can work together as players while still trying to complete your own secret objective. That part of the game is good, but where it really shires is the Crossroads cards. These offer you challenging decisions as to if you rescue someone or not because that means another mouth to feed. I do house rule this one by drawing two Crossroads cards. Only one can happen, but it means that they happen more often.

Buy on Miniature Market

84. Silver

Image Source: Bezier Games

This game is tricky to explain, but not that hard to play. In the game you are drawing a card and deciding what to do with it, do you add it to your village or discard it for a power. The interesting bit is that you have a village of five in front of you but the cards are face down. At the beginning of each of the four rounds, you look at two of them. So you need to figure out ways to see your other cards, or maybe swap them blindly. And to get rid of cards completely so you have the lowest score. Good little take that type of game.

Buy on Amazon

83. Hues and Cues

Image Source: The Op

There are a few party games on my list, but this one wasn’t there last year because I had yet to play it. It’s a game about trying to get people to guess a color. But you first give a one word clue and then a two word clue. As the person giving the clue, you get points for more people getting close or the right guess. And for the guessers you want to get close because that gives you points. Giving clues to guess colors is definitely different and feels unique for a party game.

Buy on Amazon

82. Clank!: A Deck-Building Adventure Game

Image Source: Renegade

Clank! A Deck Building Adventure Game I own but I haven’t played my copy. I have played on Table Top Simulator on Steam and had a blast with it. It’s a great push your luck deck building game.

You delve into a dungeon to steal a dragon’s treasure. But as you go through the dungeon you make noise and clank. When the dragon awakens he draws from a bag that has your clank and others. If too much is drawn you die. But if you can get in and then get back out with the best treasure and most points, or the other players die, you can win the game. It’s light goofy and fun. And I really need to play Clank! Legacy.

Buy on Miniature Market

81. Gravwell: Escape from the 9th Dimension

Image Source: Renegade Games

This is an odd game, it is fairly abstract but challenging and fun. Gravwell, I’m not doing the full title, has you sucked into another dimension and trying to escape back home before the portal closes. All while there is a black hole you don’t want to get sucked into. You are also out of your normal fuel, it’s not a good day. So you play down different elements as your fuel.

And this is where the game gets odd because some fuel pulls you towards the closest ship, some push you away and some draw ships towards you. Plus, every player plays down an element at the same time and they activate in alphabetical order. So if you play a later letter, like P let’s say, that might move you a long way towards the closest ship, but will that be the right direction when you get to activate. Silly game with a great and different mechanic to it.

Buy On Miniature Market

The Next Ten

So there we have it, we’re 20 games in between the two weeks. And every time I do the list I come up with a game I want to play And I come up with a game I think was too low.

If you want to join in on the next 10 live, you can do that on Wednesday September 29th at 8 PM Central Time. And then all the rest of the Wednesday’s up through November 17th. That’s over on the Malts and Meeples YouTube Channel. Subscribe and click the notification bell so you know when I go live.

And let me know which of these 10 is your favorite and which one do you want to try?

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365 Days of Board Gaming – May Recap https://nerdologists.com/2021/06/365-days-of-board-gaming-may-recap/ https://nerdologists.com/2021/06/365-days-of-board-gaming-may-recap/#respond Fri, 04 Jun 2021 14:28:07 +0000 https://nerdologists.com/?p=5735 There was a lot of board gaming in the month of May. Was I able to make up ground on my 365 plays in 365 days, and what was most played?

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Alright, we’re back with our May recap and May was a really good month for gaming for a lot of reasons. The main one was that it was the return of in person gaming again. I’ve throughout the pandemic had one person I’ve gamed with in person fairly often. Basically my small bubble of board gaming. But now I can game with more as basically all my bubble is fully vaccinated at this point.

But beyond that, I got 34 plays in during the month of May, so I was able to cut down on that deficit a little bit for gaming. On my challenge, I am now 9 games behind pace with plans for gaming tomorrow evening and hopefully cutting into that some more. And that’s with a few days already this month without me playing games, though a few days with me playing games. Let’s get to the games.

Dice Throne – 5 Plays

Dice Throne, one I talk about all the time, but one that I know will never leave my collection. Really love all the characters and all the variety in it.

Tainted Grail – 4 Plays

Massive exploration story game. Getting close to the mid point of the game. Still loving it so much and there is so much story that we definitely haven’t gone to. We’ve branched down certain story paths, and I’m excited for that because that means I can play it again if I want.

PitchCar – 4 Plays

I have so much stuff for PitchCar now. And I am so excited to play this for game night in July. It is a silly fun time and one that I think will be even better with a bigger group. And now I have a loop to add to it which will be awesome.

Floor Plan – 3 Plays

A roll and write I’ve been wanting to try for a while. This one has you building a house, or a floor plan, and scoring points based off of certain criteria. It is pretty straight forward, but play is a lot of fun. Not that you could live in any of the places when they are done, but it’s still a good roll and write game.

A Gentle Rain – 3 Plays

Tiny solo game. I just played this on Malts and Meeples on Wednesday. You can find that posted over here. Simple game but it’s very chill and relaxing. It’s a good one to just kind of clear your mind with.

Tokyo Highway – 2 Plays

Another dexterity game, this one I always call a work of art. You are balancing things, but with the colors it just works so well. You can see one of the pictures I’ve taken here, it only kind of does it justice.

Image Source: Self

Potion Explosion – 2 Plays

I always say this game is like an app game. It really is true, you remove something, get colors to hit, remove those colors and get that whole cascade that makes some app games so fun. The game is simple and the gimmick is great for it.

Ascension – 2 Plays

A lot of people like Dominion, but Ascension is my preferred pure deckbuilder. It has you adding in cards, fighting monsters, but what I like about it is the variable market. The game just feels like it has more robust choices than Dominion, and better art.

Welcome To.. – 2 Plays

Image Source: Board Game Geek

Another roll and write, Welcome To… is one of my favorites in the genre. The game play is a ton of fun, and the choices are definitely deeper than a lot of roll and writes. It also works so well in large groups.

Point Salad – 2 Plays

Point Salad is a wonderful light filler game. I like how variable it can be as the cards come out and you pick how you are going to be scoring. Works well at low player counts and is solid at higher player counts. I think with two or three people it’s a great one to pull off the shelf.

Arkham Horror LCG – 1 Play

Another one that I played on Malts and Meeples.

Super fun game and one that I need to get back to playing more often. The game play is interesting and I actually just talked about a change that I really like for it in the news today. I like the deck construction aspect of it as well.

The Isle of Cats – 1 Play

The last of the four first time played games on the list to go along with A Gentle Rain, PitchCar and Floor Plan. The Isle of Cats is the most complex of all of them. This is a polyomino playing game which has your rescuing cats from an island. But you only have a limited amount of time and fish to lure the cats with. Game play is fun, I want to try it with more than two, but even at two was cool. Has a lot of cards and things I haven’t seen that I want to play around with. And currently an expansion is on Kickstarter for it.

Silver Amulet – 1 Play

One that I haven’t played this year, but really fun game. It basically is a hidden information game where you are trying to score the fewest points possible. It’s like a game that I grew up playing with a deck of cards, but adds in a whole lot more and a whole lot of fun. The expansions (all stand alone) are great as well.

Just One – 1 Play

Just One Game Box
Image Source: Board Game Geek

A favorite party game of mine. This one works well because of it’s simplicity and the fact it’s cooperative. You are trying to get the person who is it to guess one word by giving them one word clues. But you write down the clues in secret and any duplicate clues cancel and aren’t show. Really fun and works with a large number of players.

Sushi Go Party – 1 Play

Probably my favorite drafting game. I like how simple and fun Sushi Go Party! is. The game works well with non-gamers and gamers alike because of how cute it looks. Definitely the one I reach for to teach people have to draft.

Which of these games do you want to play?

Yearly Stats

So let’s check out the stats and see where I am at. I have 146 different plays of games this year. So that’s a lot, especially considering how hard it has been to do in person gaming. I have five games that I’ve played 10 or more times, and Tainted Grail is almost to 20. 10 games that I’ve played five or more times. And out of those 146 plays, I’ve played 38 different games.

As far as being on track, right now I need 219 plays in 210 days left. So I am slowly making up ground, and I hope that trend continues so that I’m nearly caught up by the end of the month.

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Do All Board Games Need Expansions? https://nerdologists.com/2021/06/do-all-board-games-need-expansions/ https://nerdologists.com/2021/06/do-all-board-games-need-expansions/#respond Thu, 03 Jun 2021 13:53:40 +0000 https://nerdologists.com/?p=5724 Do all board games need expansions and what makes a good board game expansion? I dive into that today to see if I should buy all the expansions or not?

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This might be a topic I’ve touched on before, but the first time I believe that I’m diving into it. There are a ton of board games out there, and there are a ton of board game expansions out there. In my latest Point of Order, I actually bought two expansions, Draftosaurus: Marina and Draftosaurus: Aerial Show.

This begs to ask, do all board games need expansions? And what makes a good expansion? Or even, what is an expansion? So let’s start there and work our way back.

What Is A Board Game Expansion?

An expansion basically a way to get additional content into a board game without printing a new game. There are second editions or ultimate editions of games that come out. These might have the expansion content in them. But normally publishers just put out expansions so that they can add in more content to their games.

Image Source: Bezier Games

What Makes A Good Board Game Expansion?

This question is harder to answer. Expansions can do a lot of different things. Expansions can just add more stuff into a game. I’ll try and give examples of all of them. There are ones that add new game play and ones that add more players as well.

More Players

The ones that are more players are simple. Lords of Hellas has a 5th Player expansion. Heroes of Land, Air, and Sea adds in a lot of players, three total in the two expansions. So you can play with a way higher player count than the base game. These are pretty straight forward in what they do. Catan was actually one of the first games to do that. They got a 5th and 6th player for basically every version of the game.

More Stuff

The next easiest one is the expansion that just adds in more stuff. This is something that doesn’t add any new rules or game play, it just gives you more of what you’ve already had. Dominion is the prime example of this. While the rules might change slightly, a lot of the times the cards can just be shuffled in with no problem. You don’t need to teach anything new, it’s just more variety in the content. Silver Amulet, Coin, Bullet, and Dagger add in new cards that behave differently, but you can learn them by looking at the card.

More Rules

The final one is the one that adds in more content. This basically always adds in rule changes as well. Lords of Hellas has this as well with the different player counts. It adds in a different statue with how things connect. But also games like Claim with the reinforcements and different suits and how they play. This is almost just the more stuff with Claim, but since the cards don’t teach it, I need to. Ascension and Dominion both do this as well. They will give you more stuff for the game but also some of that requires teaching new rules.

All of those can be good, but some of them aren’t always great. adding in a player can make the game go much longer. Or it can increase downtime in turns. Adding in more stuff for an engine building game can mean the engines can’t be built. Adding in more rules increases the complexity of the game and makes it harder to get to the table. So it depends on the expansion and the game if it works or not.

Image Source: Board Game Geek

Do All Board Games Need Expansions?

You can probably guess my answer to this, but it is no. All board games do not need expansions. In fact, not all expansions improve the board game you are playing. I tossed out a few negatives that can occur. And they can take a good game to a poor game depending on what they do. Now, on the flip side, they can also improve games. They can add in needed content.

An example of improving would be Horizon Zero Dawn. Now I am just doing this one off of what I’ve heard. The base game box is fine, however, the amount of game play in that box is very limited. You need the Kickstarter expansions to get enough game play into it to make it a really big and more enjoyable experience.

Or Marvel United, it adds in more content and easy to get characters to the table. I can grab any character and play. I can grab any villain and play. Having the massive variety of characters means that the game has something for everyone. Marvel United X-Men even adds in more that you can do. Being able to play as a villain because of Marvel United X-Men takes it from being a cooperative game even.

So yes, they can be good. And I really do recommend expansions for games that you love. However, look into them, there are expansions that won’t help the game. And while I’d love to see a ton of expansions or have a ton in my collection, I can only really add them for the games that I really love.

What is your favorite board game expansion?

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Malts and Meeples – Top 10 Small Box Board Games https://nerdologists.com/2021/05/malts-and-meeples-top-10-small-box-board-games/ https://nerdologists.com/2021/05/malts-and-meeples-top-10-small-box-board-games/#respond Tue, 18 May 2021 13:00:48 +0000 https://nerdologists.com/?p=5668 Doing my first Top 10 over on Malts and Meeples on YouTube last night, I went with small box board games, what were my faovrites?

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So we’re into the Monday schedule, 8:30 PM for a conversation and some talking about board games. Last night I dove into the world of Small Box Board Games and I did a Top 10 list. What were my favorite ten Small Box board games, you’ll have to find out.

The Games

You’ll have to watch the video to find out what they are, but all games that I really love and all of them are in small boxes, I think the largest box was still smaller than the Just One box for size comparison. I also did skip all the roll and writes in my collection. I can and will do a Top 10 of that overall on Malts and Meeples coming up here, because I have played more than ten roll and write games, so I didn’t want to create that overlap.

Okay, I will at the very bottom put down all the games that were in the Top 10 list, and you can see if you can guess the order. Also, let me know in the comments what some of your favorite small box games are. We had a few one ones tossed out there on the live stream with Tiny Epic Galaxies, Mountain Goats, and more. I like games that come in smaller boxes because they are easier to take places, so finding about more is good.

Image Source: White Goblin Games

The Beer

Of course there was a beer, this time it was Aqua Fuzz by Indeed Brewing Company out of Minneapolis. Aqua Fuzz is a hazy IPA that has a nice balance of tropical flavors to it. Hazy IPA’s are a hit or miss beer for me. While I love IPA’s, the hazy IPA’s can often end up being too sweet. This comes from some breweries adding in fruit juice to give it more of that tropical flavor. It also provides more of the hazy look that they are going for. However, for me, that causes them to be too sweet. And as we have talked about before, I do not like sweetness in my IPA’s, at least to finish.

Actually The Games

If you don’t have time to watch through the video, save it for later, and you want to see the list now, here are all the games on the list in no particular order.

  • Parade
  • Claim
  • Say Bye to the Villains
  • Silver Amulet
  • Hanamikoji
  • Point Salad
  • Cross Clues
  • Skull
  • Ohanami
  • Onirim

Take a stab at what order you think I put them in and watch the video and let me know how close you got to being right.

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Have Board Games, Will Travel https://nerdologists.com/2021/01/have-board-games-will-travel/ https://nerdologists.com/2021/01/have-board-games-will-travel/#respond Tue, 19 Jan 2021 14:37:15 +0000 https://nerdologists.com/?p=5232 If you're like me, you probably always travel with a few games. If I'm just going to see family, I don't need to worry about game size, but if I'm going camping or somewhere for work, you need bang for your buck with games.

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Eventually, we’re all going to start traveling again, and I know a lot of people who have used 2020 to travel more locally, finding state parks, national parks, and places to camp. If you’re like me, you probably always travel with a few games. If I’m just going to see family, I don’t need to worry about game size, but if I’m going camping or somewhere for work, you need bang for your buck with games.

Solo Or Not

The first thing to think about is if you’ll be playing games with other people? If I’m going camping, I probably will be going with friends or my wife so I’ll have a second player. If I’m going on a work trip, there’s no guarantee that’ll be the case. So I need to think about who I’ll be playing with that what player count I’m needing.

Where Am I Going?

This also matters, if I’m going camping, I don’t want something with too many pieces, if I’m going to a gaming convention, that can also be the case as well. If I’m going to work training and have a hotel room, I can leave something set-up or potentially have more room to work with so I could pack something with more pieces. This also, though, depends on how many days I’m going to be somewhere, what suitcase or bag I brought along.

So What Games Pack a Good Bang For Their Buck?

I’m generally looking for small games that are a bit punchy, by that I mean that aren’t just filler, but give you some choices as well. I will point out where some of these games work better as some of them might be a bit much for a camping trip.

Image Source: Board Game Geek
Criss Cross

This one is a little roll and write game that would work well almost anywhere. Yes, players have their little sheet of paper, but it’s one little sheet of paper that you have to keep from blowing away, otherwise it’s dice. Super easy that way, this game is generally a bit more of a filler game but does offer a few choices as you try and maximize your points. It also isn’t a game that doesn’t have you thinking, you need to score in both the rows and columns as you’re filling in your sheet, and that requires some thinking and tracking of things. The box is also tiny, it’s one that you could even stick into a backpack on a hiking trip and have no added weight from it.

That’s Pretty Clever (Ganz Schon Clever)

The last roll and write game that I’m going to put on the list. This one is a whole lot more complex, but still limits what people have to a piece of paper and a pen and then the dice. Another good one for taking almost anywhere. Ganz Schon Clever gives a whole lot more choices though as you try and optimize your scoring, get as many bonuses as possible and get a big score. The other two games in the series, Twice as Clever, and Clever Hoch Drei both would work as well as the premise is the same and the amount of stuff is the game.

Onirim

The two above can be played solo just fine and also be played in groups. Onirim is the entry on the list for purely a solo game. This one I don’t know would work as well camping, because you are putting out cards, I guess in the tent, but it’s a great hotel room game, or even an on the flight game. You are trying to pay out cards in a certain order and way so that you get three of a color in a row, they just have to be non-repeating symbols, in order to find doors to escape from this dream world with nightmares trying to stop you. It requires a bunch of shuffling, but I don’t mind that, and it’s a nice game that has enough going on to keep t interesting, but not so much that you can’t pay attention to anything else.

Image Source: Z-Man
Silver Amulet (Coin, Bullet, or Dagger)

The Silver games work well for small box games that pack some interesting choices. And you could probably get all of them into a single box if you wanted to give you a lot of game to take along. In the game you are trying to get the village with the lowest points. You do that by swapping in cards to your face down village, the trick is that you only know what two of your cards are at the start. So the cards have powers and you can use those powers to see more cards, swap cards with an opponent, or more. Eventually someone will call for a vote, and if they have the fewest points, they get zero and everyone else scores their points. If they don’t you get 10 additional points, lowest after four rounds wins. If you were to stick it all in one box, you’d have tons of different combinations to play which means even for a longer trip, this game has a lot of bang for it’s small size.

Claim/Fox In the Forest/The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine

I’m lumping all three of these together because they are all trick taking games that come in small packages. Fox in the Forest is specifically a two player game, so won’t work for every trip. The Crew is a cooperative trick taking game, and Claim is an interesting game where you play through twice, and the second time is when you score, the first time is building your hand for that second time. But trick taking games are nice, and obviously you could do things like Hearts as well with just a deck of cards, but that’s certainly a good option as well. These all will feel like a bit of a step beyond your more standard trick taking games while still really using the same mechanics.

Image Source: Board Game Geek
Codenames Pictures

Final one on the list, and there could be a whole lot more, but Codenames Pictures works really well for a game with a little bit larger box. The downsize is the box is a bit larger, the upside is that you can play with almost any number of people, you just split into two teams, one clue giver from each team and everyone else guesses when it’s their teams turn to do so. While I don’t love Codenames in general, I think that pictures works well and shortens a game that feels like it should be a party game but often plays quieter than that. Pictures helps keep the energy level higher, but really any version of Codenames would do. It is also nice because it isn’t too large. The downside is that you are laying out cards on a table, so while it might work some places, give it a bit of a breeze and you might be running around trying to pick-up cards. But good for gatherings where you are going to be indoors.

What are some games that you take when traveling? Do you have a favorite that you’ll always grab?

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The Collection A to Z – So Many S’s https://nerdologists.com/2020/12/the-collection-a-to-z-so-many-ss/ https://nerdologists.com/2020/12/the-collection-a-to-z-so-many-ss/#respond Thu, 24 Dec 2020 15:39:00 +0000 http://nerdologists.com/?p=5119 This is going to be a long post, you have been warned. I had a lot of L’s but that’s nothing compared to what I

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This is going to be a long post, you have been warned. I had a lot of L’s but that’s nothing compared to what I have in the S’s. Not to mention that I just got in Sentinels of the Multiverse expansions and Sentinel Tactics as well. We’ll be talking about board games for a while today!

The Collection

Numbers

A’s – B’s – C’s – D’s – E and F’s – G and H’s – I, J and K’s – L’s – M’sN, O, and P’s – Q and R’s

S’s

Sagrada (and Expansions)

I wish that I had backed Sagrada on Kickstarter, not because there is anything special with that edition really compared to what I have, but because I like the game that much. This dice drafting game just works and looks amazing on the table. The theme of stained glass windows appeals to most everyone, even non-nerdy gamers. And the concept of taking a die and placing it into your stained glass window makes sense. Add in that the dice look amazing in the windows because they are translucent, it sells the game even more on the table.

Status: Played

Santorini

I don’t always love abstract games. But Santorini looks great on the table, and that counts for a lot in a game, in my opinion. Especially for a game that is abstract. The simple game play helps the game be even more appealing. You are just moving a piece and building a level. The goal is to make it to the third level of a building, which is simple enough. And when the game becomes too simple, you can add in god cards which give players powers.

Status: To Be Played

Image Source: Board Game Geek

Say Bye to the Villains

I like extremely tough cooperative games. Say Bye to the Villains fits that mold perfectly as I have yet to win it. But for me, I don’t see that as a negative, mainly because we are always close to winning. None of the games feel like we’re too far away which is saying something considering how many times I’ve played it. It also helps that the game play is simple enough. You are just playing cards that eat up time, and the game isn’t too long either. For some people it would be a negative, but for me, it’s a good thing. It feels like there’s always just one more thing to do in the Say Bye to the Villains than you have time for.

Status: Played

Scattergories

I have a game from 1988 on my list. And yes, I play Scattergories still. Scattergories is a party game that works well since it depends on the players creativity but not on in-jokes. It also works well over Zoom which has gotten it played several times this year. The game is simple and everyone understands what is going on when played. Scattergories isn’t a game that I’ll pull out all the time, but people have fun when it is pulled out. And it’s a game that everyone knows because it’s been around so long.

Status: Played

Scrabble

If you thought Scattergories was old, think again. I have Scrabble in my collection as well. Scrabble being published in 1948 might make it the oldest game in my collection. I still enjoy playing Scrabble, though. I prefer regular Scrabble to the “quick” Scrabble or Banagrams. The main reason is that Scrabble has more strategy and tactics than those do. In Banagrams it is purely pattern recognition and while I am good at it, it isn’t as fun. I prefer to think about how I might be setting up my opponent in Scrabble and the strategy that comes with that.

Status: Played

SeaFall

I wanted to like SeaFall so badly. And it’s funny that I do have a copy of it still. I was gifted a copy that a friend got for cheap. SeaFall promised that it was going to be an epic seafaring game where the story unfolded as you explored. Instead, we got a story that was a mess and complicated but only because it didn’t unfold in order. Compared to other Legacy Games, story happened much more randomly and the games themselves took too long. I wanted a game that told epic punchy story about adventure on the high seas. And, I think that is possible within SeaFall, how the story works, though, needs to be reworked.

Status: Played

Second Chance

I like flip and writes as I’ve said many a time before. Second Chance is a simple flip and write. You try and fill as much of your square as possible and that’s it. To do that you are putting in polyomino like shapes onto your board. If you can’t place one of the two shapes, you get a second chance card, a card only you can use. If you are able to use it, you stay in the game and continue playing. If not, you are out and count up the empty spaces you have left. The game is that simple. But it works well because it gives a chance for people to be creative in how they fill in the shapes. You doodle on them so you can tell what is filled and what isn’t, or create patterns. And that part of the game is really a lot of fun. Plus, the game works for everyone since it is so simple.

Status: Played

Sentinel Tactics: The Flame of Freedom

Honestly, I ordered this game on accident. I thought I was ordering another expansion for Sentinels of the Multiverse, but I ordered Sentinel Tactics. Thankfully I ordered a standalone game, not an expansion for Sentinels Tactics. Sentinel Tactics still takes place in the Sentinels of the Multiverse world, but is a tactical game, as the name implies. You move chits around a modular board playing through scenarios that have you trying to beat a villain. I hope it’s good, I know one person who said it was interesting, if not, I got it on a steep sale, so I can always use it to get store credit at my FLGS (Friendly Local Game Store) for a game I want.

Status: To Be Played

Sentinels of the Multiverse (and Expansions Galore)

What, this game comes after Sentinel Tactics alphabetically, who’d have guessed. I picked up the base game used from my FLGS. Sentinals is a game that I’ve wanted to try for a while because of the superhero theme. Then when Tom Vassal played it on a What’s Appening stream for the Dice Tower, I decided it looked good enough to pick up. Then, Black Friday rolled around and Greater Than Games had a massive sale. So I picked up a ton of expansions for it, almost a literal ton. I believe it was 17 expansions for it, plus Sentinel Tactics. I still need to get it to the table, and I plan on starting just with the base game, but I love the superhero world and the comics that come with some of the boxes.

Status: To Be Played

Image Source: Catalyst Games

Shadowrun Crossfire: Prime Runner Edition

I picked this one up recently as well. Shadowrun Crossfire first came onto my radar when I played it at Fantasy Flight Game Center off of their demo wall. I knew when I played it that I’d pick it up eventually. I really like the world of Shadowrun. A world where big corporations are running things, and hackers go on runs to try and get data and take them down. The cyberpunk setting works really well for me. I know there are some knocks on the game with how slowly characters level up, but I am still excited to play through it’s campaign.

Status: Played

Shadowrun: Sprawl Ops (with Cooperative Expansion)

This game was a bit of a mess getting it from Kickstarter. The shipping company messed up royally, and while we did get cool extra boards, the creators who were doing updates were not professional about everything. I don’t have any issue with the publisher Catalyst Game Labs, but with Lynnvander Studios, I’d be hesitant to back any of their projects again. The game looks amazing and has a great cyberpunk aesthetic, though, so I am excited to play it. And the game comes in a massive box, where even the box looks awesomely cyberpunk.

Status: To Be Played

Shadows of Brimstone: City of the Ancients

I have some beefs with this game, though it is still on my shelf. The main beef I have is that it sucks to put together. All the little minis come in a lot of pieces and are not easy to put together. This sounds like it’s been rectified to some extent in other prints of this box. However, the game itself is a lot of fun. It’s a weird west game where you are pushing deep into a mine to try and complete objectives. But there are monsters in there, and you might stumble into a whole other world if you aren’t careful. I want more time to play it, but I have to reassemble my minis first, which might be a good winter project, assuming I remember how they go together.

Status: Played

Shadows of Kilforth: A Fantasy Quest Game

I have mentioned a few places that have caused me to pick up games and Shadows of Kilforth is one of those game. This fantasy game with an Eastern flare to it, was one that I saw the original, Gloom of Kilforth played on the Rolling Solo channel on YouTube. The game play looked interesting, so when a sequel showed up on Kickstarter, it felt like a good game to back. I still think it will be, I just need to get it sorted and ready for the table. This game is one that I should be able to play solo on Malts and Meeples in the new year sometime.

Status: To Be Played

Shakespeare

I’m ashamed of how long this game has been on my shelf without getting played. My wife picked it up for we as a gift, and as a game that she’d also like the theme of. But it’s euro game, so I don’t get those off my shelf as much. I am interested in it as I like the theme of putting on a play. Getting costumes, actors, sets, and more ready sounds like a lot of fun, I just haven’t played it yet. I am excited to try it still, I just need to sit down and learn the rules so we can get it to the table.

Status: To Be Played

The Siblings Trouble

I picked this one up off of Kickstarter because of how much I had enjoyed Lift Off! from the same design and company. This one is a light RPG like game that is targeted for families with kids. It is meant to be a way to get that RPG feel without having as much of a ruleset as something like Dungeons and Dragons does. I’m waiting until the toddler is old enough to play it with us because the game looks very cute.

Status: To Be Played

Image Source: Bezier Games

Silver: Amulet (and Coin, Bullet, and Dagger)

Silver: Amulet was a game that I got to try at GenCon in 2019. The game has a puzzle feel to it as you are trying to score the fewest points in your village. The twist comes with being able to swap out two cards for one card, if the cards are the same number. Add in a lot of powers on your cards, and you have an interesting puzzle. And then to top that all off, you don’t know what most of your cards are at the start of the game. The amulet, coin, bullet, and dagger all do different things, so depending on which version you play there will be a unique special power. And the cards you play with between the games can be mixed together, you just need one set of each number to make it work.

Status: Played

Silver & Gold

Roll and write, you know the drill. I like them, and this one does something cool. You fill in spots on cards, which seems bad. But the cards are dry erase, so you can play with them over and over again. It is a clever twist as you start to do set collection with them and score points off of which ones you have filled in. You still make combos though. If you cross of a treasure spot, that allows you to fill in another spot on any of your cards, and there are palm trees that are worth points as well. Super small sized game, but looks to pack a lot of game into it.

Status: To Be Played

Skip-Bo

The section of old games apparently. Skip-Bo is a classic game that I grew up playing less than I’d want in some ways. Fairly often for a simple card game Uno would be the game picked. But Skip-Bo had more interesting game play to it than Uno does. I like figuring out how to place your discards in the most optimal way possible, and sometimes stopping early to try and lock an opponent from being able to play easily. Now, the game can drag because of poor card draw, but it is generally quite fast.

Status: Played

Skulk Hollow

A two player game that was on Kickstarter. Again from the same company as Lift Off! Skulk Hollow is an asymmetric two player game. One person plays as the fox kingdom and the other as the old guardian that has awakened. The fox player needs to get onto the guardian, since it is to too large to beat otherwise, and take out it’s different actions. The monster generally has it’s own objective, but can by taking out the fox leader. The game has simple card play but is very tactical in nature and the box comes with multiple leaders for the fox and guardians for a ton of replayability.

Status: Played

Skull

The first time I played Skull, I wasn’t sure how much I liked it. It had weird coasters that you played with, and it was a push your luck sort of game. However, the more I played it, the more interesting it became, how did you successfully bluff someone into picking from your pile which has a skull in it, when that will bust you if you get stuck with the bid. The bluffing is what makes this game, it doesn’t have a lot of strategy to it, but if you can bluff and read your opponents you’ll do well in this game. And the coaster shaped “cards” are still weird.

Status: Played

Image Source: BoardGameGeek

Small World (and Small World Underground)

Small World was one of the gateway games for me that got me into the hobby. I like how it has Risk elements, but it’s actually fun. It has a lot of attacking and defeating your enemy, but in a fun way. You aren’t rolling die like in Risk, the battles are determined just by if you have enough pieces of cardboard to beat an area. The powers and races make this game work though, because something like undead ghouls or flying halflings are just silly, and you can get some great combinations, like commando elves or flying sorcerers that can put a bit of a target on your back. Game is a lot of fun every time I play it, which is about once a year.

Status: Played

Sonora

I’ve talked about roll and writes, and flip and writes, even a draft and write, but I haven’t mentioned my flick and write. Sonora is a combotastic [blank] and write game. To start your turn you flick disks around a board which determine who much you get to put in certain areas. Some of them are simple race to completion, others have you putting pieces in like they are Tetris, or filling in dots, or closing off sections of the board. It has a ton going on, and if you get the right things, you then get more to fill in other areas and it can repeat even more. It is extremely satisfying.

Status: Played

Specter Ops

A game that I picked up used, but that was on my radar for a long time. Spector Ops is a one versus all game, but the one is hidden. They are moving around to various objectives trying to get them all. The concept is so interesting to me. I want to play both sides of it, see how well I can hide where I’m at and see how well I can deduce where someone else is going. It feels like it should be a good and challenging experience.

Status: To Be Played

Image Credit: Dad’s Gaming Addiction But seriously, you guys. Just look at this thing.

Splendor

Splendor is a light and small engine building game. You are collecting gems to get cards that have permanent gems and sometimes points. And you can use those permanent gems to get even more cards which games on them and the process repeats until someone has 15 points. The game is really simple to play, the theme is not there, but that’s okay. It is meant as an introduction to engine building and it works for that. Not one I want to play all the time, but I keep it on the shelf for what it is.

Status: Played

Star Wars: Destiny

Fantasy Flight Games foray into collectible card games. It was a fun game because it wasn’t only card it was nice chunky dice as well. And I like the Star Wars theme better than say, Magic the Gathering. The issue is that the game isn’t quite as good, and people didn’t get into it as much. Destiny is now a retired game, but one that had a good following and people were sad to see leave. What I think worked well was that none of the cards were rarer than the others. So you got good stuff all the time. That was part of what killed it as well, Magic works because it has a massive secondary market for it for FLGS’s, Destiny had none.

Status: Played

Star Wars: Imperial Assault

The Star Wars dungeon crawl. This game does one thing that I really wish the Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-earth did, and that is that it is adjacent to the main story and the main characters. But I can’t play as Luke Skywalker or Darth Vader, those are characters who just make appearances. But out of the base box, you are still playing around the original trilogy storyline. The game also has an app, so it can be one versus all, but it can also be fully cooperative. I need to play it more because I’ve liked the plays I’ve had.

Status: Play

Star Wars: Unlock!

The unlock games are basically escape room games in in a box. And the Star Wars: Unlock! game is a game that is an escape room in a box with a Star Wars theme. I like these games because they are very puzzly and can give you an experience while you play them. I’ve heard that the Star Wars: Unlock is a bit easier than some of the other ones, but I’m fine with that as it’ll be more accessible to more people. I want to play this over the holidays, and that’s the one downside, once you’ve played an unlock game once, you can’t play it again because you’ll know how it goes, still $30 for three hour long experiences in a group isn’t bad.

Status: To Be Played

Image Source: Board Game Geek

Stipulations

I talk about this game a lot, mainly because I really like it was a party game. Stipulations asks the question, what horrible thing will your friends come up with. If you have the super power of flight, what’s the stipulation, or the dream job of being a movie actor, what is the stipulation. This game does what most party games do, it ends up with a lot of in jokes, but it is a fun time and compared to something like Apples to Apples which is basically always clean or Cards Against Humanity which is always dirty, Stipulations can be tailored to those whom you’re playing with.

Status: Played

Super Fantasy Brawl

I’ve decided that I really like games that Mythic Games puts out, or at least in concept. Reichbusters looks like a fun twist on a dungeon crawl, and Super Fantasy Brawl seems like a really accessible two player fighting game. The game has chunky minis that look great, and simple but interesting card play. I like that you play three cards on your turn and those cards have to be of different colors, but each character, of the three you have doesn’t correspond to a color, so if you get a red and a yellow card for one character, you can activate that character twice, from my understanding. I really want to give this one a whirl as it has an epic table presence for a fairly simple seeming game, rules wise.

Status: To Be Played

Super-Skill Pinball: 4-cade

You know the drill, I love my roll and write games. And I like the theme on this one a ton. I like the idea of playing a pinball machine and seeing what the high score is that I can get on it. I like the mechanics of how the ball can bounce around and how it will only bounce certain ways and generally down. You are also trying to bounce it up higher and complete combos on things, just like in real pinball to get even more points. And it’s called 4-cade because there are 4 different machines that you can play.

Status: To Be Played

Sushi Go Party!

This was another early game for my collection as it was on Wil Wheaton’s Table Top show. It is a card drafting game, a mechanic that I quite enjoy, with set collection as well. The game works well, even though with new players you sometimes have someone get off on what they are drafting. Sushi Go Party! also gives you ways to change everything up, so that you can have different combinations of foods on the menu. The game has a very cute table appeal and is just a hit basically all the time.

Status: Played

Image Source: Ares Games

Sword and Sorcery (plus Expansions)

Sword and Sorcery is a classic dungeon crawl game. This one is pure Amerithrash dice chucking fun. I like how much mitigation you have, but only mitigation in having multiple symbols to use on the dice and being able to reroll dice. My knock on this game is that it is almost a little bit too easy at times. You get great weapons for completing things and now you are hitting really hard and can take down monsters fast. Granted if you roll poorly no matter what you’ll do poorly. I wish it had a bit more of a story to it, but overall, the story isn’t too bad and the game is meant to be mainly a dice chucking dungeon crawl anyways.

Status: Played

Sword Art Online Board Game: Sword of Fellows

I love Sword Art Online, one of my favorite anime, and I’ve watched it multiple times. I am also working on a game idea based off of some of the isekai themes from it. But this game is a bit sad, the anime is big and epic, this game is tiny. it does get some things right, mainly the combat of switching in and out and not letting the bad guy go feels like it matches the theme. I need to play this one not solo, because I think it might be better that way and have less upkeep for one player. I’m hoping some day we’ll get a truly epic Sword Art Online board game.

Status: Played

So that’s all of the S’s, there are ton of them. I hope that you were able to stick it out, hte rest of the list will be a lot shorter. There are so many good games in the S’s as well and a lot that I need to play. Which one should I play first? Do I have something that seems like it’s missing to you? I’m guessing people will say Scythe, which I owned, but got rid of.

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Holiday List: Games for the Casual Gamer https://nerdologists.com/2020/11/holiday-list-games-for-the-casual-gamer/ https://nerdologists.com/2020/11/holiday-list-games-for-the-casual-gamer/#respond Fri, 13 Nov 2020 15:08:19 +0000 http://nerdologists.com/?p=4939 When buying gifts, sometimes I do that to try and improve someone’s collection of games, and by that, I mean to move beyond the likes

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When buying gifts, sometimes I do that to try and improve someone’s collection of games, and by that, I mean to move beyond the likes of the Monopoly, Clue, Scrabble, Chutes and Ladders, and Candyland that most househoulds have had, and take those people who like games, but give them some more options to play. I’m going to be skipping Catan, Ticket to Ride, Pandemic, and Carcassone for this list, because those are the most obvious options, and I highly recommend them all. But what are some other games that offer some interesting play?

Escape Room Games

With this, I’m mainly talking about Unlock and Exit, because I’ve played both of those series, and I really highly recommend Unlock. In fact, Unlock has a new Star Wars box that is out, so a theme that will even standout. These games are basically little escape rooms in a box. Now, that doesn’t mean that they are easier than an escape room since they are smaller, they can be really tricky with hidden clues and figuring out how to use the information that you’ve found together. But this is a great family activity sort of a game. You can only play each of them once, but they work really well for casual groups and are really engaging throughout. Unlock is nice because you could play it in your group and then pass it to another group because you don’t destroy anything. Exit you do often destroy part of the game to figure out a puzzle or two or three. I also like Unlock because while both of them are time based for how well you do, Unlock has an app with a count down timer that just makes it smoother, versus Exit where the time is counting up.

Image Source: Board Game Geek

Draftosaurus

I’ve talked about a lot of roll and writes, and this actually isn’t one, but it has a bit of that feel to it. In this game, you are drafting a dinosaur meeple from a handful of them that you have, and then based on how a die is rolled placing it on the board into a pen. Some pens want all different dinosaurs, some want all of one type or pairs of dinosaurs. It’s a fast little game that works really well for drafting and is pretty easy to keep track of because everyone will end up with the same number of dinosaurs on their board. There are other drafting games out there that are solid as well. I always recommend Sushi Go Party! as well, but that one can, at times get muddled because if people don’t draft at the same speed someone can end up ahead or behind and it’s harder to count it out. Draftosaurus doesn’t offer the variety, but it is a very simple game that can be played with a wide variety of ages.

Splendor

I was torn on this one between Splendor and Homebrewers, I actually prefer Homebrewers by a fair amount, but it’s just a bit more complex and the theme won’t be for everyone. In Splendor, you are renaissance jewelers who are going out and getting the best jewels. You start out by taking one time use jewels, and then you can buy a jewel card for a cost of your one time use jewels. Those jewel cards then give you a permanent jewel of that color that you can use to buy more jewels. And your goal is to get the jewel cards that score points and be the first to fifteen. The game is simple and it works well. Generally, there isn’t anything that stands out as making this game amazing, but there is also nothing to knock about it. Something on par with it would be the city building game of Machi Koro that would work as well. If the people you know already have those games (or one of them) and might be looking for a step up, Homebrewers is great, or Century: Golem Edition, of the brewing theme doesn’t work.

Image Source: Board Game Geek

King of Tokyo

Sometimes you just want some dice chucking fun, and King of Tokyo is that. In this game you take on being a Kaiju who is battle other Kaiju. Think Godzilla: King of the Monsters. Here, you are trying to be the king of Tokyo by either knocking out the rest of the monsters or by winning via victory points. While I have seen people win via victory points, most of the time, it’s smashing. If you are outside of Tokyo you can only hit the monster in Tokyo, if you’re in Tokyo you can hit everyone else. But the downside to being in Tokyo is that you can’t heal, so as you are getting hit by everyone, you need to know when to drop out and let someone else go into Tokyo so you don’t die. It’s a fun push your luck dice chucking game. You can also buy upgrades that allow you to do more damage, or a one time boost to victory points or something like that, so you have a lot of different strategies depending on what cards show up. They also have some expansions that add more monsters and more things to do in the game.

Silver

This could be Silver Amulet, Bullet, Coin, or Dagger, you can take your pick. If you have a bigger group of people you can play with, Dagger would be very good, if you’d mainly just be playing with with two, I like Amulet and Bullet better for that. This game is a push your luck type and take that type of game, so it might not be for everyone. Everyone starts with a village of five cards face down in front of them. They can look at two of them, and the goal is to go down in the number of cards and have the fewest cards when a vote is called for. To do that, you will either draw a card or take a card from the discard pile on the turn. If you draw it and it has a flip ability, cards 5 through 12 have them in every game, you can either add it to your village or use that ability. Cards 0 through 4 have a flipped up ability, so if they are in your village facing up, you can use their ability. But how do you get down in cards, you can trade in two of the same number for another number. So you do try and rush that, if you can figure out you have decent cards so you can call for the vote before other people can change up their village too much. It’s a fun game, plays fast and all of them can be mixed and matched together, so get two and you have a ton of different combinations that you can play.

Now, there are a lot more games. I realized that I could have easily mentioned games like Marvel United, which I mentioned before by a list, Dominion or Ascension for a deck building game, Small World, Deception Murder in Hong Kong, a whole slew of roll and write games and more. There are plenty of really good options that can help encourage and engage new gamers to maybe look beyond the standard games that were a part of a lot of our youths, and that aren’t too intimidating.

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Point of Order: Top 100 Buys https://nerdologists.com/2020/11/point-of-order-top-100-buys/ https://nerdologists.com/2020/11/point-of-order-top-100-buys/#respond Thu, 05 Nov 2020 14:13:50 +0000 http://nerdologists.com/?p=4908 I won’t lie, some of this was retail therapy. With the election season wrapping up and daylight saving time and the fact that MN has

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I won’t lie, some of this was retail therapy. With the election season wrapping up and daylight saving time and the fact that MN has had snow accumulation before Thanksgiving (and before Halloween), it’s been a long few weeks. So I spent a bit of time looking on CoolStuffInc and Miniature Market, before narrowing down an order to three games from Miniature Market.

Silver Dagger

If the name sounds familiar, that’s because I have Silver Amulet, Coin, and Bullet as well. This is a game that uses a bit of memory and a bit of push your luck and bluffing as you try and build up your lowest scoring village possible. To do this can be a bit tricky though, because you have five cards in front of you and they are all face down. At the start of the game you can look at two of them, so you know a little bit, but not that much. Each card has a number and an ability. The number is how many points they’ll be worth in your village. The abilities can be one time use when you draw it, or it can be an ability that works if the villager is face up in your village. So already having three of them, why would I need another game that does the same thing? Simply for the variety. You can mix the cards from Silver Amulet, Coin, Bullet, and Dagger together, you just need one group of cards from 0 to 13. Needless to say, I’ll have more combinations than I’ll ever be able to play, but it’ll be fun as I can make it more “take that” if I want, or more focused on your own cards.

Image Source: Bezier Games

Roll Player

I could have just done a whole order of Roll Player with the Fiends and Familiars expansion and the Monsters and Minions expansions, and eventually I’m sure that I’ll get them. But I thought, let’s just start with the base game. Here’s a little secret, I’ve played this game only once with a physical copy of the game. Now I’ve played it more than that this year because of Tabletop Simulator. But only once with a physical copy. I like this dice drafting game a lot, I think that there are cool things about it and I love that you’re rolling up a D&D character, basically, and seeing how good you can make them. The game play is pretty straight forward and I love the variety of strategy that you can have based off of your background, class, and race, that’ll make you want to target different cards. Plus the traits that you can get can massively change how you’re going to score at the end of the game as well. This game has a good amount of replayability, and while I do want to get Monsters and Minions, because the game does seem like it ends before it could, and I think that getting to use your character will get me to get the expansions, and eventually Roll Player Adventure and being able to take my character through a whole campaign. But even without that, the game is a lot of fun, and hence why it’s in my Top 100 so it is one that I have felt like I’ve wanted to own for a while, and now was the time.

Image Source: Thunderworks Games

Shadowrun: Crossfire (Prime Runner Edition)

Another one in my top 100 that I want to play more. It’s a deck building game, but I like the setting that it is in so much. Shadowrun is a cyber punk world, mainly known for an RPG, where you are going on runs, hacking into big corporations, trying to keep from being found out. This makes it into a card game where you are taking on missions, defeating bad guys, and it’s interesting, because you are playing cards to deal with your own bad guys but also others. You also, slowly, level up your character as you play through what is basically a campaign. The setting is what drew me in and I have Shadowrun: Sprawl Ops to play as well in the same world, but I’m excited a lot for this one, because I’ve played it before. It’s one that I think has been a hit or miss for some people, or because of the original having a fairly poor rule book might have just flown under the radar. I think this one might take more time to get to the table, but I know I’ll be glad to have it.

Those are the new games that I’ve ordered. I’m definitely excited for all of them, and I really think that there are some interesting games in there. One thing I forgot to mention with Silver Dagger, since each game is a standalone, I’ll be able to play it with a larger group, have a few groups playing the game at once, maybe do a mini tournament, something like that.

Which of these games seems most interesting to you?

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TableTopTakes: Silver https://nerdologists.com/2020/06/tabletoptakes-silver/ https://nerdologists.com/2020/06/tabletoptakes-silver/#respond Thu, 25 Jun 2020 13:27:21 +0000 http://nerdologists.com/?p=4484 Bezier Games is known for their One Night Ultimate Werewolf games, but they have more than that, though, still, with a werewolf theme. One of

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Bezier Games is known for their One Night Ultimate Werewolf games, but they have more than that, though, still, with a werewolf theme. One of those games is Silver. Does it really branch from what they’ve done before?

In Silver you have a village of five cards in front of you. These cards are face down and at the start of a round, there are four, you look at two of them. Then you take turns either taking cards from the discard pile to put into your village – face up, drawing a card to put into your village from the draw pile – face down, drawing a card and playing it for its special power, or calling for a vote. You call for a vote when you think your village has the fewest points left in it. Each villager has a point total, and while you don’t want to get a 12 in your village, using it to steal a good card from someone else and giving them a high value card always works out nicely. There’s one trick for calling for a vote, though, and that’s that your village has to have fewer than five cards. To get rid of cards, you can trade in two cards of the same number when playing a card from the discard or that you drew into your village. When the vote happens, whomever calls for the vote, if they have the fewest points, they get zero points for the round, everyone else gets what is one their cards, but if they don’t have the fewest points, they get ten plus their total while everyone else just scores the total points on their cards. After four rounds, the person with the fewest points wins.

There are some things that I really like about this game, but I didn’t love it the first time that I played it, which was at GenCon. The concept of the game is quite simple, and I hadn’t picked up on the amount of depth that you might need for the game. Knowing what cards are strong when is interesting, and knowing to just discard a card sometimes and do nothing with it, because it isn’t worth the risk. There’s more depth to it than you’d initially think. That said, just the base box with the base set of cards, that is enjoyable, but for long term replayability, I think that you need some of the stand alone expansions. Silver Bullet and Silver Coin I haven’t actually played yet, but from what I know of them, they mainly add more villagers that you can play with.

Image Source: Board Game Geek

In Silver there are villagers numbered from 0 to 13. A 0 is just a normal villager, no special power, unless both are face up in villages, at which point you just score. But other numbers have powers. A 13 is a doppelganger of any other number when trading in two for one (or even three for one or four for one if you can set it up). A 2 face up in your village allows you to peak at one of your cards each turn so you can figure out all the numbers that you have. A 7 lets you look at two of your cards once, if you discard it after drawing it. And every number has something that it allows you to do. However, in the base game there is only one set of cards from 0 to 13. 12 is an exception to that, but you pick which set of the 12’s you want to play with. Silver Coin and Silver Bullet give you more sets of cards of various numbers. That means that you choose which set of 1’s, etc. you play with and you can create your own combinations. This is very much like having Sushi Go and then getting Sushi Go Party! which gives you more possibilities, this just creates them as stand alone expansions so you don’t have to buy everything.

But even with that said, I do like Silver a lot. I think that while the expansions would make it more playable over time, just the base game is nice because it’s easy to teach and it plays quickly. Once you have a concept of what you can do on your turn, you just need to learn the cards, and as the teacher, I don’t need to teach all of them. I can just show you what a few symbols mean and you can learn as you go. Now, learning as you go can sometimes suck because that probably means you’ll lose the first game, and in Silver, that’s no exception, except for the fact that the games are short. Maybe a four player game would take 60 minutes, which isn’t that short, but a two player game, even the first one with me teaching someone, maybe took twenty minutes, and after that, probably could play a game with two players in fifteen minutes. And I think with four, maybe 45. So as a two player game, it can really fly, with more, it does add more time, but the more comfortable people get with the game, the faster it goes. And even if the person is picking stuff up in the first round to figure out the game, rounds two through four will go much faster. Plus, as I’ve said, it’s so simple to teach, it’s easy to get to the table.

Overall, I think this is a good family weight, almost party game. Yes, it can only play up to four, but it’s one of those games that I’d use as a filler between bigger heavier games, and that people can really get into because of the simplicity of the game. If you’re looking for something with longer term strategy, I do think you’ll need the expansions, but for a good game to pull off the shelf with your more casual gaming friends, I really like Silver as a new game to do that. And I do now, after teaching it once, think I could teach it in five minutes to new gamers.

Overall Grade: B
Casual Grade: A
Gamer Grade: B-

Have you had a chance to play Silver, is it a game that you like?

Share questions, ideas for articles, or comments with us!

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