Why do I feel like I need this.
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I managed to get Time of Crisis to the table again yesterday! That’s the game that takes place in the Roman Empire from 235 - 285, when you could find somebody on a street corner in Rome and try to get them installed as Emperor. It’s one of my favourites, and I think I’ve played it enough for a review now.
Lost by a fair bit to a newbie, unfortunately. I guess I’m a great teacher!
Also got a quick game of Sagrada in. Damn, I love that game.
Last week, I posted my review of my second (not the second, as I’m getting them out of order) Smash Up expansion, Cease and Desist. Any fans of that game? I know the app leaves a little to be desired, but I find myself really enjoying the game itself.
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Smash Up is an interesting game, mainly because I think it sits a bit in no-man’s land. The concept itself is great and I do like the economic model, but the game is a bit too complicated for a non-gamer game and a bit too simple for a gamer game. When I tried to introduce the base game to my brother-in-laws, who do play games occasionally with me, the game became way too drawn out as they spent far too much time reading all the text and puzzling out how things work. Card games can be difficult for those not used to them. On the other hand, when I introduced it to my gamer friends, we all agreed that we’d rather play deeper card games or even collectible card games like Magic.
It is a shame that the app dropped the ball so bad. I could even deal with a wonky UI, but with no asynch, it won’t get played. I think if the app had asynch, it might have found itself in heavy rotation on my phone.
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For me and a couple of my gamer friends, I find exploring the synergy of the different factions combining to be really interesting. But it’s true that your first time playing (or first time with new factions) is subject to the “reading the cards to see what they do” syndrome.
Yes, there are deeper card games, but I just love the chaos that can develop with the game. Especially when you realize just what the factions you have do and what they are good at.
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Keeping this image handy for every time a new digital board game is announced without asynch.
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Get ready. I’m going to flip out if Scythe or Terraforming Mars don’t support it.
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They’re both Asmodee, so I’m thinking the answer will be no.
Which is really too bad. Any game that takes anything more than an hour should, almost by definition, have async play (I would prefer even shorter games too, but I think it’s almost wrong to not have it in longer games)
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Hit 7th Continent again and had a much better time. After clearing what I will politely call Tutorial Island, we reached…THE SEVENTH CONTINENT.
Hunting is the main way to regularly refill the action deck, without which the game ends. So with a bow, some bolas, and a blowpipe, and accompanied by man’s best friend, fire, we did some hunting regularly and had a much more sustainable game. That said, it was still very much designed to fuck you over for being curious, with no real way to exercise prudence other than ‘not investigate stuff’, which still strikes me as just bad game design. There are decisions where the results are just 50/50 between bad/good and there’s no way to influence them. It’s slightly bizarre. I was playing Lovecraft again, and while amusing to imagine everyone’s long-faced miserabilist utterly failing to cope with the challenges of an unknown continent (much like in the game), it’s also a bit try-hard at times.
Some aspects of it are great, but some of it is laborious and ungainly. It took several attempts to work out how the fuck the inventory system is supposed to work (simple hand limit? Fuck off, mate.) and even after reading the rulebook and the FAQ, we had to keep checking, which is just deathly in a game where you’re supposed to be getting tooled up to go adventuring. It is really fun, but it’s more down to the group’s attitude than the game, so far. We played for almost four hours, and appear to be doing well. I don’t think we’re that close to finishing this curse though, so perhaps another 8-12 hours? I can imagine a table flip if we get close to the end and crash out, and have nothing to show for it. A certain amount of the game just has to be done, you can’t effectively speedrun it. And looking at our situation, we’re quite well equipped, so I’m unaware of what exactly the game will put in our path to cause us to lose without being very arbitrary about it. Any big test isn’t that much of an obstacle, as a loss merely means retreating to lick our wounds and hunt to refresh the deck for another attempt.
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When I spoke with Amber at Asmodee I was told that, despite their previous aversion to async, it’s not out of the question for longer games that play longer than 30 mins to an hour. It wasn’t a “yep it will have async”, but it left me hopeful.
Terraforming Mars is definitely set up so it could work as an async game by which I mean there’s an End of Turn button you have to select even in a solo game vs. AI and when you’ve run through both actions. True it would probably be that was even if real time, but the way it works now would be an easy fit for async play.
Then again, I may just be looking for reasons to see what I want to see.
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Fingers crossed!!
I’ll be the Negative Nancy here, and say that “it’s not out of the question” doesn’t give me a lot of hope…
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As any parent knows, “maybe” or “we will see” or anything short of the explicit affirmative means “no.”
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To be fair, Potion Explosion has friend lists, private games, a timer, and async play. It’s not as functional as something like TtA or TS, but it works. So, there’s some history of Asmodee having a multiplayer system that doesn’t completely suck.
I mean, Playdek is kind of under the Asmodee umbrella now. They have the best online multiplayer system out there (other than, maybe CGE, but they based theirs on Playdek’s), so couldn’t they be called in to make sure online multiplayer doesn’t suck? If only we knew someone from Playdek who frequented these very forums and could tell us why Asmodee keeps mucking it up. I know it’s not Playdek developing either TM or Scythe, but couldn’t devs be given some sort of wrapper with hooks that a solid multiplayer system could plug into? I’m a hardware developer, not software, so maybe not, but adding in hooks like this for standard features is common in VHDL.
I’m rambling now, but everyone is making my hope meter for Asmodee’s 2018 releases drip precariously into the red.
This sounds amazing, particularly the fact that responsibilities are divvied up between team players. I can just imagine the Front-Line Commander wanting to make an attack but realizing his troops are critically low on supplies, bitching out the Rear Area Commander who then points the finger at the Logistics Commander while the Air Commander laughs and the Commander-in-Chief facepalms Picard-style.
The article has some follow ups showing the game’s horrendous complexity in detail.
Anyone had a go of Maximum Apocalypse? How is it?
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/188547/maximum-apocalypse
Played the last expansion of Time Stories this weekend, and while it was not my favorite, it was very good. Set in my favorite decade (the 1980s), your group goes back to see just what happened to cause a rift in time at a rumored-to-be haunted manor in the Hollywood hills. As is the case with each mission, this one had a unique game mechanic.
I recommend Time Stories overall very highly. Our group could not get enough of it. To my chagrin, we’re done until the next expansion shows up in Q3, and there is really no other game like it for us to take up next. The closest thing I can think of is an rpg, which some in the group have stated long in the past that they would not be into. But I think this may be the perfect moment to show them how wrong they are.
Anyone have a good suggestion for an rpg and/or starter set that would be an easy and enjoyable entryway?
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Have a look at Legacy of Dragonholt.
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Got Time of Crisis and another game of Sagrada in this Sunday, which enabled me to finally do what I’ve been wanting to do…
Post a review of Time of Crisis!
I love this game to death. Roman history, light wargame with deckbuilding mechanics without the randomness of most deckbuilders (no shuffling).
It’s awesome.
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I somehow missed the P500 for Time of Crisis and had to buy it at retail like a peasant. It’s one of the clearest cases of GMT’s output having its audience limited by the art and graphic design (see also Dominant Species). As it’s mostly in-house, it’s a tad limited, whereas a more modern look could easily see their games sell a lot more. Amazing game though, and gives me the chance to be all superior when I break out the jewels. I was playing Heroes Wanted recently and I realised how much I enjoy games which use small decks, without a lot of extraneous cards and less card churn overall.
I’ve got and love third edition, but I wonder what this one will be like.
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