The Gaming thread - anything but video games

[Browser Brady]

How do you guys feel about this ?

 

 

[Chest Rockwell]

It's basically just an update of those 100 games compendium things we had as kids right? If well executed could be good for casual family games. Not of interest to me though as it clearly will not cater to an elitist nerd gamer such as myself

Edited October 29, 2025 by Chest Rockwell

[Bellenda Carlisle]

My sister's boyfriend busted out this perfect condition 13 Dead end Drive (1994) he's had since he was a kid, amazing looking game and was so fun to play.

[Jazzy G]

The DM is getting so frustrated at the bard in this campaign that he half jokingly asked me to dig out my bard character sheet from the last campaign and try to play both that character and my current character at next week's session, just to show him what barding is all about. In this universe my bard has published books about the art of the bard. The two characters couldn't be further apart in terms of their personalities, but I can see how they're both facets of my being. My Orc Bard is my ADHD, "what shenanigans can I get up to here?" side, and the Harengon Ranger is my "can you stop messing about, we have a job to do" side. It'd give me an excuse to dig my accordion out...

Edited October 31, 2025 by Jazzy G

[CavemanLynn]

21 minutes ago, Jazzy G said:

The DM is getting so frustrated at the bard in this campaign that he half jokingly asked me to dig out my bard character sheet from the last campaign and try to play both that character and my current character at next week's session, just to show him what barding is all about. In this universe my bard has published books about the art of the bard. The two characters couldn't be further apart in terms of their personalities, but I can see how they're both facets of my being. My Orc Bard is my ADHD, "what shenanigans can I get up to here?" side, and the Harengon Ranger is my "can you stop messing about, we have a job to do" side. It'd give me an excuse to dig my accordion out...

What's the bard doing or not doing? Bards are a tricky one, as despite the stereotype as horny tricksters, they can be jack of all trades for all kinds of personalities. I've seen games negatively affected by wonky playing (a Tiefling Rogue trying (and repeatedly failing Intimidation checks) because he has low Charism but has horns) and wonkier DMing (telling a Fighter to take Animal Handling checks to pet dogs and horses, but having him thump the animals despite rolling high teens because he "should have been a Druid if you wanted to do that"), but both of which would've been solved or at least made a bit more fun for everyone through DMing the characters rather than the stats.

[JNLister]

Only technically a first time player, but I played Mysterium Park. Not much to say beyond that Mysterium is co-operative Cluedo with Dixit cards and Mysterium Park is Mysterium set in a funfair with a smaller box.

[Just Some Guy]

My group are embracing Halloween tonight with a game of Mansions of Madness.

To follow, if there is time, I am taking Flip 7 after picking up a copy based on the recommendation by @JNLister.

[JNLister]

We played Rafter 5, which is a tiny box game from Oink who did Deep Sea Adventure, Scout and several others. This one's a dexterity game where the premise is there's been a shipwreck, you're on a raft and you're trying to grab floating planks from the shipwreck to extend the raft so you can balance salavaged treasure. The game box is the raft, there are five different sized/shaped meeples for the crew, the planks are all thin strips of card, and the treasure is small plastic barrels.

It's basically reverse jenga. On your turn you lift one of the crew, add a plank (which must touch at least one other plank), replace the crew member, then add one of your barrels. Of you knock anything off the raft or something falls off, your turn ends immediately, and if you knock off other players' barrels they are penalty points against you. First to five penalty points loses and everyone else wins.

Not sure it would have a lot of replayability, but a fun silly game and some definite variation based on the tactics people used, but it's generally going to end in a spectacular collapse that instantly ends the game.

[JNLister]

Played Anno 1800, which is an adaptation of a computer game. It's based on each player establishing industry on an island and works a bit like the Elements mobile game where you combine stuff. In this, you start off with the facilities to get things like coal, pigs, girders, planks etc. You can then put workers in your coal and pigs facilities to make a sausage factory, and it turns into a cycle of combining stuff to make ever more sophisticated and technically advanced stuff. The idea is to get the right combination of stuff to fulfill a population card (ie keep the population happy) which is where you get points.

The catch is that you only have room for a certain number of industries and will start having to build over stuff. However, if you have a ship (planks + sails!) you can trade with another player who has the right facility. They then get gold, which lets you reuse workers and avoid having to do a reset (which costs you a turn and can waste some benefits.) You need to decide what's worth doing yourself and what's worth trading for as you only have limited opportunities to trade.

It's a lovely headscratcher trying to figure out which combinations of industries are going to help you overall, particularly when you start trying to anticipate/deduce what other players are going after (and thus what industries they might develop that you can trade with rather than build yourself.)

[JNLister]

A rare double first play week.

Hanabi is a cooperative game with a very tenuous "you're fixing a messed up firework display" theme that ultimate boils down to "you need to combine your cards to arrange them from 1 to 5 of the same colour. There's three 1s of each colour, two 2s, 3s and 4s, and only one 5.

Which would be a very simple game if it wasn't for the fact that you have to hold your cards facing out so that you are the only one who can't see them. On your turn you can play a card, but if it isn't a 1 (starting a new row) or something you can add to an existing row, you lose one of three lives. The other options are to discard (which makes it harder as you can't ever get discarded cards back) or give another player information (specifically to give a colour or number and then point to all the cards that match it.)

The other big catch is that you start with eight tokens outside of the box lid. Every time you give information, you move a token in. Every time you discard, you take one out. And if you can't do that (because all eight tokens are either in or out), you can't do the action. You play until you have all five sets out (a perfect win), you lose three lives, or the deck is empty and you take one more turn each. 

This creates a very tense situation where, without communicating, you need to be balancing different goals and threats: if two people give clues to somebody you can highlight a specific card that they could play, but you don't want to leave somebody forced to unwittingly discard a 5 (which will mean you can't complete that colour), and you never want somebody having to play a card without knowing what it is. Once everyone understands the rules, it's definitely a good puzzle, though can be frustrating if other players don't share your "obvious" logic about what to do next.

 

Gallielio Gallile is all about discovering planets/constellations, but with the headache that too many big discoveries attracts the attention of the Spanish Inquisition. It's based around selecting from a set of possible actions, but they are arranged in an order (which changes each round) that means you will only have three available options each time (and can figure out what the three will be next round, and so on depending on how well your brain can process in advance). It's a lovely match of theme and mechanics: you select your action by moving your telescope to a different angle; you combine red/yellow/blue dice to discover planets based on the strength of your telescope (ie the value of the dice) and orange/green/purple light wavelengths depending on the mix of dice you use. And as much as you can get a good engine going, the better you do, the more you have to spend turns handling the Spanish Inquisition, which can destroy your reputation and cost you big points. Only played it once, but it looks very replayable, especially with the option of characters with special abilities.

[Carbomb]

36 minutes ago, JNLister said:

Hanabi is a cooperative game with a very tenuous "you're fixing a messed up firework display" theme that ultimate boils down to "you need to combine your cards to arrange them from 1 to 5 of the same colour. There's three 1s of each colour, two 2s, 3s and 4s, and only one 5.

Which would be a very simple game if it wasn't for the fact that you have to hold your cards facing out so that you are the only one who can't see them. On your turn you can play a card, but if it isn't a 1 (starting a new row) or something you can add to an existing row, you lose one of three lives. The other options are to discard (which makes it harder as you can't ever get discarded cards back) or give another player information (specifically to give a colour or number and then point to all the cards that match it.)

The other big catch is that you start with eight tokens outside of the box lid. Every time you give information, you move a token in. Every time you discard, you take one out. And if you can't do that (because all eight tokens are either in or out), you can't do the action. You play until you have all five sets out (a perfect win), you lose three lives, or the deck is empty and you take one more turn each. 

This creates a very tense situation where, without communicating, you need to be balancing different goals and threats: if two people give clues to somebody you can highlight a specific card that they could play, but you don't want to leave somebody forced to unwittingly discard a 5 (which will mean you can't complete that colour), and you never want somebody having to play a card without knowing what it is. Once everyone understands the rules, it's definitely a good puzzle, though can be frustrating if other players don't share your "obvious" logic about what to do next.

Ah, one of my favourite games. Spent so many hours on this, and am very jealous of some friends who have the limited special edition where the cards have been turned into Mahjong-style tiles instead.

After enough time, you realise just how vital the meta-game is to doing well in this. It becomes about more than just the simple logic of what colour or number you've been told, and you start working off observed prior patterns to make educated guesses as to why your team-mate would give you said specific information, in that way, and at that time.

Also, being a small-box game, it's easy to just pull out and play anywhere.

[JNLister]

7 minutes ago, Carbomb said:

 

After enough time, you realise just how vital the meta-game is to doing well in this. 

Yeah, it turns out the information-giving rule covers all communication and my comment of "I like your shirt. It's a great colour. Did you pay for it, or was it..." was cheating.

[Carbomb]

5 minutes ago, JNLister said:

Yeah, it turns out the information-giving rule covers all communication and my comment of "I like your shirt. It's a great colour. Did you pay for it, or was it..." was cheating.

We tend to consider that information already given can be run over again (assuming the cards in question have not been played/discarded) without spending a token.

[JNLister]

The absolute minimum to qualify as a "new game" played but I played Camel Up: 2nd edition. I played the original years back. It’s a fairly light betting game where you are putting money on who’s going to win a camel race and who’ll be ahead at various stages. Largely luck driven, with the skill being when and where you bet, though you can play obstacles that speed up or slow down the camels. The new edition is mainly about better components (plastic rather than cardboard) and a box redesign that makes it clearer it’s not Camel Cup (which most people called it). The only gameplay difference is there are now two non-racing camels who’ve wandered on to the track and move backwards (potentially picking up and dragging racers on their way) which adds more uncertainty and randomness (if you’re a rational odds player) or stupid wacky turnarounds in fortune (if you’re playing because it’s fun.)

[Jazzy G]

Got back into playing Magic The Gathering yesterday, and tried to introduce Vicky to it. My friend bought me a commander deck, and I'd picked one up on eBay. The staff at the local Geek Retreat also gave Vicky and I a pair of the starter packs with the little 30 card decks in them. One is Green Vs White and the other one is from the Spider-Man expansion and has a Spider-Gwen/Ghost Spider deck along with another mystery little deck.