The Gaming thread - anything but video games

[Onyx2]

On 8/22/2023 at 5:41 PM, SuperBacon said:

Does this count?

We have a monthly-ish team meeting where we all meet somewhere nice (usually a country park or the beach) so we can have a bit of wellbeing time/walk the dogs after the meeting (genuinely one of the best bits of the job) and today we took Finnish skittles down the park.

What a game! So you throw that thing on the right, and if you only knock down one, you score the value on the peg.

If you knock down more than one peg, you score the amount you've knocked down, NOT the value of the pegs.

You do this until you reach 40, but if you go over that, you go back to 21. Also where the pegs get knocked down is where they are put back up so it gets more difficult if you just need the one value.

Brilliant fun, and I imagine even better after a few sherberts. The only issue is it's a pain in the arse keep putting them back up. Best played in a big park as well.

This is me fully embracing the village life. Next up, boccia.

I've had a Molkky set for years. Such a great one to take to the park. Everyone loves it.

[Magnum Milano]

On 8/22/2023 at 5:41 PM, SuperBacon said:

Does this count?

We have a monthly-ish team meeting where we all meet somewhere nice (usually a country park or the beach) so we can have a bit of wellbeing time/walk the dogs after the meeting (genuinely one of the best bits of the job) and today we took Finnish skittles down the park.

What a game! So you throw that thing on the right, and if you only knock down one, you score the value on the peg.

If you knock down more than one peg, you score the amount you've knocked down, NOT the value of the pegs.

You do this until you reach 40, but if you go over that, you go back to 21. Also where the pegs get knocked down is where they are put back up so it gets more difficult if you just need the one value.

Brilliant fun, and I imagine even better after a few sherberts. The only issue is it's a pain in the arse keep putting them back up. Best played in a big park as well.

This is me fully embracing the village life. Next up, boccia.

We went to Kendal Calling and took Molkky with us. Just spent a couple of hours one afternoon sinking a few beers and playing it in the sun.  Even got the couple in the tent next to us joining in.  We played it to 50 though as opposed to 40.

I'd recommend Kubb too, if you are looking for other lawn games to play.

[SuperBacon]

Just now, Magnum Milano said:

We went to Kendal Calling and took Molkky with us. Just spent a couple of hours one afternoon sinking a few beers and playing it in the sun.  Even got the couple in the tent next to us joining in.  We played it to 50 though as opposed to 40.

I'd recommend Kubb too, if you are looking for other lawn games to play.

Yeah, on further research it is usually to 50.

Maybe my manager just lacked faith in us to get to that 🤣

[gaz2050]

Kubb and ladder toss should be added to any outdoor games to buy list! Kubb especially if you like Finnish skittles. 

[JNLister]

Played The Red Cathedral in which you are competing to build parts of a cathedral. It's one of those Euro's that's remarkably simple in principle and quite brain-crunching in practice. You can only do one of three things on your turn (claim a piece of cathedral to build, get some stuff to build cathedrals, build a piece of cathedrals), but there's a bunch of mechanisms that mean your constantly weighing up when to do stuff right away and when to leave it a bit in the hope of getting more points but with the risk that somebody else does something beforehand that stops you. 

I wouldn't play it with somebody who suffers from analysis paralysis (cough-80-minute-game-took-three-hours), but it looks to have a lot of replayability and there doesn't appear to be an obvious path to victory that will always work.

[JNLister]

Two more new-to-me classics:

Kingdom Builder is a very accessible tile-layer (well, wooden house layer). The basic gameplay is very simple: on your turn you draw a card with a terrain type and then place three houses on spaces of that type, the only rule being that if you can play a house adjacent to one you've previously placed, you must. A few spaces on the board will give you a special ability that you can use on every subsequent turn, but there's a limit on how many player can claim them. That's pretty much it.

What makes it work is that the board layout, the available special abilities, and the scoring criteria are all variable/randomised for every game. (For example, one game scoring was pieces by water/pieces on the same row of the board/connecting locations while the other was separated groups of pieces/pieces surrounding particular locations/getting pieces on all four quarters of the board.) The particular combo you get completely transforms the best strategy/luck mitigation/way to block other players. It would make a great intro to "hobby gaming" for a newby, particularly if you play the suggested first game setup, then immediately play again with a random setup.

Escape from Atlantis is a modern revamp of an 80s mainstream family game. Simple premise of trying to escape a sinking island and reach safety, either swimming or using boats and avoiding sharks/sea monsters/whales etc. Very simple gameplay, but a lot of fun if you are OK with a lot of luck and playful aggression to other players.

[Chest Rockwell]

I fucking loved Escape From Antlantis as a kid. I think it was mostly the minis that I was enamoured with, and the fact that I only got to play it at my cousin's house. Has anything changed about the rules, do you know? 

[ReturnOfTheMack]

My sister messaged me this morning to tell me her eldest son is now into DnD, and Warhammer40k. 

I don't think she expected me to offer to share my Warhammerplus account with him.

I'm so cool.

[Retro Red]

43 minutes ago, ReturnOfTheMack said:

My sister messaged me this morning to tell me her eldest son is now into DnD, and Warhammer40k. 

I don't think she expected me to offer to share my Warhammerplus account with him.

I'm so cool.

Until he changes the address details and claims your next free figure…..

[JNLister]

21 hours ago, Chest Rockwell said:

I fucking loved Escape From Antlantis as a kid. I think it was mostly the minis that I was enamoured with, and the fact that I only got to play it at my cousin's house. Has anything changed about the rules, do you know? 

Not sure when the various changes came in as it appears to have been through many editions/revamps. From what I can tell, some of the differences from the original include:

You can have up to 6 players. (Some tiles have different effects depending on play count.)

There's no spinner for monsters. Instead you roll one dice to see what you move (boat/whale/shark/dolphin/sea monster/your choice) and one for how far they move.

One of the movement dice options is dive/drift which means you can move the piece to any empty space.

If you remove a tile with people on it, they go in the water rather than leaping to another space.

Dolphins don't carry people (letting them move further in water). Instead they accompany a specific person and protect them from shark attacks.

The game doesn't end at a fixed point but rather when one of the central tiles is removed/flipped to reveal a volcano. So you only know the end could be at some point in the next six turns.

The people pieces have a number from 1-6 underneath. (You can look at the start but then they remain hidden.) Your score is the total numbers from any players that make it to safety. So you could, for example, make it look like you are concentrating on saving a high-value piece but actually be bluffing and OK if other players target them.

[Chest Rockwell]

Cheers for that comprehensive breakdown. All those changes definitely sounds for the better. Glad it's still going, and look forward to playing it with my kids at some point 😊

[Jazzy G]

Visited some friends today and we had a game of Wingspan. They've had a copy, plus some of the add-ons for a while now, and recommended I pick up the app as well. I tried learning to play the game using the app, and it confused me a little, but playing it the way my friends do (open handed so I could see what was going on) was a lot of fun. It was super casual, and while it was still a little competitive, it felt a lot more cooperative as well given the way we were playing. We started a 3 player game on the app as well. Hopefully I do a little better now I've got more idea what's going on. I also played some Pokemon TCG, which I picked up a little easier, but the cards didn't come out in my favour. Fun day.

[Thunderplex]

Wonderful game Wingspan.  Still have loads of fun with the basic game.  I’ve got all the expansions, but I only go to expansions when I’m bored of the original and that’s yet to happen.

[Jazzy G]

The Oceanía expansión is coming soon, which will have penguins in it. The app works well, I'm in an online game with my friends that we started last night. It's a wee bit small to see properly on my phone, but easier to keep track on my phone. 

[Carbomb]

Got this for a tenner on eBay. Mixed reviews, but one reviewer also detailed some house rules that can improve it, so thought it'd be worth a shot. I've wanted some small-box games for some time that you can just bust out with mates at a pub at any time if you feel like it. Hopefully will be able to play for the first time this weekend.