MungoChutney Posted August 11 Share Posted August 11 I'm on the lookout for recommendations folks. My niece is turning 12 and is probably a few years older in terms of ability to understand rules and stuff. What would be a good board game, possibly with a role playing element that's easier to jump in and play than something like D&D? Ideally looking for something that's 4-8 players for a family games night feel, so a playtime that's not super quick but can be done in one session. Any ideas? Budget of around £50-60. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members JNLister Posted August 31 Paid Members Share Posted August 31 On 8/11/2024 at 10:16 PM, MungoChutney said: I'm on the lookout for recommendations folks. My niece is turning 12 and is probably a few years older in terms of ability to understand rules and stuff. What would be a good board game, possibly with a role playing element that's easier to jump in and play than something like D&D? Ideally looking for something that's 4-8 players for a family games night feel, so a playtime that's not super quick but can be done in one session. Any ideas? Budget of around £50-60. Betrayal At The House On The Hill might be worth a look. It's definitely more of a "have fun, get into character" game than a "hardcore gamer strategy" affair and can be very unbalanced, but it does have about 50 different scenarios so a lot of replayability. The one big drawback is that it's a game where the first half is entirely cooperative but midway through one of the players becomes the betrayer, which is determined by game events rather than player choice). From that point it's them against everyone else and the catch is that there's one set of secret rules to read for the betrayer and one for the rest of the group, and certain information (such as how you actually win or how you wound/damage/kill the betrayer) is only known by one side, leaving other side to figure it out. The problem is that if there's any ambiguity in the betrayer's rules for that scenario, they've got no way of clarifying it (short of searching online).  Ideally everyone playing would be reasonably familiar with board game rules and interpreting possible ambiguity. If not, one workaround is to swop characters when the betrayal reveal happens and have an experienced gamer be the betrayer, though that does undermine the character immersal a little. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members JNLister Posted August 31 Paid Members Share Posted August 31 I played Newton, which is theoretically about being one of Newton's followers and trying to make discoveries or something, but frankly the theme plays no real role. It's a proper "simple but difficult" affair. Each round you're playing cards which have six different actions. Four of them relate to different boards/tracks, namely travel round Europe/work to get cash/develop technologies/something with books. The fifth action is to get another card and the sixth is a joker, aka do any action. The main mechanism is that the power of the action depends on how many of those symbols you have already played that round. At the end of each round you have to tuck a card under your board so the symbol is there permanently but you no longer have it as an action. It's very much a puzzle of working out the right cards to play in the right order each round so that you can build up the power of the actions and set up chain reactions. The thing that will most decide whether you like the game is the fact that, other than people taking a card you had your eye on, there's very little interaction or effect from one player's actions affecting somebody else's options. I found it an enjoyable challenge as playing most optimally involved planning five moves ahead while thinking a little about the next round, which is pretty much the stretchy limit of my attention, but it could either feel too uncontrollable or too simple depending on your gaming experience/skillset/preferences. I'd play it again but probably wouldn't pick it ahead of most other games or something new. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members ReturnOfTheMack Posted August 31 Paid Members Share Posted August 31 Games room is coming together. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Just Some Guy Posted August 31 Share Posted August 31 Just had Worms: The Board Game delivered off the kickstarter. Very silly but fun game that really captures the fun of the PC game. Recommended. Â Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Thunderplex Posted August 31 Author Paid Members Share Posted August 31 On 8/11/2024 at 10:16 PM, MungoChutney said: I'm on the lookout for recommendations folks. My niece is turning 12 and is probably a few years older in terms of ability to understand rules and stuff. What would be a good board game, possibly with a role playing element that's easier to jump in and play than something like D&D? Ideally looking for something that's 4-8 players for a family games night feel, so a playtime that's not super quick but can be done in one session. Any ideas? Budget of around £50-60. Not sure if she’s a bit too old for Coraquest, but I hear that’s very good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members JNLister Posted September 7 Paid Members Share Posted September 7 (edited) Played Aonmia, a party card game that's effectively Dobble-meets-word games. It's a deck of cards with a symbol and a category (salads, Underground stations, criminal offenses, superheroes etc). You each take it in turns to take a card and add it to your face-up stack. If your top card's symbol ever matches another players you have to shout a word from their category before they shout one from yours. First to do so takes their top card and puts it aside (forming a score pile) and then becomes first player in a new round of taking cards. The two twists are that whenever someone win, the one underneath immediately becomes "live" so if you're paying attention you can get two or three in a row, particularly if you remembered what was underneath. Also there's a bunch of wild cards that go in the middle which have no words but two symbols. If your top card matches one of them wild card symbols you have to shout out a word for the category on your card. It's a stupidly simple game that works because you get increasingly confused and either have brain freeze, shout out something on your card rather than the opponents, or just start panicking and getting fixated on a word that will either be a match or an amusing fail for any category. Which, your honour, is why my friend was repeatedly shouting "tomato" and I was repeatedly countering with "wanking in public". Edited September 7 by JNLister Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members ReturnOfTheMack Posted September 16 Paid Members Share Posted September 16 Played Unfathomable last night. A fun Lovecraftian game with a hidden traitor mechanic. Very much enjoyed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Chest Rockwell Posted September 16 Moderators Share Posted September 16 My son has recently gone nuts for gaming which I am loving. He wants to game all the time. We've been playing a lot of Outfoxed, Ghost Fightin' Treasure Hunters, Uno, Sleeping Queens, draughts and he's starting to learn chess. He's turning 4 this week so have picked up a few new games for his birthday that I'm looking forward to getting into. We've got Catan Junior, Zombie Kidz Evolution and My First Castle Panic. I'm excited to get stuck in to those! Will happily take any recommendations as I'm sure we'll be looking to get one or two more at Christmas if his interest keeps up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UK_Mondo_Mark Posted September 16 Share Posted September 16 Backed Everdell Duo over the weekend, We love Everdell and have all the expansions (eye up the Big storage box, but Space is already limited....) We have Farshore too but havent had a chance to get that to the table yet Rather than planning games though we have been looking over our games for items to sell to make room..... Worst part of the hobbie!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrodyGraham Posted September 17 Share Posted September 17 22 hours ago, Chest Rockwell said: My son has recently gone nuts for gaming which I am loving. He wants to game all the time. We've been playing a lot of Outfoxed, Ghost Fightin' Treasure Hunters, Uno, Sleeping Queens, draughts and he's starting to learn chess. He's turning 4 this week so have picked up a few new games for his birthday that I'm looking forward to getting into. We've got Catan Junior, Zombie Kidz Evolution and My First Castle Panic. I'm excited to get stuck in to those! Will happily take any recommendations as I'm sure we'll be looking to get one or two more at Christmas if his interest keeps up. Rhino Hero Super Battle and Boop would be my recommendations. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Chest Rockwell Posted Wednesday at 12:37 PM Moderators Share Posted Wednesday at 12:37 PM On 9/16/2024 at 12:24 PM, Chest Rockwell said: He's turning 4 this week so have picked up a few new games for his birthday that I'm looking forward to getting into. We've got Catan Junior, Zombie Kidz Evolution and My First Castle Panic. I'm excited to get stuck in to those! To follow up on this. My First Castle Panic and Zombie Kid Evolution have both been a huge hit. I am delighted. Although simple there is more strategy and decision making in MFCP than it first appears. Plenty of luck too, mind. There's some good ways to vary the rules as well to make it more and less difficult as needed which is always appreciated. ZKE is very fast and simple, and as 'campaign' boardgame it creates a really good 'just one more game' addictive quality. We're all very excited to see what stuff we unlock as we progress! We've not had a chance to play Catan yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members JNLister Posted Wednesday at 05:01 PM Paid Members Share Posted Wednesday at 05:01 PM @Chest RockwellMight also be worth a look at Dragonimo. It's a scaled down/rethemed version of the popular Kingdomino that's aimed at young kids and has a few variants to cover different ages/abilities, each adding a little more choice and strategy. I played IKI which is set in Edo-era Japan in a town square and is your standard "go to places, build stuff, hire workers" but with a couple of twists. One is that you only really get 12 main actions (one per month) so you have to be pretty efficient given the range of ways to score points. The other is that you moved round the town clockwise and there's no limit on how many players can be on the space, but you take it in turns to decide if you are moving 1, 2, 3 or 4 spaces in that round. Only one person can choose each number and if the one you want/need is already taken, you either have to give up your income for the round to replicate somebody else's movement number, or you have to use one or more bonus tiles that you can collect and use to add an extra space to your move. We played with the expansion, which is quite literal (you add a harbourside to the edge of the town, introducing various boats and fishing businesses). That offers a lot more options and I suspect the base game might leave you feeling a bit short on choices. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Jazzy G Posted Wednesday at 06:50 PM Paid Members Share Posted Wednesday at 06:50 PM Got a Cards Against Humanity adjacent game called Happiest Game On Earth a few weeks ago, and played with with the Autistic group. It went pretty hard, and was a lot of fun. I've finally got a copy of Superfight, and a copy of Moose Master. I look forward to finding people to play that with. I just got on these wild binged of buying games on Vinted and Temu. I'm still waiting to play Guess Who/Cluedo, and the Animal Crossing Monopoly that was 75% off at The Entertainer the other week. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Chest Rockwell Posted Wednesday at 06:57 PM Moderators Share Posted Wednesday at 06:57 PM 1 hour ago, JNLister said: Might also be worth a look at Dragonimo. It's a scaled down/rethemed version of the popular Kingdomino that's aimed at young kids and has a few variants to cover different ages/abilities, each adding a little more choice and strategy. Cheers John! We have actual Kingdomino as my eldest got it as a gift. I think Dragomino would probably be better for him as he does struggle a little with Kingdomino, but he enjoys it anyway so I don't think I'd pick up Dragomino. Otherwise yeah, it would be a great shout! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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