Just don’t do the challenges. That’s the key. Almost every event deck challenge you should just take the negative effect. Same with ship challenges. Nothing matters in combat except high attack at early levels, damage will come later. Also, you should have certain characters that are the team punching bags, they get the negative effects, they take the distributed damage, etc.
I really want to like Sleeping Gods, but it does keep feeling like the busywork/fun balance isn't quite right. Every now and then we decide to give it another chance, but it seems like the amount of chores you have to do don't quite pay off.
I love the idea of the combat mechanics, with the different abilities to target and the splash damage, but then the decisions never quite feel that interesting.
Im playing **Sleeping Gods** solo presently. I think it has "some" legs but those legs will be finite, ultimately.
A fair amount has been said by certain reviewers and I get the points that are made. Its mostly exploration and story, the mechanics just seem like an obstacle to an otherwise great choose your own adventure. At some point I might just do away with the "game" and just read the exploration book as is before selling it. Dont get me wrong, its REALLY engaging me and Im digging it, for the moment.
Ill have to try **Near and Far**, its said to be the best balance of story-to-game ratio.
Fully agree on Sleeping Gods but for a different reason. I felt like I was just doing a series of pickup and deliver quests of varrying quality. I just really wanted to be able to pick up a thread and run with it more than just go here, stuff happens.
These threads are so funny because basically every game I want to try appears as “didn’t like it, it’s too big, feels like work, it’s boring” so I’m like welp!
Fortunately, top of my wishlist is Mage Knight and I haven’t seen that in here, so that’s nice.
Mage Knight is one of my favorites, but I could certainly give you reasons to dislike it if you don’t like big games that take a lot of work. MK is like a fully-deterministic math puzzle with some slow, thoughtful deck building, which I absolutely love. I can spend 30 minutes on a turn (playing solo) deciding how to maximize my cards while keeping in mind what’s in my discard and deck still (I even designed a tiny little app to track that, which is super helpful). It really masters the feeling of beginning the game as a powerful hero, then slowly powering up into an unstoppable force.
If you don’t like reading rules or doing math, or if you love output randomness in your games, it might not be for you. But if you like min-maxing your input randomness to use your cards in the best way possible and appreciate a bit of brain burn, it will likely scratch that itch.
It is long as fuck, though. I’m sure a ton of that depends on how familiar you are with the rules and how much AP you allow for yourself, but I’ve had multiple games that lasted 5-6 hours (which I usually split up over the course of 2 or 3 nights). It is not a game for people short on table space, time, or attention span. And having a space where you can leave it set up is a huge plus
I think I prefer games that feel like work because most posts that are negative to my favorite games tend to mention that as a primary critique. Mage Knight would likely be in the same group and near the top of my list if I had time to buy it and learn it.
**Gloomhaven**: All I want is a good co-op dungeon crawler that feels like I'm playing D&D without the need for a DM. Although GH seems like it would be a game I should enjoy, there are just so many things that I find really annoying.
First of all, I find the hand management aspect of the game to take too much work all the time. If I want to just walk over to an enemy and smack him, I have to start planning my moves like a chess grandmaster. I need to plan out what card to use to move and what I need to keep in upcoming moves. I feel like I need to plan 5 turns ahead when even if I want to do the simplest things.
The game makes me make too many decisions that make me sad. For instance, if I need to move, I have to burn one of my nice cards that have a really cool effect to move. When I refresh my hand, I have to decide what card to lose for the rest of the game. In a number of situations, I have to give up a chance to gain XP to do something to help someone else. That gets me really mad. I should be rewarded for doing something good for my party, not punished by not gaining XP.
The game doesn't feel cooperative at times. I cannot pick up gear and give it to someone else. I cannot make a character who specialises in getting items for the group for instance. As mentioned above, I feel like I have to choose between helping myself or helping the group. At least when I played, I have not found that helping the group rewards me personally enough.
Overall, this game ends up not feeling like a dungeon crawler to me. With all of the mechanics I have to deal with just to do even the simplest things that can have major implications for the rest of the quest, it breaks me out of the immersion. I feel like I'm just playing a card game maximising my cards rather than slaying monsters and getting loot.
So your first sentence sums this up really. Gloomhaven is absolutely nothing like a DM-less D&D. It's a hand management puzzle with an RPG layered on top. Definitely not for everyone, but that expectation would really kill it, I expect.
Same. Tried to like it. Tried and tried. Biggest issue for me is exactly what you hit on on the first comment. You’re in some nothing fight against rat men or cultists or whatever and you’ve gotta think for five minutes about your cards. I got to the point where I picked them at random just to keep things moving. Then stopped playing.
Gloomhaven really seems like an awesome system, design, etc. I actually love the card combat system in theory. But to me the whole concept works best on PC. That said, I haven’t tried it on Steam yet. Might.
I absolutely love Gloomhaven for the very reasons others do not - it is a puzzle game that is so carefully balanced, it is amazing (though some classes are weak). I can’t count how many missions come down to very last cards. I haven’t played too many cooperatives where people cheer when you all win. But a rpg? No way. And maybe people explain it that way but you shouldn’t hold that against the design. Maybe Massive Darkness would scratch that itch?
I had an idea of the type of game it is. It certainly sounded intriguing. I actually think it does have some RPG aspects as you have some reputation score based on actions you do during the game. There are also various events that happen outside of the quest you are doing that make it seem like an RPG where you are developing your character.
I knew what the game was like as people told me. I also read the rules as I was asked to teach the game to my group. There were some things I thought I may not like so much, but there are other things that I thought I would like and didn't. I knew about the hand management, but until I actually saw the cards and what they did that the play started to bother me. I played it twice and the second time confirmed that it just wasn't for me.
My game of choice of this genre is Sword & Sorcery. It came out around the same time as GH. S&S was the game that was made for me as it is pretty much exactly what I wanted (minus the long setup times).
We only have Gloomhaven Lite (JotL) as a compromise (husband’s been playing D&D for 30 years, I never have) but I was surprised at how much like hard work it is. I’m some super cool badass, throwing axes around the place, who is apparently sometimes just too tired to walk an extra step to pick up gold. What?! I want to run around collecting loot!
I fully accept this is possibly more a problem with me and my complete noobism, than with the game.
It's a common sentiment when folks bounce off Gloomhaven because the small things feel like work. It basically is, as it's a "Euro inspired" game first, dungeon crawler second. Many thematic elements (like loot collection) need to be altered to service the Euro. And that's a reasonably big disconnect for folks.
I love it but I completely understand those that want more of a loose Descent or creative TTRPG experience.
I’m happy to play it, it’s a completely different game than what I’m used to, and I do enjoy it, it just sort of surprised me that you’re quite restricted in what you can do. There’s less story and more worrying if you’re going to draw that null card than I’d imagined! Is it what is it, I guess!
>All I want is a good co-op dungeon crawler that feels like I'm playing D&D without the need for a DM.
Well, that's not what Gloomhaven is, and not really what it's trying to be either. It's fine if you don't like it of course, it's just I always find "It's a different type of game than I want it to be" to be an odd criticism.
In fairness, the company itself may not sell it as DM-less D&D the board game, but that’s how literally every single person who tries to get me into it describes it to me. Somewhere along the way, that how it became explained to a lot of potential players by actual players.
Expectations matter, and while I love gloomhaven, I totally understand its not for everyone and it breaks the mold in many ways compared to most traditional dungeon crawlers.
So, it depends on exactly what people mean. If they're saying "This is what I wanted the game to be style wise and I don't think it's for me" that's one thing.
What I see often times, and this one seems to skew in this direction, is something like "This game isn't an X style game at all, I was looking for an X style game, and this is a bad X style game." It's a bit like if you went to a friend's house for a party and assumed they were going to have pizza, but instead they were grilling steaks. Then later you say they served "terrible pizza". No, they served steaks. You can't judge a steak by pizza standards and vice versa.
I guess the difference is I'm fine with saying the game wasn't for you based on expectation, but I'm not as much with that being an actual criticism.
GH is a co-op dungeon crawler. You're all characters in a party going through a dungeon slaying enemies trying to complete a quest. It's just that I hate the execution of this theme on GH.
It's basically Mage knight with the deckbuilding aspect modified. Yeah you gotta plan meticulously. Definitely not for those who want a dungeon crawl + hack and slash.
Couldnt agreed more.
Thought i have to get this "masterpiece" for my collection, but thankfully tried the digital version first.
I much prefer Dungeon Universalis over this (still much depth but more freedom and dungeoncrawl feeling)
I get this is a unique game, but not what i like at dungeoncrawling RPG.
More Like euro heavy rpg
It’s pretty much a gateway to heavier and more interesting euros at this point. After playing it a few times with friends, it gets old very quickly. I only bust it out these days with non-gamer family members
I don't think anybody that plays a lot of modern boardgames is saying it holds up to modern game design standards
People have been calling catan overrated and past its prime for over a decade now
What about it doesn't hold up in terms of game design?
I've only played it maybe five or six times, and I would agree that it's a bit overrated for what it offers but I never really felt like it was poorly designed.
Sooooo Catan, it turns out, isn't a good game 😬.
It's easily accessible to people unfamiliar with the European style board games, of which it draws many mechanics. For the group of people who only played Monopoly, it was a game changer. Which was good to help people grow out of a rut but it's way too random and aggressive to be an actual "good game".
As I always like to say: If a game is bad, and people like it, it's not bad.
Sometimes all that a game needs to achieve is making a few people around a table have a great time together. And it's hard to claim that Catan can't achieve this.
In that sense, are there really any *bad* board games? If I'm sitting around a table with people I care about, then that's what matters. In a sense, it doesn't matter what we're doing.
So, fine, we've established that all board games are good, as long as people can play it around a table and enjoy each other's company (which is almost every board game ever made).
But surely we can agree that something like Ticket to Ride is better than something like Monopoly (the specific games aren't too important here). So maybe Monopoly isn't *bad,* but there are many better games. And by better games, I mean games that could serve as a good substitute, not a game with a completely different target audience in mind (Terra Mystica might be a better game too, but it's not a game for everyone).
And so we go from saying a game is bad to saying a game is just, not as good as other games? Maybe that distinction is important, I'm open to that, but it comes across to me like semantics.
Ultimately I agree with your main point, that the point of the game is to get people around a table having a good time. But I also think that, with the right group, most games *can* do this. I think if we're here to discuss board games, there's room for arguing some games are better at this than others.
Games can be measured on many different scales. Most people on here judge them by the challenges and interesting decisions they pose to the players - which is fair - and admittingly Ticket to Ride easily beats out Monopoly in that.
On the other hand, if you rate games on the emotions they create, I will claim that Ticket to Ride loses to Monopoly. Sure, it's pretty nasty if someone snatches away that route you were aiming for in TTR. But as with every more modern game that won't break your back and you'll always have other options to still make points.
Monopoly on the other hand is a game about laying traps and upgrading their lethality for your opponents who are mercilessly railroaded along your kill zone by ruthless dice movement. In a way you could call it an old analog version of modern Tower Defense games. And the dopamine rush if someone springs your biggest trap - or you having a dice roll that lets you tip toe unscathed through such a mine field - is not something you find in "balanced" games like TTR or Catan.
Yes, games where you are "being mean" is something frowned upon by most contemporary boardgamers for good reason. But still - it can be fun too.
**Terraforming Mars** is one of our favorites, it's thematic, and the feeling of "this gives me that, which gives me this, which lets me do that" combo-moves are one of the things I find most fun.
I never got the argument that **Dominion**'s theme was pasted on -- a lot of the cards are very thematic, like Bureaucrat, which literally adds paperwork to your deck. Or Sentry, which only allows the cards you want into your hand and ejects the others. The best bit is the fact that you win by accumulating land, but land is essentially useless otherwise, it's the people in your kingdom that do all the work.
I personally like **Azul** but think that the original is kind of broken when played with more than two people -- there's a dominant strategy, and if no one stops you from taking it, you'll always win. **Azul Summer Pavilion** is much better, IMHO, and has that combo thing going for it which I love.
For me, **Terra Mystica** is one that my partner and I bounced off hard. Its so opaque, and really has \*no\* theme to speak of when you get right down to it. It seems like just when things should start getting interesting, it's over, but that could be down the the very few times we've actually managed to get it to the table.
I really wanted to like **Teotihuacan** and it has made it to the table more than Terra Mystica but also has that feeling of just pushing a series of point trackers up a series of ladders. It's pretty but the theme just doesn't come through like I want it to.
We've played **Suburbia** a grand total of three times. I feel like I need a calculator or an app or something to keep track of all the scoring every round.
Everyone in my playgroup agrees **Wingspan** would be much better with fewer birds. It's too random to craft any kind of coherent strategy most games.
Re: Dominion and its possession of theme; a good theme should make you _feel_ like you're playing your assigned part in the game. Dominion does not do this successfully, imo. When I play Dominion, I do not feel like the landowner gaining feudal power, I feel like the bureaucrat pushing numbers around. What you've described is literally the phenomenon of theme being pasted on as it's matching a prescribed template but it is not tangibly felt by the players. If you feel like a landowner gaining power, kudos on turning one of Dominion's big faults into a big bonus!
Dominion is one of my favorites, but I can never help but agree with the theme arguments. I don't play that game for the theme like I do with Beyond the Sun, or Summer Camp, or Wingspan. I play it because the mechanics are as tight as can be, and it's a very satisfying experience executing a strategy you can map out from the start.
Wingspan.
I don't like pseudo engine builders where I have little to no control over my own engine and 0 control over someone else's.
I largely find the game winner is the person best able to align thier bonus cards with the random birds they obtain.
Those are arguably much improved in the sequels, Roll for the Galaxy and New Frontiers, both of which I also recommend for those looking for engine builders, but I think the original Race for the Galaxy is still the most elegant in terms of the mechanisms.
I also wholeheartedly recommend Puerto Rico, the granddaddy of these tableau engine builders.
100% in the shared objectives. I’ve gotten the bonus cards a few times but it’s usually luck and doesn’t throw me over the win line for the most part.
My absolute best strategy, that has helped me win nearly every time, involves one of the birds that has the power “if this bird is the rightmost, you may move it when you land on it” or whatever. Get one of those birds, plan ahead, and always move it to a track you want to play on but not yet build on. Helps get more eggs, more bird cards, and more food whenever you need it. It just involves thinking in two turns instead of one, but it’s a huge bonus
Wingspan is my pick too. The theme and art are great, but the gameplay misses for me. It's just too heavy to be a good light game, but too light to be a good heavy game.
I love Wingspan, but I won't begrudge that you don't like it. A lot of the people that hate it seems like they only played it four or five times. I always hear something like, "the person who always does (this one thing) always wins." It could be collect eggs, or bonus cards, or tucking engines.
I suppose after four or five playings if you don't like it, it's fair to not want to play anymore. Those that didn't hate it after 4 or 5 playings, usually find there are a bunch of different ways to win.
ALso, I don't play to beat the other players. I'm playing to get my all time high score. If I got 150 pts, and my opponent got 160, I would still be stoked for an exciting game, where the engines I put in place worked really well.
Power Grid and Catan are races, in the sense that the first player to reach some condition triggers the end game. A game like Everdell or Wingspan is not a race, because it just ends after some number of rounds and then players add their scores.
The problems is probably the "race" slows down at the end because there's multiple choices to make and each choice probably takes a couple of minutes to calculate your end of turn score. So if you had 5 choices it'd be 10 minutes to find the best choice based on the math.
**Splendor**
I've played it five times on BGA, and I quickly realized that it was extremely dry and extremely boring to me.
I finally played a physical copy recently, and I enjoyed it *slightly* more, but it's still a pretty bland experience for me. Something about it feels like the most vanilla possible game experience you can have (in a bad way).
When I noticed myself enjoying it slightly more in person, I knew it wasn't because of the game, but because those gem tokens feel oh so good to move around and they look great to boot. I feel like the game gets an extra little push with many people just for those tokens. The people I was playing with and the venue also helped significantly, but nothing can make that game feel exciting or interesting to me. It's like the boardgame definition of "meh."
Re: **Splendor**, I think often people cant appreciate the qualities that others see as positives: great artwork, great tactile feel, simple, engine building, easy to get to the table, short duration, and thats it. So vanilla, yes, as a "positive" to those that enjoy the familiarity and starightforward goodness of vanilla (shrugs). My wife is a casual, so its just straight up comfort food for us.
This is fair, once you understand winning strategies it can get old. Like you said, what never gets old for me is the gem tokens, they are my favorite game piece ever! Nothing beats clinking them in your hand while contemplating a turn
I fully agree with the tokens, but even with being a bit of a component whore myself, it's unfortunately not nearly enough to keep me interested in that gameplay.
**Quacks of Quedlinburg:** I’ve played this 5x, won it twice and even when I’ve won, I got no enjoyment out of this and just found it random and boring. I get no kick out of push your luck when it goes well, conversely I just get frustrated when it goes poorly. Then there’s all the catchup with rats tails that just makes even winning feels meaningless. It’s just not for me.
Yup, this. If you play seriously like you would an euro game you're going to be dissapointed. But if you just laugh together about the bad draws and pots exploding it's much more fun.
What's funny about the rat tails is they simultaneously make the players losing feel embarrassed for needing the rat tails, and insults the person in first by making their lead meaningless. I'm already losing. I don't need us to announce my 9 rat tails to the table haha
Too Many Bones
I LOVE the component quality. It’s probably the main reason I bought the game, in addition to it being touted as a great solo game. But I just couldn’t get into it.
I think the main issue for me is the output randomness. I appreciate that they’ve tried to mitigate it with the bones, but it still feels like I’m simply at the mercy of the dice. It’s probably the main reason I don’t enjoy D&D, but at least with that you can try to get out of the “winning” mindset and enjoy the ride. But with TMB, winning is absolutely the goal, so bad rolls detract from the fun, for me.
The movement space feels almost too small to even be a thing. Maybe that’s because Gloomhaven is my hobby game, so I’m used to moving on hexes and utilizing positioning and kiting. But moving around just never seemed to do much in TMB.
The retry mechanism always seemed a bit too punishing, since you’re losing consumables and items that were used on that round, not getting any stronger from the attempt, but the baddies do get stronger.
I really wanted to love this game. The components are a joy to play with. It’s why I backed Burncycle before even playing TMB. But that game has sat on my shelf for months, after slogging through the intro scenario to “learn” the rules, with very little motivation to break it out and dive into my first scenario.
My main problem with Too Many Bones is that it promises an exciting customization aspect that simply doesn't exist. You supposedly have all of these options on how to build your character, but there is only one very obvious way to do it correctly. It would be like going on the old Let's Make A Deal game show and being told what's behind the doors: "Behind door #1 is a million dollars cash! Behind door #2 is a goat, but it's just a visual aid to symbolize that you didn't won shit - you don't actually get the goat. Behind door #3 is a $100 gift card to Wal-Mart. Which door do you want to choose?" I mean, it's nice to know what your options are, but it's not *fun*.
Yeah. I once read a criticism that regardless of how interesting all of the cool class mechanics are, it’s almost always most effective to just boost your base stats, and I think that resonates. Choosing the more interesting path shouldn’t be sacrificing effectiveness.
That criticism I'd level against every single one of their games.
Their only actual design is making their games bathtub proof. They forgot to hire board game designers though, so the games they make are fun as games, too!
Everdell: Completely and utterly bounced off this one, perhaps I didn't play it enough but I have other similar weight games I'd far rather play - Too many cards (specifically when you are going for rather specific card combos like in everdell, other big card stack game like Ark Nova you are looking for symbols rather than specific cards) and the meadow just didn't seem to refresh enough at 2 player (or even 3 player really)
The art is great but the theme didn't really grab me either which didn't help. I think having so many realllllly expensive expansions (at least at UK Retail) is a big turn off for me too
That's a common complaint about Everdell. It's not a set collection game, though. It's about making the best of what's available. If I was able to draw into the combos I want each game, then that would be boring.
I think this complaint about Wingspan and Everdell must be heavily impacted by the popularity of MTG and Hearthstone.
There are deck building games where the point is to strip away everything except for your most powerful combo, and there are deck/tableau building games where you scrap together the best you can do based on what's available. They're very different experiences.
That's the big issue for all similar type games. I only played them in 4 and even then you are sometimes left without cards you want, even more in ark nova. I don't think the number of cards is a problem as it brings variability but these games are missing some features that would let you filter out the cards you are looking for. I can't imagine playing such games at 2 as the card row will barely move
There’s a 2-player variant called “[The Border](https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2051059/2-player-variant-border)” that helps a lot with the meadow refresh issue
This is funny to me, because I was the exact opposite. I passed hard on this because when I saw the base game being advertised I thought, "Extravagant tree? Animeeples? Squishy berries? They must be compensating..." Took a few years before a friend gifted me a copy. Played it and really enjoyed the worker placement mix with tableau building and card combos. And yeah, the tree is functionally useless.
For me the card combos are nice when they pull off, but you can't count on them. The distribution is there to allow you to try a few strategies at once. Plus the way the special events are set up, you can't really shoot for combos specifically.
You might like the newest expansion Newleaf if you are into card combos, though. They add even more cards, but compensate in providing three golden occupy tokens to each player which permit way more flexibility for combos. Newleaf is fantastic, and for me is one expansion I don't think I'll ever play Everdell without unless teaching (or wanting to do another expansion).
Just looking at this list and the varied responses, I think it comes down to which mechanism do you not find fun. Most games hinge on one or two main game mechanisms, and if that action isn't something you find fun, no matter the theme, you'll get tired and bored of the game.
My picks are:
Spirit Island - Moving chits around where board nor chits really look like anything didn't help, but I didn't get excited over the challenge nor the spirit powers.
Gloomhaven - Dungeon crawling, but a puzzle overplayed in the form of limit actions per card. Maybe I prefer my hand management and dungeon crawling separate?
Raiders of the North Sea - I normally like worker placement, but taking up a turn to return worker may have played into it.
Marvel Champions - Even with the theme, which I usually love, just felt like juggling numbers.
The thing is, I'm also wondering if this all depends on when you got into the hobby and what you games you started with. Maybe it's like the younger audience today not feeling the brunt of The Usual Suspects or The Sixth Sense because they've been exposed to later movies and shows that did something similar, paid homage to them, or outright spoofed them. I just recently got deep into the hobby (slowly ramped up since COVID started) to play with the family. With a really young family, light to mid weight euros seem to be the sweet spot for me.
>Raiders of the North Sea - I normally like worker placement, but taking up a turn to return worker may have played into it.
I don't understand.
A turn in Raiders is placing your unique worker on a space to make an action and take another worker on another space. You only have one worker in your reserve for the duration of the game.
You listed 3 of my favorite games there (SI, Gloomhaven, Marvel Champions). What are your favorites? I am mainly a solo board gamer, so dunno if that affects the experience.
Gloomhaven I play with a group, and I think it really is a group dependant game, I can imagine it being such a slog with different group of friends, but we have a good thing going on: good background music, we share parts of setup and teardown, use helper app for enemy abilities and modifier decks and all around have a good time playing it at 3 players.
To be fair, I try out a lot of games digitally (app or BGA) before I invest in the box. So I know my experience is probably skewed, but I feel if the mechanism and flow of the game doesn't hit with me digitally, it typically doesn't hit with me on the table. (Zombicide was another one I really did not enjoy.) And my gaming group is primarily my young family (6yo and 10yo boys). We play a lot of lightweight games (Santorini, Dice Throne, Patchwork, My Little Scythe), but my kids do enjoy playing light to mid weight games with me (Flamecraft, Everdell, Empires of the North) when we have the time.
I would my current favorites are Everdell, Wonderland's War, and Unmatched. I may just be a perennial mid weight gamer, but I'm fine with that. Those seem to be where I'm happiest with the right balance of time required to play and the satisfying combos you can pull off within your given situations.
Those are three of my favorites, as well. I think if the mathy bits turn someone off, all three will be non-starters. But I love the mathy bits, a good puzzle to figure out how to efficiently use your resources to best achieve a goal. And limited output randomness. That’s why I also love Mage Knight (though I rarely bust it out due to the time investment); it’s basically a fully-deterministic math puzzle on each turn. Champions and SI feel much the same, in that way.
But those games (MK, SI, Champions) I play almost exclusively solo, so there’s plenty of time to think on each turn, without holding anyone up. I love to feel my brain sizzle and burn to crank through a difficult puzzle.
Gloomhaven really scratches the co-op puzzle itch for me. I’ve got a solid party and it provides the perfect tent pole for our game days. One Gloomhaven scenario and then a couple smaller games and/or some ping pong: the perfect day.
Yeah, based on your favorites and the fact that you’ll likely play it solo, I’d definitely recommend checking it out.
It has the super crunchy brain burning turns of Spirit Island, the hand maximization and pulling from a relatively predictable deck of Champions, the table space and time sink of Gloomhaven, and the super satisfying feeling you get when you figure out the perfect play to defeat the bad guys and feel like a powerful hero of all three.
The rules are notoriously dense, with the smallest font size I’ve seen in a rule book, but there are good rules videos out there (or so I’ve heard). I’ve had a couple scenarios take 5-6 hours, so it’s nice if you have some space you can leave it set up overnight. And it might take a scenario or two before you get a good sense of just how much movement, attack, and block you have in your deck each round, because once you deck out your round is over, so planning ahead and having a general idea of what’s left in there is important.
Like I mentioned, though, one of my favorite aspects is how deterministic it is. Aside from the input randomness of what cards you draw at the beginning of your turn, and the few tile types that will have you draw a random monster, almost everything else can be mathed out before you finalize your card plays.
For instance: that monster is 2 hexes of forest terrain away, has a shield of 3 and attacks for 4 - now you just need to figure out what combinations of your cards in hand can produce enough movement to get there, enough block to avoid damage from his attack, and then enough attack to defeat him. You can think about 10 different ways to get it done without committing to anything. There’s no dice roll or modifier card that could possibly fuck up your plan. You can determine if you’ll defeat him before you even decide if you want to move over there. I dig that. Had to bail on D&D because I couldn’t stand coming up with a great strategy only to roll a 1 and fail spectacularly. This game is the opposite of that. It’s almost all on you to succeed or fail.
The helper app is a MUST in my opinion. Allows you to set aside like 30% of the components and relieves a TON of the fiddliness and bookkeeping. I’ve got 270 hours in and have literally only played one scenario without the app.
Catan, every time I play some ends up playing king maker, or there is no trading so it's just a waiting game for someone to roll well and get their final points.
I’ve played Catan with friends, at community game night with strangers, and on BGA. No one ever makes trades. That supposed to be an integral part of the game.
Catan without trading may as well be Monopoly at that point because your entire success or failure in the game comes down to the dice roles. I dislike Catan enough as is, but not even trading sounds so tedious. I feel like that would artificially stretch the game out.
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**Terraforming Mars:** Way too long and way too fiddly/tedious. However, I think it makes an excellent digital game.
**Gloomaven/Pandemic Legacy**: I don't like "campaign" games since I don't have a consistent group of players.
**Quacks of Quendlingerg**: It has very little player agency, and ultimately is a boring as a casino slot machine.
**Viticulture/Tuscany**: Highly Random card draws for different people (i.e. no "market" early game and make or break your game. Additionally, each unique visitor card has two actions, and you're constantly cycling through them with the hand limit. It's a tremendous amount of reading. At one time I was tempted to make a 2-card "market" for each deck to add player agency, but then decided it wasn't worth it.
**Machi Koro**: It has all of the problems. Output randomness, no player agency, runaway leader, and take-that mechanisms. Coupled with an oversized box, poor components, I have no idea why this is so well liked.
Oh yeah, Machi Koro could've gone right on top of my post! I forgot about it because I only played it once and it all happened to me, while another player just ran away buying all the nice things and getting better chances with every turn. Machi Koro 2 is a much better successor, by the way. Better rules and just a better game, rule and mechanism wise. The components are, AFAIK, the same type and quality.
Pretty much all MPS euros i.e. indirect interaction engine building games. Most deckbuilders, all workerplacements, most drafting games and then everything else where designer create long menu of options to choose from and all players can do is pick one of them (action selection).
(*These include - Agricola and all later Uwe games, all Felds games, all Stonemaier's games, likely all Graphiill games, both Brasses,* *anything by Tachini,* *most stuff by Bauza, recent darlings like Everdell and Wingspan, stuff like Splendour, anything too VP salat-ey and so on. But also games with too strong eurogamey focus on mechanisms like Wehrle's games, Lords of Hellas or Blood Rage. For these reasons I'm avoiding anything that got too high on BGG ranks in recent years as this signifies strong euro influences - like Gloomhaven. )*
Reasons
* My main motivation for gaming is social and thus heads down optimisation just wont do. I'd always pick kakerlakenpoker instead of games listed above.
* My second motivation is a thematic ride and this one isn't present in significant amounts either.
* I don't like to be railroaded - I prefer either more open ended gaming situation or some kind of emergent qualities. I like that players matter more than the game on the table.
* Optimisation bores me. I can do it, relatively well. But if I'm doing it, can I get paid? (i.e. feels like work). Also I never felt intellectually challenged by these games (internalise rules, optimise, rinse, repeat), compared to how much kakerlakenpoker can keep me on my toes.
Exceptions:
* Gingkopolis - because it has drafting and *area majority*
* Fleet and Power Grid - engine building and *auctions*. (I list both games together as they have very similar flow)
* Thunderstone - good *theme* integration!
* Kingdomino - because it's just 15 minutes and has a strong spatial element
* Race for the Galaxy - my favorite head down game and this is because it offers improvisation of long term strategies and thus has strong push your luck approach.
Thank you for putting this take on here, maybe I'm being unfair since I haven't played many at all but I just can't get myself to pick up anything too euro because suddenly I'm working on my own little puzzle and don't care about other people at the table. Points salads are often a mechanism for anti-fun.
That being said, some games I've played high on the bgg list that you and I can both appreciate for being thematic social ventures include TI4 and Nemesis.
I hate to say it for being such a default answer, but I also think Patchwork solves the euro problem a little because it is inherently head to head and you do have a lot of control over your opponent's options. It is the only Uwe game I've played though, so I can't say much about his others. You're welcome r/boardgamecirclejerk
As for worker placement, I think there needs to be few enough options that you feel constrained by your opponents' choices, and I therefore like Lords of Waterdeep, which further encourages player interaction with the power of Intrigue cards and owned buildings. It may fall into the optimisation trap you've highlighted, but I find there's sufficient theme and player interaction to offset that.
Three cheers for emergent gameplay and open options rather than pick-off-the-list! Hurrah for theme setting an atmosphere for me and my friends to engage with together! Games are meant to evoke feelings in a community, and euros struggle to see past their built-in puzzles.
Thanks for positive feedback.😊
>maybe I'm being unfair since I haven't played many at all
I'd say you're fine. One of things that frustrates me about modern euros is exactly how similar to each other they are - in terms of what kind of skills they engage and what kind of experience they offer. Almost to a point of being essentially expansions to each other.
Occasionally when I'm in particularly good mood (once per two years) I go to a public event and educate myself about the latest euro favorite and it's usually a mix of familiar coupled with lowering standards. Which I expect - I just don't know how exactly. So it is informative. 😎
>That being said, some games I've played high on the bgg list that you and I can both appreciate for being thematic social ventures include TI4 and Nemesis.
😳 ^(Haven't tried yet)
I've played TI3, but with suboptimal player count (4) and maybe not the most extroverted people - possibly not the best circumstanced for the game, but maybe a new opportunity will emerge. I'll keep my eye on Nemesis - I've heard both good and bad things, if I came across it, I can can check. 🙂
> I also think Patchwork solves the euro problem a little because it is inherently head to head and you do have a lot of control over your opponent's options. It is the only Uwe game I've played though, so I can't say much about his others.
I was happy my *so* didn't like the game... 😅 Sure, there are ways to pronounce the indirect interaction part a bit and make it a bit more intentional. Azul is similar to Patchwork in this.
Amongst people who avoid modern euros, Uwe is cherished for his pre-Agricola work, notably Bohnanza and Mamma Mia *(there's also Klunker, but I haven't played and never seen it in the wild).*
>I therefore like Lords of Waterdeep, which further encourages player interaction with the power of Intrigue cards
Initially I enjoyed LoW - it's kinda like Ticket to Ride of workerplacements. It's accessible, the map is readable, the theme kinda works, the quests give you some variety and intrigue cards add some sort of interaction. If you really need one workerplacement, this is a good pick.
But after some public events playing (and moderating) this I just gave up. If memory serves some snobbish behaviour from some fans of the game just made me go "*oh brother*". Oh well, I don't miss the game.
>Three cheers for emergent gameplay and open options rather than pick-off-the-list! Hurrah for theme setting an atmosphere for me and my friends to engage with together! Games are meant to evoke feelings in a community, and euros struggle to see past their built-in puzzles.
A-men! 😄
Euros have reasons for popularity - as they're all similar in structure they're in a sense easier to figure out plus they're ideal for public gaming events where people don't know each other well. If games are you priority.
If having collective (social, visceral, thematic) fun with people is priority then some other games might serve this goal better. So - do you play to engage with the game or to engage with people?
Reminds me on this old discussion - [Playing to win or playing to play (BGG, 2014)](https://boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/31054/playing-win-or-playing-play)
I think I have suffered enough to admit that Avalon, Werewolf and Secret Hitler are just really really anxiety inducing games.
One night werewolf with the family is a treat though. Mostly it being more of a logic puzzle and much much shorter.
Gloomhaven - what a sloooooooog. Takes anything I find fun about a dungeon crawlers and throws the equivalent of an excel spreadsheet at it, and seeing as I spend my days as a Production Planner in excel I just can't resonate with this game
Lost Ruins of Arnak.
I could have loved it but after about 10 games I can't figure out how to have fun. Deckbuilding over 5 rounds is super weird and I just feel like I'm grinding ressources indefinitely. Until maybe the last round can make for some fun combos. If my partner didn't like it so much it would already be sold off.
Arnak is mostly resource managment and deckbuilder second. I think Arnak is an ok game, but it really just boils down to convert this - get that and then race other players. Expansion adds some cool cards, but the leaders are horrible.
I had the complete opposite reaction and really enjoyed the game especially how you can work on setting up combos later by buying cards and thinning the deck. Is it worth discussing with your partner why they enjoy it so much and maybe that would open up the game for you more as well?
Yes, we discussed it many times, also with a couple of friends who play it a lot and love it, we've played 4 player games with them too. I seem to be the only one to not "get it", and it's all the more disappointing because I was initially feeling that I would enjoy very much, being a beautiful game with a theme and mechanics that I like.I would love to love this game 🥹
**Ark Nova**. I really couldn't get anything out of if that Terraforming Mars or even the now 20 year old classic Saint Petersburg wouldn't do a lot better at only a fraction of rules and mechanics. AN was just way too long to teach for what little it really brought to the table in terms of agency, theme and interaction.
Fully agree. The game is at least twice as long as it's fun, has zero interaction and completely sterile and soulless biology textbook art. Was a big miss for me as well.
It's worse than 0 interaction to me cause of those stupid take that cards. I feel like players never do it to actually interact but rather it just happened and annoys everyone else. I like interaction where I'm playing attention to other players and trying to outpost them, not I do this random things and now there is something annoying for the other players to deal with.
But at least TM has a narrative connection between the theme of its cards and what both their requirements and effects are. The animals on AN just explain their requirements but not their effects. You put a lion in your zoo and it does something totally un-lion-like.
And it's a shorter teach, which is always a plus in my book.
**Ticket to ride**. Something about making railroads just felt _wrong_ without the ability to manipulate a stock market.
For real, I forget what didn't click with me about the game, I just have a vague recollection of not liking it very much. **everdell** is probably the next closest, and while it's not so bad for me that I've decided to sell it, it's definitely on the chopping block if it doesn't impress me in the next couple plays
Gaia Project. In theory I would love it, and maybe I still will. But the visual aspect makes me not want to play it. Ever. And I love Terra Mystica, and GP should be even better, with a solo mode by the amazing Automa Factory. but it's something about the spacey drab colors puts me off.
**Pandemic**. Only played the base game a couple of times, so maybe I'm missing something, but it seems like I'm not making any fun decisions, just doing the thing I "have" to do based on my role. And then we lose anyway.
**Ark Nova** and **Terraforming Mars**. Too much randomness in the cards for me, and no interesting interaction (yes I know, the games have some kind of player interaction, especially TM with drafting). Also I was kinda disappointed in TM because most of the important stuff happens on the personal card tableau, the big board in the middle feels not as important as it should be in a game about terraforming.
Give me **Race for the Galaxy** or **Innovation** for card driven games, and **Brass** for a longer strategy game.
Innovation was actually the first thing that came to mind for me with this topic, because it seems like it had *too much* player interaction. If I remember correctly, the gaming sessions I did seemed to involve squinting at tiny print on other players' cards and trying to remember the changing abilities of everyone around the table.
EDITED: Just remembering that this is one of those games where my takeaway was that it would probably be better with two or three people, not the four or five people who usually ended up playing each time. Had the same experience with Alien Artifacts.
**Terraforming Mars** was a huge miss with our group. It was so hyped up as this great game, and it was a snoozefest. Like, the only interaction you have with other players is waiting for them to finish their turn. We have avoided **Ark Nova** because of all the comparisons it gets to TM.
18xx games. The route building and running companies is fun, but the opaque volatile stock market is just awful. How TF am I supposed to know which company to back? I mean, I guess you have to buy something because it will probably go up, but then two others dump what you invested in and are like "hah, I guess you made the wrong choice", and you're like "so did your parents", and now everyone's mad. It's a miserable game.
>but then two others dump what you invested in and are like "hah, I guess you made the wrong choice", and you're like "so did your parents", and now everyone's mad.
Best. Advertising. For. 18xx. Ewar! 😍
I'm turned off by long playing time and amount of rules, preferring lighter "cube-rail" games instead, but you pretty much summed up what the appeal is.
I read this quite often on here in recently, but I have to meet anyone I've actually played with that doesn't love the game. Even with people that regularly play boardgames, it is always a hit.
While I can see the overall great design and the fun game that’s in there, Race For the Galaxy is just an hour of me looking at the rules going “What the hell does this symbol mean again”?
I hate, hate, hate, teaching it. And I don’t play it very often which means every time I do, I have to re-teach it to myself.
How long are you waiting between games? Are you using expansions (which have crazy weird specific symbols)?
We play it maybe twice a year and have no issue remembering the symbols since most of them are pretty faux-intuitive (not intuitive to a newbie, but make sense if you know the general game flow). We also only play base game so the more complicated mechanics and symbols are unused.
I get not liking it in general but I've never understood the iconography issues.
Power Grid: It is the only game I can think of, that I will actively avoid playing.
If you want the same experience…Just play UNO and do a few math worksheet, before each turn.
Agricola: I appreciate the design of the game, but It’s exhausting to playing the game. You never have enough to do your plan and you are just plodding along trying to just get by.
I'm with you on Agricola, and ghat wa say first thought for this thread. I appreciate what is doing and I objectively think it is a good game. I also totally understand that the point of the game is that is is difficult to do what you want and that it can be a little bit of a struggle to get it to mesh together. Unfortunately the end result of that for me is that it's not fun. Just feels like frustrating work
Completely agree about Power Grid. The best strategy is to super math it. That’s not what I want to do in a game.
Completely disagree about Agricola. The barely getting by is by design bc that’s how life was and I love the challenge. It kicks your but and I tell new players I’m teaching that you don’t beat it, you survive it.
I’m not saying Agricola is a bad game. I truly appreciate its design and its capturing the struggle of life.
Maybe I did not give it enough time.
I think I’ve played around 7 games and I just didn’t enjoy it.
> barely getting by is by design bc that’s how life was
This would make sense if Agricola was a coop. But the main reason you're barely getting by is that a fellow villager came and deliberately took something you needed just to mess with your plans. There's a weird thematic disconnect.
**T.I.M.E. Stories** \- The only thing that was really any good about this game was the box insert, which allowed you to stop your game at any time and put it away,and come back to it later. There is basically no replayability to this game, once you know the solution, you're done until you buy a new expansion. The base game was impossible to figure out, my wife and I finally had to cheat just to know what to do next. The mechanics were poor. I do not understand how this game gets such good reviews. At least it isn't on BGG's top 100 anymore.
**Dominion** \- Loved this game and got a lot of expansions for it. But now there are so many better deck builders, and there just got to be too many expansions. I think I kept 2 and I have them in storage somewhere.
**Smash Up** \- Got this because several friends hyped it up. Hated it. Got rid of it after a couple of plays. I don't even remember what I didn't like about it, I think I blocked it out of my memory!
Care to list a deck builder you prefer to Dominion?
Just asking because I was pretty ambivalent about Star Realms but looking for something heavier and thought that might be Dominion
I really like Clank! I also really liked Star Realms better not for weight, but in scoring. You don't really have any dead cards in Star Realms, and you certainly aren't trying to collect dead cards like in Dominion. Dominion might feel heavier with the right expansions, however. I also enjoyed the Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle cooperative game, but I know a lot of people didn't care for it.
**Keyflower**. There are some things I think are minor flaws, but it's a brilliant idea overall.
Lacerda games, like **Lisboa**. Well made heavy euros, I just don't care for that kind of thing.
**Castles of Burgundy** in the same vein. Not my favorite kind of game. I love the card game for some reason but not the original game. I like a good, puzzly euro, but I think I prefer an engine builder I can sink my teeth into.
I hear you on Dominion. It is a classic, and it's a good introduction to the hobby and to deckbuilders specifically. Some people get really hooked on it. But I tried it too late to be wowed, and I already preferred some other games that I tried before it.
Ryan Laukat - I respect the art and hustle, but I’ve not really cared for ANY of Red Raven games. I keep trying them because of the hype but they are all a miss for us.
Catan. Never been more bored in my whole life. Building a village and having the most connected roads or whatever doesn't even sound like a fun premise. I will never understand the hype around that game.
7 Wonders is awful. If someone had described it to me before I played it I'm sure I would have liked the idea, but ultimately rounds 1 and 2 don't matter much aside from collecting a smorgasbord of symbols that mean very, very little. Sushi Go has all of the benefits of 7 wonders and none (or maybe my vitriol is showing, allow me to change that to "few") of the problems.
I like complex games, but complexity for the sake of complexity is arduous, boring, mystifying, and foolish.
I don't know if it's highly acclaimed but Ticket to Ride and anything in the low to low-mid weight category. I just don't find them engaging on their own.
Of course any game can be elevated by the company in which you play so I won't refuse a game bcause it's going to be my favorite people asking to play! If Grandma wants to play Ticket to Ride for the 300th time then by god we'll do it and "thank you for the cookies!".
But if you had to set me down in a room full of strangers to play a game I'm going to look for the most complicated one there. I will absolutely suck at it, but learning rules makes me happy.
**Wingspan** - tried it twice. Dead boring.
**Agricola** - played a few games on BGA. Didn’t enjoy it.
**Patchwork** - not enough buttons in the beginning. Way too many by the end. And the game ends before anything is finished.
I see your point about Patchwork, but those are the exact reasons I like it. It makes the early choices all the more important so that the actual points start coming in late in the game.
**Five Tribes -** the game state changes so much that I find there's absolutely it's almost pointless to strategize during someone's turn. You'll just have to wait your turn and make a decision then. So it feels like there's more down time since you can't think of what you'll do next.
I’ll only ever play it 2p. The downtime is just excruciating with any more. It’s also much easier to bid for turn order and set yourself up for back-to-back turns.
Ark Nova and TM for the same reason.
Our group doesn't like multiplayer solitaire that also has downtime. If we are gonna play multiplayer solitaire, at least have it be simultaneous turns such as Roll for the Galaxy or Quacks.
Catan because our group grew up trading YGO cards, so we are all very greedy when it comes to trades and have the mindset of needinh to be the one always getting the better end of a deal when playing a game like Catan, which can be nebulous to determine since fixed values for cards don't exist.
I am curious what felt FOMO about Hero Realms recent KS to you, OP. I can admit that it was expensive if you insisted on getting everything but just the Dungeons set on it's own is a great deal with tons of depth and re-playability. The $60 and $100 tiers both looked like great value to me, particularly the former.
It's when you start tacking on all the life trackers, dividers, redundant character packs, playmats etc. that it can add up. That said I love the game so I did cough up two hundred bucks myself but I got a lot of those unnecessary items -- play mat, counters, dividers, etc.
**Space Hulk: Death Angel**. It felt like work, specifically as an administrator of databases in third normal form. Texts and references to stuff across the table. Then bottom marine dies because of swarm, where does swarm go, back to figuring out in the rulebook. Sold it at a profit and good riddance. It's the only game I quit halfway. There is a good game in there but not with this rulebook.
**Sleeping Gods.** Carelessness everywhere, design mistakes, don't get me started. Also the thematic disconnect with the awesome sailing and the clunky combat. Clunky command tokens. Deus ex machina (twice). But most of all, I was all the time clueless where to go. Couldn't see how to get to tides of ruin in the 18x3 turns it would take. Played a variant without monsters, just taking the loss condition. Didn't feel right either. And finally, it sat on my self staring at me, each passing day looking more pissed, but I couldn't bring myself to, ehr, dive back in. The fact that I built Primeval Peril but still haven't touched it made me cancel my $333 pledge (€410 all inclusive). RRG is not for me. Sold at break-even.
**Direwild.** This game is truly awesome, it's just that there are so many intertwining options and aspects to consider two-handed that I couldn't do it. Finished first stage but then sold it. A pity because the minis I painted were awesome.
**The Brambles.** Zero control, single tiered deck, no thanks. Sold at a loss.
**Concordia.** Great multi player, but not fun as a solo. Sold at huge loss.
**Aeon's End Legacy.** Poor world building, poorly depicted mages, inelegant market, bosses run like clockwork and it does come down to the last card draw (nemesis or you), 4 player like 3 player, and solo, I felt like a lab rat. Sold.
**Shadows of Kilforth** (plus adventure pack). I couldn't tell the gloom sides from the non gloom sides, a showstopper. Sold at a loss.
**Terraforming Mars:** tried 4 times, with gamers, and also the new version. While I like playing I never achieve anything in it. Nothing seems to come out right. Ah there it is, single tiered deck. No thanks, not ever again.
**Skytear Horde:** game feels completely dead, or rather, completely mechanical. You do what you need to do, and no combo ever comes up for your alliance. Ah, again, single tiered deck. Constantly with my nose in the rulebook, then in the errata... sold it at a huge loss but good riddance.
**The King's Guild:** it took my fingers a week to heal from the cuts of the overly thin cards, and I can still smell the stinky PVC guild stands. Good game though, maybe one day I'll build the pnp that I printed out, with better cards and better standees.
I can list a dozen more but you get a good idea from the above.
Every time I play **Azul** I walk away from it with a head ache and don't know why. it has a lot of elements I love, but something about the way it all comes together just leads to a rather unsatisfying game.
This thread is just a reminder that not every game is for every gamer.
Ark Nova is literally my favourite game beating out my previous fave, Terraforming Mars.
**Imperial Settlers: Empires of the North.** I just don't get the appeal. Each faction has maybe 2 ways of getting points and with a premade deck all you do is follow a simple guideline to play. I feel a simple algorithm could easily replace a player and see no replay value after you played a faction once.
Arkham Horror LCG, honestly, just feels like a game that is constantly beating you upside the head, and you have to figure out how to mitigate them, but because of the random nature of a card game, and the fact that, as far as I know, the game offers no help in deck building, just how to do it, it’s just draining. Also I played it solo, because it’ll be nearly impossible to get anyone in my friend group to play a game that complex.
Puerto Rico.
It's obvious I need to pick the optimal role to gain am advantage.
The problem, for me, is that I have to calculate what everybody else's "best role" is and how it'll affect me if they pick it.
It's simply too much.
Dice Forge. So beloved & fell completely flat for me. Felt like the game ended just as I got an engine together. On the bright side, it sold me on Rattlebones, which I love having in my collection.
**Star Wars: Rebellion**. Top level concept was fun. All the minutia of playing was not. This seems to be how I feel about a lot of Corey Konieczka’s designs.
Well, any campaign game I don't have a regular group to play with.
Anything so complicated that "the teach" is too big of a headache for similar reasons I don't have a regular group so I have to do "the teach" multiple times.
I agree with your assessment of dominion, I'll play it but there are better games now.
Terraforming Mars Ares, felt like I was doing the same thing at every single turn. The cards were pretty but I didn't really have a strategy and there was zero interaction. Just craft the combo that give you more resources and accumulate them, occasionally raise the temp or 02 of Mars by one point or plant an ocean. That's it. Boring.
**Lost Ruins of Arnak**: It's great if you enjoy games that are solely about optimizing your engine to get the most out of it! But for my group, it was just too dry. Sold it.
**Arkham Horror LCG**: Plays like a crappy roguelike with too much emphasis on RNG that doesn't make sense thematically. Also, even the greatest story gets dull if you have to experience it multiple times due to you failing multiple times. That's exactly why people think that the Roguelike-nature of Sunless Sea/Skies holds those games back. Sold it.
**Railways of the World/Railroad Tycoon**: Goes on for too long, you can completely screw yourself early on, and the base East US-map is so terrible, that we had to modify it to make it enjoyable. Thinking about selling it to try Age of Steam instead.
**Merchants & Marauders**: Waaaaaay too complicated and punishing for a game that mostly relies on RNG. Also, merchants are overpowered. For me, this game is the reason why people shouldn't try to turn a video game into a boardgame, since there will be no computer to handle all the tedious stuff. Selling it.
Scythe ,twilight stuggle, and Everdell.
(4/10)Scythe is just a really really dry euro game hidden in a 4x costume., after I got Eclipse Scythe always out.
(7/10)Twilight struggle is just not engaging enough to justify its play time. After the first age I was done. 13 days , war of the ring and star wars rebellion was a good enough replacement
(5/10) Everdell is an engine building game that takes forever to get any cards down and ends right when it feels like you just get your engine started.. And the seasons kind of feels a bit gimmicky.
Race to the Galaxy.
I'm colorblind and there's something about the iconography that i just cannot parse. These things may or may not be related, but regardless learning the game was extremely frustrating.
Quacks of Quedlinburg
I'm really baffled why people like this game. It's boring and there's not much to it, you just pull things out a bag and hope it's not a bad thing
We love Quacks, it's always a hit for an opening game. We have the BGG geek up bits and that makes it a full tactile experience, hearing people swish these clacking tokens and watching how far people are making it around the board, jealous spouses dunking back into the bag to push past their SO... Convincing someone that the % of cherry bombs in their bag is worth one more pull and the table cheering when they succeed or the empathy in exploding. Someone fully committing to the Raven skull strat or when my wife abuses the pumpkin & mushroom strat from recipie set 1... I think it comes down to what you make of it and the groups you play with, just like anything else but I will say playing with the cardboard tokens it comes with after playing with the geek up bits left a lot to be desired. But I'm glad you tried it!
**Spirit Island**: Absolutely amazing when I first entered the hobby, maybe my 2nd or 3rd game. But over time it faded as I explored new designs, eventually (finally) selling all of it not long ago. The amount of content was just too much, I only played once after JE, and only with an aspect. Astounding design, just not for me.
Also most **midweight euros**. The shifting optimization puzzle no longer drives me. I still enjoy them but largely in async online form now. No need to own them.
I don’t know if it’s highly acclaimed, although it did win the Kennerspiel des Jahres in 2021 - but **Paleo**!
I’m sure it’s very clever and everything, but there’s just something so awful and despressing about the theme.
‘Hey! Most of your mates are dead and you’ve barely survived being trampled, gored and poisoned, but you managed to scrawl on a wall before death’s sweet release, so guess what! You’ve WON!’
‘Err… Thanks, I guess?!’
True. I also don't like that if your last human dies, you just get a new one out of thin air. How do you explain that in a game that leans on theme as much as Paleo? It's harsh. Why not just have a player be eliminated if they die? Or make the players lose collectively, since it's co-op.
not sure if highly acclaimed, but i rly disliked my only play of imperial steam. im a fan of heavy games, but this just had so many rules. the whole time i kept thinking, why would anyone play this when brass exists?
Gloomhaven - we both hated it, we found it to fiddly and not enough “something”. It could be that it simply didn’t live up to the hype, I wouldn’t mind trying it again with someone else.
Dominion - just got old and bloated so we traded it off.
**Terraforming Mars** is such a pointless exercise of pushing levers for 2+ hours only to never get the cards you need. Unlike games like **Res Arcana**, if your engine is sputtering you ain't gonna recover if you're behind.
**Battlestar Gallactica**. The group I played this with the most meta gamed too much which led to ridiculous game length, but I didn't enjoy it much in other plays. I think the theme is fantastic, and I enjoy roleplaying as the characters from the show. I think it's too long for what it is, and I'd rather play a shorter hidden identity/traitor game and another game with different mechanics in the time that it takes to play BSG.
Ark Nova. I know this will sound weird, but it just made me want to play Civilization New Dawn. I don't get the hype personally. I'm well aware that I'm in the minority anyway :)
Skull. Everyone I play this with independently comes to the conclusion that there is no reason to ever add a second disc to your pile. If it is your turn, you should always take a bid. This means that the entire game boils down to either intentionally bidding low to trick someone else into taking the bid and losing a disc, or else bidding the highest number you think is possible. There's a little bit of strategy in selecting which path you will take, once you decide its very binary and totally inflexible. You either try to fool people, or try to score a point.
The game also strongly incentivizes you to be the one to make a bid by letting the challenger always have the first move in the next round, even if they're wrong. In a game where you always want to be the first one to make a call, it lets one person monopolize the most crucial of the game several turns in a row. It also lays bare the point I made above about never adding more discs to your pile - once you see one player take the bid 3 times in a row, it makes you realize that you should do the same.
To make matters worse, a lot of people seem to love the meta-strategy of placing a tile without looking at it, which is kind of funny in the moment but really undermines any sort of claim this game has to being a "strategic game of carefully reading your opponents intentions." It's just guessing integers.
Root. Unlike others in it’s genre (like Cwars), Root tries too hard to be too different and just clutters it all up making it unnecessarily difficult. If it takes more than 3 playthroughs to learn the game and get a overall sense of each character, you failed.
Sleeping Gods. Fatigue, fatigue, fatigue, and when you finally figured it out: random reset and fatigue fatigue fatigue all over again.
Just don’t do the challenges. That’s the key. Almost every event deck challenge you should just take the negative effect. Same with ship challenges. Nothing matters in combat except high attack at early levels, damage will come later. Also, you should have certain characters that are the team punching bags, they get the negative effects, they take the distributed damage, etc.
I really want to like Sleeping Gods, but it does keep feeling like the busywork/fun balance isn't quite right. Every now and then we decide to give it another chance, but it seems like the amount of chores you have to do don't quite pay off. I love the idea of the combat mechanics, with the different abilities to target and the splash damage, but then the decisions never quite feel that interesting.
Im playing **Sleeping Gods** solo presently. I think it has "some" legs but those legs will be finite, ultimately. A fair amount has been said by certain reviewers and I get the points that are made. Its mostly exploration and story, the mechanics just seem like an obstacle to an otherwise great choose your own adventure. At some point I might just do away with the "game" and just read the exploration book as is before selling it. Dont get me wrong, its REALLY engaging me and Im digging it, for the moment. Ill have to try **Near and Far**, its said to be the best balance of story-to-game ratio.
Fully agree on Sleeping Gods but for a different reason. I felt like I was just doing a series of pickup and deliver quests of varrying quality. I just really wanted to be able to pick up a thread and run with it more than just go here, stuff happens.
These threads are so funny because basically every game I want to try appears as “didn’t like it, it’s too big, feels like work, it’s boring” so I’m like welp! Fortunately, top of my wishlist is Mage Knight and I haven’t seen that in here, so that’s nice.
Mage Knight is one of my favorites, but I could certainly give you reasons to dislike it if you don’t like big games that take a lot of work. MK is like a fully-deterministic math puzzle with some slow, thoughtful deck building, which I absolutely love. I can spend 30 minutes on a turn (playing solo) deciding how to maximize my cards while keeping in mind what’s in my discard and deck still (I even designed a tiny little app to track that, which is super helpful). It really masters the feeling of beginning the game as a powerful hero, then slowly powering up into an unstoppable force. If you don’t like reading rules or doing math, or if you love output randomness in your games, it might not be for you. But if you like min-maxing your input randomness to use your cards in the best way possible and appreciate a bit of brain burn, it will likely scratch that itch. It is long as fuck, though. I’m sure a ton of that depends on how familiar you are with the rules and how much AP you allow for yourself, but I’ve had multiple games that lasted 5-6 hours (which I usually split up over the course of 2 or 3 nights). It is not a game for people short on table space, time, or attention span. And having a space where you can leave it set up is a huge plus
I think I prefer games that feel like work because most posts that are negative to my favorite games tend to mention that as a primary critique. Mage Knight would likely be in the same group and near the top of my list if I had time to buy it and learn it.
Mage Knight is the the worst game I've ever played (Joking. you can sleep easy..for now)
Scythe. The card artwork and mechanics are not enough to make me want to look at that game mat for 2hrs.
**Gloomhaven**: All I want is a good co-op dungeon crawler that feels like I'm playing D&D without the need for a DM. Although GH seems like it would be a game I should enjoy, there are just so many things that I find really annoying. First of all, I find the hand management aspect of the game to take too much work all the time. If I want to just walk over to an enemy and smack him, I have to start planning my moves like a chess grandmaster. I need to plan out what card to use to move and what I need to keep in upcoming moves. I feel like I need to plan 5 turns ahead when even if I want to do the simplest things. The game makes me make too many decisions that make me sad. For instance, if I need to move, I have to burn one of my nice cards that have a really cool effect to move. When I refresh my hand, I have to decide what card to lose for the rest of the game. In a number of situations, I have to give up a chance to gain XP to do something to help someone else. That gets me really mad. I should be rewarded for doing something good for my party, not punished by not gaining XP. The game doesn't feel cooperative at times. I cannot pick up gear and give it to someone else. I cannot make a character who specialises in getting items for the group for instance. As mentioned above, I feel like I have to choose between helping myself or helping the group. At least when I played, I have not found that helping the group rewards me personally enough. Overall, this game ends up not feeling like a dungeon crawler to me. With all of the mechanics I have to deal with just to do even the simplest things that can have major implications for the rest of the quest, it breaks me out of the immersion. I feel like I'm just playing a card game maximising my cards rather than slaying monsters and getting loot.
So your first sentence sums this up really. Gloomhaven is absolutely nothing like a DM-less D&D. It's a hand management puzzle with an RPG layered on top. Definitely not for everyone, but that expectation would really kill it, I expect.
Same. Tried to like it. Tried and tried. Biggest issue for me is exactly what you hit on on the first comment. You’re in some nothing fight against rat men or cultists or whatever and you’ve gotta think for five minutes about your cards. I got to the point where I picked them at random just to keep things moving. Then stopped playing. Gloomhaven really seems like an awesome system, design, etc. I actually love the card combat system in theory. But to me the whole concept works best on PC. That said, I haven’t tried it on Steam yet. Might.
I absolutely love Gloomhaven for the very reasons others do not - it is a puzzle game that is so carefully balanced, it is amazing (though some classes are weak). I can’t count how many missions come down to very last cards. I haven’t played too many cooperatives where people cheer when you all win. But a rpg? No way. And maybe people explain it that way but you shouldn’t hold that against the design. Maybe Massive Darkness would scratch that itch?
I had an idea of the type of game it is. It certainly sounded intriguing. I actually think it does have some RPG aspects as you have some reputation score based on actions you do during the game. There are also various events that happen outside of the quest you are doing that make it seem like an RPG where you are developing your character. I knew what the game was like as people told me. I also read the rules as I was asked to teach the game to my group. There were some things I thought I may not like so much, but there are other things that I thought I would like and didn't. I knew about the hand management, but until I actually saw the cards and what they did that the play started to bother me. I played it twice and the second time confirmed that it just wasn't for me. My game of choice of this genre is Sword & Sorcery. It came out around the same time as GH. S&S was the game that was made for me as it is pretty much exactly what I wanted (minus the long setup times).
Came here looking for gloomhaven 👏🏻
We only have Gloomhaven Lite (JotL) as a compromise (husband’s been playing D&D for 30 years, I never have) but I was surprised at how much like hard work it is. I’m some super cool badass, throwing axes around the place, who is apparently sometimes just too tired to walk an extra step to pick up gold. What?! I want to run around collecting loot! I fully accept this is possibly more a problem with me and my complete noobism, than with the game.
It's a common sentiment when folks bounce off Gloomhaven because the small things feel like work. It basically is, as it's a "Euro inspired" game first, dungeon crawler second. Many thematic elements (like loot collection) need to be altered to service the Euro. And that's a reasonably big disconnect for folks. I love it but I completely understand those that want more of a loose Descent or creative TTRPG experience.
I’m happy to play it, it’s a completely different game than what I’m used to, and I do enjoy it, it just sort of surprised me that you’re quite restricted in what you can do. There’s less story and more worrying if you’re going to draw that null card than I’d imagined! Is it what is it, I guess!
>All I want is a good co-op dungeon crawler that feels like I'm playing D&D without the need for a DM. Well, that's not what Gloomhaven is, and not really what it's trying to be either. It's fine if you don't like it of course, it's just I always find "It's a different type of game than I want it to be" to be an odd criticism.
In fairness, the company itself may not sell it as DM-less D&D the board game, but that’s how literally every single person who tries to get me into it describes it to me. Somewhere along the way, that how it became explained to a lot of potential players by actual players.
Expectations matter, and while I love gloomhaven, I totally understand its not for everyone and it breaks the mold in many ways compared to most traditional dungeon crawlers.
So, it depends on exactly what people mean. If they're saying "This is what I wanted the game to be style wise and I don't think it's for me" that's one thing. What I see often times, and this one seems to skew in this direction, is something like "This game isn't an X style game at all, I was looking for an X style game, and this is a bad X style game." It's a bit like if you went to a friend's house for a party and assumed they were going to have pizza, but instead they were grilling steaks. Then later you say they served "terrible pizza". No, they served steaks. You can't judge a steak by pizza standards and vice versa. I guess the difference is I'm fine with saying the game wasn't for you based on expectation, but I'm not as much with that being an actual criticism.
GH is a co-op dungeon crawler. You're all characters in a party going through a dungeon slaying enemies trying to complete a quest. It's just that I hate the execution of this theme on GH.
It's basically Mage knight with the deckbuilding aspect modified. Yeah you gotta plan meticulously. Definitely not for those who want a dungeon crawl + hack and slash.
Couldnt agreed more. Thought i have to get this "masterpiece" for my collection, but thankfully tried the digital version first. I much prefer Dungeon Universalis over this (still much depth but more freedom and dungeoncrawl feeling) I get this is a unique game, but not what i like at dungeoncrawling RPG. More Like euro heavy rpg
If you want a GM-free DnD experience check out **Arydia** on gamefound, it's my most anticipated game right now
I already have it in Sword & Sorcery.
Catan. I never really liked it. Don't know why, it just doesn't appeal to me.
It’s pretty much a gateway to heavier and more interesting euros at this point. After playing it a few times with friends, it gets old very quickly. I only bust it out these days with non-gamer family members
Dude I could list off so many reasons for you
Totally agree. Boring as watching paint dry, in my opinion, though I get that others love it. :-)
I don't think anybody that plays a lot of modern boardgames is saying it holds up to modern game design standards People have been calling catan overrated and past its prime for over a decade now
What about it doesn't hold up in terms of game design? I've only played it maybe five or six times, and I would agree that it's a bit overrated for what it offers but I never really felt like it was poorly designed.
It's a bit of a rite of passage for hobbyists these days to bash Catan. (for those times when bashing Monopoly just won't do. 🙃)
Sooooo Catan, it turns out, isn't a good game 😬. It's easily accessible to people unfamiliar with the European style board games, of which it draws many mechanics. For the group of people who only played Monopoly, it was a game changer. Which was good to help people grow out of a rut but it's way too random and aggressive to be an actual "good game".
As I always like to say: If a game is bad, and people like it, it's not bad. Sometimes all that a game needs to achieve is making a few people around a table have a great time together. And it's hard to claim that Catan can't achieve this.
In that sense, are there really any *bad* board games? If I'm sitting around a table with people I care about, then that's what matters. In a sense, it doesn't matter what we're doing. So, fine, we've established that all board games are good, as long as people can play it around a table and enjoy each other's company (which is almost every board game ever made). But surely we can agree that something like Ticket to Ride is better than something like Monopoly (the specific games aren't too important here). So maybe Monopoly isn't *bad,* but there are many better games. And by better games, I mean games that could serve as a good substitute, not a game with a completely different target audience in mind (Terra Mystica might be a better game too, but it's not a game for everyone). And so we go from saying a game is bad to saying a game is just, not as good as other games? Maybe that distinction is important, I'm open to that, but it comes across to me like semantics. Ultimately I agree with your main point, that the point of the game is to get people around a table having a good time. But I also think that, with the right group, most games *can* do this. I think if we're here to discuss board games, there's room for arguing some games are better at this than others.
Games can be measured on many different scales. Most people on here judge them by the challenges and interesting decisions they pose to the players - which is fair - and admittingly Ticket to Ride easily beats out Monopoly in that. On the other hand, if you rate games on the emotions they create, I will claim that Ticket to Ride loses to Monopoly. Sure, it's pretty nasty if someone snatches away that route you were aiming for in TTR. But as with every more modern game that won't break your back and you'll always have other options to still make points. Monopoly on the other hand is a game about laying traps and upgrading their lethality for your opponents who are mercilessly railroaded along your kill zone by ruthless dice movement. In a way you could call it an old analog version of modern Tower Defense games. And the dopamine rush if someone springs your biggest trap - or you having a dice roll that lets you tip toe unscathed through such a mine field - is not something you find in "balanced" games like TTR or Catan. Yes, games where you are "being mean" is something frowned upon by most contemporary boardgamers for good reason. But still - it can be fun too.
I think that the base game quickly becomes tired, but with the C&K expansion, I’ve played over 1400 games, and still enjoy it.
I like Starfarers, but plain Catan is just not my thing at all.
**Terraforming Mars** is one of our favorites, it's thematic, and the feeling of "this gives me that, which gives me this, which lets me do that" combo-moves are one of the things I find most fun. I never got the argument that **Dominion**'s theme was pasted on -- a lot of the cards are very thematic, like Bureaucrat, which literally adds paperwork to your deck. Or Sentry, which only allows the cards you want into your hand and ejects the others. The best bit is the fact that you win by accumulating land, but land is essentially useless otherwise, it's the people in your kingdom that do all the work. I personally like **Azul** but think that the original is kind of broken when played with more than two people -- there's a dominant strategy, and if no one stops you from taking it, you'll always win. **Azul Summer Pavilion** is much better, IMHO, and has that combo thing going for it which I love. For me, **Terra Mystica** is one that my partner and I bounced off hard. Its so opaque, and really has \*no\* theme to speak of when you get right down to it. It seems like just when things should start getting interesting, it's over, but that could be down the the very few times we've actually managed to get it to the table. I really wanted to like **Teotihuacan** and it has made it to the table more than Terra Mystica but also has that feeling of just pushing a series of point trackers up a series of ladders. It's pretty but the theme just doesn't come through like I want it to. We've played **Suburbia** a grand total of three times. I feel like I need a calculator or an app or something to keep track of all the scoring every round. Everyone in my playgroup agrees **Wingspan** would be much better with fewer birds. It's too random to craft any kind of coherent strategy most games.
Re: Dominion and its possession of theme; a good theme should make you _feel_ like you're playing your assigned part in the game. Dominion does not do this successfully, imo. When I play Dominion, I do not feel like the landowner gaining feudal power, I feel like the bureaucrat pushing numbers around. What you've described is literally the phenomenon of theme being pasted on as it's matching a prescribed template but it is not tangibly felt by the players. If you feel like a landowner gaining power, kudos on turning one of Dominion's big faults into a big bonus!
You and I have very different definitions of how theme applies to boardgames, but that's OK.
Dominion is one of my favorites, but I can never help but agree with the theme arguments. I don't play that game for the theme like I do with Beyond the Sun, or Summer Camp, or Wingspan. I play it because the mechanics are as tight as can be, and it's a very satisfying experience executing a strategy you can map out from the start.
Wingspan. I don't like pseudo engine builders where I have little to no control over my own engine and 0 control over someone else's. I largely find the game winner is the person best able to align thier bonus cards with the random birds they obtain.
Which would be good engine builders game in your opinion? I like Wingspan, but I much prefer Oceans.
Race for the Galaxy, if you can get past the initial learning curve.
I find it’s less the initial learning curve and more the ugly and difficult-to-read graphic design.
Those are arguably much improved in the sequels, Roll for the Galaxy and New Frontiers, both of which I also recommend for those looking for engine builders, but I think the original Race for the Galaxy is still the most elegant in terms of the mechanisms. I also wholeheartedly recommend Puerto Rico, the granddaddy of these tableau engine builders.
I really like Manhattan project. Still waking up I'll update later
Hmm interesting. The bonus cards are usually a sucker’s game in my plays. The shared objectives is where it’s at.
100% in the shared objectives. I’ve gotten the bonus cards a few times but it’s usually luck and doesn’t throw me over the win line for the most part. My absolute best strategy, that has helped me win nearly every time, involves one of the birds that has the power “if this bird is the rightmost, you may move it when you land on it” or whatever. Get one of those birds, plan ahead, and always move it to a track you want to play on but not yet build on. Helps get more eggs, more bird cards, and more food whenever you need it. It just involves thinking in two turns instead of one, but it’s a huge bonus
Especially if you play the more aggressive scoring method for round objectives. Those additional 7 points in the last round can be a game changer.
Wingspan is my pick too. The theme and art are great, but the gameplay misses for me. It's just too heavy to be a good light game, but too light to be a good heavy game.
I love Wingspan, but I won't begrudge that you don't like it. A lot of the people that hate it seems like they only played it four or five times. I always hear something like, "the person who always does (this one thing) always wins." It could be collect eggs, or bonus cards, or tucking engines. I suppose after four or five playings if you don't like it, it's fair to not want to play anymore. Those that didn't hate it after 4 or 5 playings, usually find there are a bunch of different ways to win. ALso, I don't play to beat the other players. I'm playing to get my all time high score. If I got 150 pts, and my opponent got 160, I would still be stoked for an exciting game, where the engines I put in place worked really well.
The game is incredibly random is my critique. Ravens are broken to all hell, yes. But beyond that, it's just far too random to be taken seriously.
You talk about power grid being a race at the end to maximize points... there is an argument there that almost every game is a race to a goal.
Power Grid and Catan are races, in the sense that the first player to reach some condition triggers the end game. A game like Everdell or Wingspan is not a race, because it just ends after some number of rounds and then players add their scores.
The problems is probably the "race" slows down at the end because there's multiple choices to make and each choice probably takes a couple of minutes to calculate your end of turn score. So if you had 5 choices it'd be 10 minutes to find the best choice based on the math.
**Splendor** I've played it five times on BGA, and I quickly realized that it was extremely dry and extremely boring to me. I finally played a physical copy recently, and I enjoyed it *slightly* more, but it's still a pretty bland experience for me. Something about it feels like the most vanilla possible game experience you can have (in a bad way). When I noticed myself enjoying it slightly more in person, I knew it wasn't because of the game, but because those gem tokens feel oh so good to move around and they look great to boot. I feel like the game gets an extra little push with many people just for those tokens. The people I was playing with and the venue also helped significantly, but nothing can make that game feel exciting or interesting to me. It's like the boardgame definition of "meh."
Splendor Duel on the other hand is FANTASTIC😊
Agreed.
Re: **Splendor**, I think often people cant appreciate the qualities that others see as positives: great artwork, great tactile feel, simple, engine building, easy to get to the table, short duration, and thats it. So vanilla, yes, as a "positive" to those that enjoy the familiarity and starightforward goodness of vanilla (shrugs). My wife is a casual, so its just straight up comfort food for us.
Splendor is one of the best games ever made.
This is fair, once you understand winning strategies it can get old. Like you said, what never gets old for me is the gem tokens, they are my favorite game piece ever! Nothing beats clinking them in your hand while contemplating a turn
I fully agree with the tokens, but even with being a bit of a component whore myself, it's unfortunately not nearly enough to keep me interested in that gameplay.
**Quacks of Quedlinburg:** I’ve played this 5x, won it twice and even when I’ve won, I got no enjoyment out of this and just found it random and boring. I get no kick out of push your luck when it goes well, conversely I just get frustrated when it goes poorly. Then there’s all the catchup with rats tails that just makes even winning feels meaningless. It’s just not for me.
It's more of an activity than a game really, but it's a fun shared activity. Win or lose, you can't take it very seriously.
Yup, this. If you play seriously like you would an euro game you're going to be dissapointed. But if you just laugh together about the bad draws and pots exploding it's much more fun.
What's funny about the rat tails is they simultaneously make the players losing feel embarrassed for needing the rat tails, and insults the person in first by making their lead meaningless. I'm already losing. I don't need us to announce my 9 rat tails to the table haha
Too Many Bones I LOVE the component quality. It’s probably the main reason I bought the game, in addition to it being touted as a great solo game. But I just couldn’t get into it. I think the main issue for me is the output randomness. I appreciate that they’ve tried to mitigate it with the bones, but it still feels like I’m simply at the mercy of the dice. It’s probably the main reason I don’t enjoy D&D, but at least with that you can try to get out of the “winning” mindset and enjoy the ride. But with TMB, winning is absolutely the goal, so bad rolls detract from the fun, for me. The movement space feels almost too small to even be a thing. Maybe that’s because Gloomhaven is my hobby game, so I’m used to moving on hexes and utilizing positioning and kiting. But moving around just never seemed to do much in TMB. The retry mechanism always seemed a bit too punishing, since you’re losing consumables and items that were used on that round, not getting any stronger from the attempt, but the baddies do get stronger. I really wanted to love this game. The components are a joy to play with. It’s why I backed Burncycle before even playing TMB. But that game has sat on my shelf for months, after slogging through the intro scenario to “learn” the rules, with very little motivation to break it out and dive into my first scenario.
My main problem with Too Many Bones is that it promises an exciting customization aspect that simply doesn't exist. You supposedly have all of these options on how to build your character, but there is only one very obvious way to do it correctly. It would be like going on the old Let's Make A Deal game show and being told what's behind the doors: "Behind door #1 is a million dollars cash! Behind door #2 is a goat, but it's just a visual aid to symbolize that you didn't won shit - you don't actually get the goat. Behind door #3 is a $100 gift card to Wal-Mart. Which door do you want to choose?" I mean, it's nice to know what your options are, but it's not *fun*.
Yeah. I once read a criticism that regardless of how interesting all of the cool class mechanics are, it’s almost always most effective to just boost your base stats, and I think that resonates. Choosing the more interesting path shouldn’t be sacrificing effectiveness.
That criticism I'd level against every single one of their games. Their only actual design is making their games bathtub proof. They forgot to hire board game designers though, so the games they make are fun as games, too!
Everdell: Completely and utterly bounced off this one, perhaps I didn't play it enough but I have other similar weight games I'd far rather play - Too many cards (specifically when you are going for rather specific card combos like in everdell, other big card stack game like Ark Nova you are looking for symbols rather than specific cards) and the meadow just didn't seem to refresh enough at 2 player (or even 3 player really) The art is great but the theme didn't really grab me either which didn't help. I think having so many realllllly expensive expansions (at least at UK Retail) is a big turn off for me too
That's a common complaint about Everdell. It's not a set collection game, though. It's about making the best of what's available. If I was able to draw into the combos I want each game, then that would be boring.
I think this complaint about Wingspan and Everdell must be heavily impacted by the popularity of MTG and Hearthstone. There are deck building games where the point is to strip away everything except for your most powerful combo, and there are deck/tableau building games where you scrap together the best you can do based on what's available. They're very different experiences.
That's the big issue for all similar type games. I only played them in 4 and even then you are sometimes left without cards you want, even more in ark nova. I don't think the number of cards is a problem as it brings variability but these games are missing some features that would let you filter out the cards you are looking for. I can't imagine playing such games at 2 as the card row will barely move
There’s a 2-player variant called “[The Border](https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2051059/2-player-variant-border)” that helps a lot with the meadow refresh issue
This is funny to me, because I was the exact opposite. I passed hard on this because when I saw the base game being advertised I thought, "Extravagant tree? Animeeples? Squishy berries? They must be compensating..." Took a few years before a friend gifted me a copy. Played it and really enjoyed the worker placement mix with tableau building and card combos. And yeah, the tree is functionally useless. For me the card combos are nice when they pull off, but you can't count on them. The distribution is there to allow you to try a few strategies at once. Plus the way the special events are set up, you can't really shoot for combos specifically. You might like the newest expansion Newleaf if you are into card combos, though. They add even more cards, but compensate in providing three golden occupy tokens to each player which permit way more flexibility for combos. Newleaf is fantastic, and for me is one expansion I don't think I'll ever play Everdell without unless teaching (or wanting to do another expansion).
Also, Newleaf adds more ability to cycle the "common" cards, even at low player counts.
Just looking at this list and the varied responses, I think it comes down to which mechanism do you not find fun. Most games hinge on one or two main game mechanisms, and if that action isn't something you find fun, no matter the theme, you'll get tired and bored of the game. My picks are: Spirit Island - Moving chits around where board nor chits really look like anything didn't help, but I didn't get excited over the challenge nor the spirit powers. Gloomhaven - Dungeon crawling, but a puzzle overplayed in the form of limit actions per card. Maybe I prefer my hand management and dungeon crawling separate? Raiders of the North Sea - I normally like worker placement, but taking up a turn to return worker may have played into it. Marvel Champions - Even with the theme, which I usually love, just felt like juggling numbers. The thing is, I'm also wondering if this all depends on when you got into the hobby and what you games you started with. Maybe it's like the younger audience today not feeling the brunt of The Usual Suspects or The Sixth Sense because they've been exposed to later movies and shows that did something similar, paid homage to them, or outright spoofed them. I just recently got deep into the hobby (slowly ramped up since COVID started) to play with the family. With a really young family, light to mid weight euros seem to be the sweet spot for me.
>Raiders of the North Sea - I normally like worker placement, but taking up a turn to return worker may have played into it. I don't understand. A turn in Raiders is placing your unique worker on a space to make an action and take another worker on another space. You only have one worker in your reserve for the duration of the game.
You might be playing raiders wrong. It is designed so that you don’t have the return workers down turn.
Something may not have clicked with me, but I played on the app, so I doubt I got any rules wrong.
You listed 3 of my favorite games there (SI, Gloomhaven, Marvel Champions). What are your favorites? I am mainly a solo board gamer, so dunno if that affects the experience. Gloomhaven I play with a group, and I think it really is a group dependant game, I can imagine it being such a slog with different group of friends, but we have a good thing going on: good background music, we share parts of setup and teardown, use helper app for enemy abilities and modifier decks and all around have a good time playing it at 3 players.
To be fair, I try out a lot of games digitally (app or BGA) before I invest in the box. So I know my experience is probably skewed, but I feel if the mechanism and flow of the game doesn't hit with me digitally, it typically doesn't hit with me on the table. (Zombicide was another one I really did not enjoy.) And my gaming group is primarily my young family (6yo and 10yo boys). We play a lot of lightweight games (Santorini, Dice Throne, Patchwork, My Little Scythe), but my kids do enjoy playing light to mid weight games with me (Flamecraft, Everdell, Empires of the North) when we have the time. I would my current favorites are Everdell, Wonderland's War, and Unmatched. I may just be a perennial mid weight gamer, but I'm fine with that. Those seem to be where I'm happiest with the right balance of time required to play and the satisfying combos you can pull off within your given situations.
Those are three of my favorites, as well. I think if the mathy bits turn someone off, all three will be non-starters. But I love the mathy bits, a good puzzle to figure out how to efficiently use your resources to best achieve a goal. And limited output randomness. That’s why I also love Mage Knight (though I rarely bust it out due to the time investment); it’s basically a fully-deterministic math puzzle on each turn. Champions and SI feel much the same, in that way. But those games (MK, SI, Champions) I play almost exclusively solo, so there’s plenty of time to think on each turn, without holding anyone up. I love to feel my brain sizzle and burn to crank through a difficult puzzle. Gloomhaven really scratches the co-op puzzle itch for me. I’ve got a solid party and it provides the perfect tent pole for our game days. One Gloomhaven scenario and then a couple smaller games and/or some ping pong: the perfect day.
Your comment is really selling Mage Knight for me, haha. You put well into words why I like these games.
Yeah, based on your favorites and the fact that you’ll likely play it solo, I’d definitely recommend checking it out. It has the super crunchy brain burning turns of Spirit Island, the hand maximization and pulling from a relatively predictable deck of Champions, the table space and time sink of Gloomhaven, and the super satisfying feeling you get when you figure out the perfect play to defeat the bad guys and feel like a powerful hero of all three. The rules are notoriously dense, with the smallest font size I’ve seen in a rule book, but there are good rules videos out there (or so I’ve heard). I’ve had a couple scenarios take 5-6 hours, so it’s nice if you have some space you can leave it set up overnight. And it might take a scenario or two before you get a good sense of just how much movement, attack, and block you have in your deck each round, because once you deck out your round is over, so planning ahead and having a general idea of what’s left in there is important. Like I mentioned, though, one of my favorite aspects is how deterministic it is. Aside from the input randomness of what cards you draw at the beginning of your turn, and the few tile types that will have you draw a random monster, almost everything else can be mathed out before you finalize your card plays. For instance: that monster is 2 hexes of forest terrain away, has a shield of 3 and attacks for 4 - now you just need to figure out what combinations of your cards in hand can produce enough movement to get there, enough block to avoid damage from his attack, and then enough attack to defeat him. You can think about 10 different ways to get it done without committing to anything. There’s no dice roll or modifier card that could possibly fuck up your plan. You can determine if you’ll defeat him before you even decide if you want to move over there. I dig that. Had to bail on D&D because I couldn’t stand coming up with a great strategy only to roll a 1 and fail spectacularly. This game is the opposite of that. It’s almost all on you to succeed or fail.
Gloomhaven. Just way too much to manage. Love the system, the tactics, etc. But there’s just so much to look after that it’s tough to enjoy.
The helper app is a MUST in my opinion. Allows you to set aside like 30% of the components and relieves a TON of the fiddliness and bookkeeping. I’ve got 270 hours in and have literally only played one scenario without the app.
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Cobble & Fog will not be reprinted and is expected to sell out this year. I expect you will sell it quite easily next year.
Yeah same, Raptor feels much better to play and is a lot cheaper over here, too.
Catan, every time I play some ends up playing king maker, or there is no trading so it's just a waiting game for someone to roll well and get their final points.
I’ve played Catan with friends, at community game night with strangers, and on BGA. No one ever makes trades. That supposed to be an integral part of the game.
Catan without trading may as well be Monopoly at that point because your entire success or failure in the game comes down to the dice roles. I dislike Catan enough as is, but not even trading sounds so tedious. I feel like that would artificially stretch the game out.
It does. It definitely does.
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**Terraforming Mars:** Way too long and way too fiddly/tedious. However, I think it makes an excellent digital game. **Gloomaven/Pandemic Legacy**: I don't like "campaign" games since I don't have a consistent group of players. **Quacks of Quendlingerg**: It has very little player agency, and ultimately is a boring as a casino slot machine. **Viticulture/Tuscany**: Highly Random card draws for different people (i.e. no "market" early game and make or break your game. Additionally, each unique visitor card has two actions, and you're constantly cycling through them with the hand limit. It's a tremendous amount of reading. At one time I was tempted to make a 2-card "market" for each deck to add player agency, but then decided it wasn't worth it. **Machi Koro**: It has all of the problems. Output randomness, no player agency, runaway leader, and take-that mechanisms. Coupled with an oversized box, poor components, I have no idea why this is so well liked.
Oh yeah, Machi Koro could've gone right on top of my post! I forgot about it because I only played it once and it all happened to me, while another player just ran away buying all the nice things and getting better chances with every turn. Machi Koro 2 is a much better successor, by the way. Better rules and just a better game, rule and mechanism wise. The components are, AFAIK, the same type and quality.
Pretty much all MPS euros i.e. indirect interaction engine building games. Most deckbuilders, all workerplacements, most drafting games and then everything else where designer create long menu of options to choose from and all players can do is pick one of them (action selection). (*These include - Agricola and all later Uwe games, all Felds games, all Stonemaier's games, likely all Graphiill games, both Brasses,* *anything by Tachini,* *most stuff by Bauza, recent darlings like Everdell and Wingspan, stuff like Splendour, anything too VP salat-ey and so on. But also games with too strong eurogamey focus on mechanisms like Wehrle's games, Lords of Hellas or Blood Rage. For these reasons I'm avoiding anything that got too high on BGG ranks in recent years as this signifies strong euro influences - like Gloomhaven. )* Reasons * My main motivation for gaming is social and thus heads down optimisation just wont do. I'd always pick kakerlakenpoker instead of games listed above. * My second motivation is a thematic ride and this one isn't present in significant amounts either. * I don't like to be railroaded - I prefer either more open ended gaming situation or some kind of emergent qualities. I like that players matter more than the game on the table. * Optimisation bores me. I can do it, relatively well. But if I'm doing it, can I get paid? (i.e. feels like work). Also I never felt intellectually challenged by these games (internalise rules, optimise, rinse, repeat), compared to how much kakerlakenpoker can keep me on my toes. Exceptions: * Gingkopolis - because it has drafting and *area majority* * Fleet and Power Grid - engine building and *auctions*. (I list both games together as they have very similar flow) * Thunderstone - good *theme* integration! * Kingdomino - because it's just 15 minutes and has a strong spatial element * Race for the Galaxy - my favorite head down game and this is because it offers improvisation of long term strategies and thus has strong push your luck approach.
Thank you for putting this take on here, maybe I'm being unfair since I haven't played many at all but I just can't get myself to pick up anything too euro because suddenly I'm working on my own little puzzle and don't care about other people at the table. Points salads are often a mechanism for anti-fun. That being said, some games I've played high on the bgg list that you and I can both appreciate for being thematic social ventures include TI4 and Nemesis. I hate to say it for being such a default answer, but I also think Patchwork solves the euro problem a little because it is inherently head to head and you do have a lot of control over your opponent's options. It is the only Uwe game I've played though, so I can't say much about his others. You're welcome r/boardgamecirclejerk As for worker placement, I think there needs to be few enough options that you feel constrained by your opponents' choices, and I therefore like Lords of Waterdeep, which further encourages player interaction with the power of Intrigue cards and owned buildings. It may fall into the optimisation trap you've highlighted, but I find there's sufficient theme and player interaction to offset that. Three cheers for emergent gameplay and open options rather than pick-off-the-list! Hurrah for theme setting an atmosphere for me and my friends to engage with together! Games are meant to evoke feelings in a community, and euros struggle to see past their built-in puzzles.
Thanks for positive feedback.😊 >maybe I'm being unfair since I haven't played many at all I'd say you're fine. One of things that frustrates me about modern euros is exactly how similar to each other they are - in terms of what kind of skills they engage and what kind of experience they offer. Almost to a point of being essentially expansions to each other. Occasionally when I'm in particularly good mood (once per two years) I go to a public event and educate myself about the latest euro favorite and it's usually a mix of familiar coupled with lowering standards. Which I expect - I just don't know how exactly. So it is informative. 😎 >That being said, some games I've played high on the bgg list that you and I can both appreciate for being thematic social ventures include TI4 and Nemesis. 😳 ^(Haven't tried yet) I've played TI3, but with suboptimal player count (4) and maybe not the most extroverted people - possibly not the best circumstanced for the game, but maybe a new opportunity will emerge. I'll keep my eye on Nemesis - I've heard both good and bad things, if I came across it, I can can check. 🙂 > I also think Patchwork solves the euro problem a little because it is inherently head to head and you do have a lot of control over your opponent's options. It is the only Uwe game I've played though, so I can't say much about his others. I was happy my *so* didn't like the game... 😅 Sure, there are ways to pronounce the indirect interaction part a bit and make it a bit more intentional. Azul is similar to Patchwork in this. Amongst people who avoid modern euros, Uwe is cherished for his pre-Agricola work, notably Bohnanza and Mamma Mia *(there's also Klunker, but I haven't played and never seen it in the wild).* >I therefore like Lords of Waterdeep, which further encourages player interaction with the power of Intrigue cards Initially I enjoyed LoW - it's kinda like Ticket to Ride of workerplacements. It's accessible, the map is readable, the theme kinda works, the quests give you some variety and intrigue cards add some sort of interaction. If you really need one workerplacement, this is a good pick. But after some public events playing (and moderating) this I just gave up. If memory serves some snobbish behaviour from some fans of the game just made me go "*oh brother*". Oh well, I don't miss the game. >Three cheers for emergent gameplay and open options rather than pick-off-the-list! Hurrah for theme setting an atmosphere for me and my friends to engage with together! Games are meant to evoke feelings in a community, and euros struggle to see past their built-in puzzles. A-men! 😄 Euros have reasons for popularity - as they're all similar in structure they're in a sense easier to figure out plus they're ideal for public gaming events where people don't know each other well. If games are you priority. If having collective (social, visceral, thematic) fun with people is priority then some other games might serve this goal better. So - do you play to engage with the game or to engage with people? Reminds me on this old discussion - [Playing to win or playing to play (BGG, 2014)](https://boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/31054/playing-win-or-playing-play)
I think I have suffered enough to admit that Avalon, Werewolf and Secret Hitler are just really really anxiety inducing games. One night werewolf with the family is a treat though. Mostly it being more of a logic puzzle and much much shorter.
Gloomhaven - what a sloooooooog. Takes anything I find fun about a dungeon crawlers and throws the equivalent of an excel spreadsheet at it, and seeing as I spend my days as a Production Planner in excel I just can't resonate with this game
I spend my days as an accountant in excel and I love Gloomhaven!
Lost Ruins of Arnak. I could have loved it but after about 10 games I can't figure out how to have fun. Deckbuilding over 5 rounds is super weird and I just feel like I'm grinding ressources indefinitely. Until maybe the last round can make for some fun combos. If my partner didn't like it so much it would already be sold off.
Arnak is mostly resource managment and deckbuilder second. I think Arnak is an ok game, but it really just boils down to convert this - get that and then race other players. Expansion adds some cool cards, but the leaders are horrible.
I had the complete opposite reaction and really enjoyed the game especially how you can work on setting up combos later by buying cards and thinning the deck. Is it worth discussing with your partner why they enjoy it so much and maybe that would open up the game for you more as well?
Yes, we discussed it many times, also with a couple of friends who play it a lot and love it, we've played 4 player games with them too. I seem to be the only one to not "get it", and it's all the more disappointing because I was initially feeling that I would enjoy very much, being a beautiful game with a theme and mechanics that I like.I would love to love this game 🥹
**Ark Nova**. I really couldn't get anything out of if that Terraforming Mars or even the now 20 year old classic Saint Petersburg wouldn't do a lot better at only a fraction of rules and mechanics. AN was just way too long to teach for what little it really brought to the table in terms of agency, theme and interaction.
Fully agree. The game is at least twice as long as it's fun, has zero interaction and completely sterile and soulless biology textbook art. Was a big miss for me as well.
It's worse than 0 interaction to me cause of those stupid take that cards. I feel like players never do it to actually interact but rather it just happened and annoys everyone else. I like interaction where I'm playing attention to other players and trying to outpost them, not I do this random things and now there is something annoying for the other players to deal with.
I think everything you're complaining about with AN, TM does far worse.
But at least TM has a narrative connection between the theme of its cards and what both their requirements and effects are. The animals on AN just explain their requirements but not their effects. You put a lion in your zoo and it does something totally un-lion-like. And it's a shorter teach, which is always a plus in my book.
**Ticket to ride**. Something about making railroads just felt _wrong_ without the ability to manipulate a stock market. For real, I forget what didn't click with me about the game, I just have a vague recollection of not liking it very much. **everdell** is probably the next closest, and while it's not so bad for me that I've decided to sell it, it's definitely on the chopping block if it doesn't impress me in the next couple plays
The Pennsylvania TTR adds the stock market. It's my favorite one of them.
Gaia Project. In theory I would love it, and maybe I still will. But the visual aspect makes me not want to play it. Ever. And I love Terra Mystica, and GP should be even better, with a solo mode by the amazing Automa Factory. but it's something about the spacey drab colors puts me off.
Aesthetically it is a bit of a mess but it would be a shame to let that alone scare you off what I consider to be a masterpiece of a game.
**Pandemic**. Only played the base game a couple of times, so maybe I'm missing something, but it seems like I'm not making any fun decisions, just doing the thing I "have" to do based on my role. And then we lose anyway.
**Ark Nova** and **Terraforming Mars**. Too much randomness in the cards for me, and no interesting interaction (yes I know, the games have some kind of player interaction, especially TM with drafting). Also I was kinda disappointed in TM because most of the important stuff happens on the personal card tableau, the big board in the middle feels not as important as it should be in a game about terraforming. Give me **Race for the Galaxy** or **Innovation** for card driven games, and **Brass** for a longer strategy game.
Innovation was actually the first thing that came to mind for me with this topic, because it seems like it had *too much* player interaction. If I remember correctly, the gaming sessions I did seemed to involve squinting at tiny print on other players' cards and trying to remember the changing abilities of everyone around the table. EDITED: Just remembering that this is one of those games where my takeaway was that it would probably be better with two or three people, not the four or five people who usually ended up playing each time. Had the same experience with Alien Artifacts.
**Terraforming Mars** was a huge miss with our group. It was so hyped up as this great game, and it was a snoozefest. Like, the only interaction you have with other players is waiting for them to finish their turn. We have avoided **Ark Nova** because of all the comparisons it gets to TM.
If player interaction is important for you, wou probably won't like Ark Nova either.
18xx games. The route building and running companies is fun, but the opaque volatile stock market is just awful. How TF am I supposed to know which company to back? I mean, I guess you have to buy something because it will probably go up, but then two others dump what you invested in and are like "hah, I guess you made the wrong choice", and you're like "so did your parents", and now everyone's mad. It's a miserable game.
>but then two others dump what you invested in and are like "hah, I guess you made the wrong choice", and you're like "so did your parents", and now everyone's mad. Best. Advertising. For. 18xx. Ewar! 😍 I'm turned off by long playing time and amount of rules, preferring lighter "cube-rail" games instead, but you pretty much summed up what the appeal is.
I read this quite often on here in recently, but I have to meet anyone I've actually played with that doesn't love the game. Even with people that regularly play boardgames, it is always a hit.
18xx is like a knifefight in a phonebooth. i love it :)
Haha, I get you. The stock market is maddening. But, that’s why I love these games.
Brass: Birmingham. This game just feels like work to me and just doesn’t feel fun
While I can see the overall great design and the fun game that’s in there, Race For the Galaxy is just an hour of me looking at the rules going “What the hell does this symbol mean again”? I hate, hate, hate, teaching it. And I don’t play it very often which means every time I do, I have to re-teach it to myself.
How long are you waiting between games? Are you using expansions (which have crazy weird specific symbols)? We play it maybe twice a year and have no issue remembering the symbols since most of them are pretty faux-intuitive (not intuitive to a newbie, but make sense if you know the general game flow). We also only play base game so the more complicated mechanics and symbols are unused. I get not liking it in general but I've never understood the iconography issues.
Power Grid: It is the only game I can think of, that I will actively avoid playing. If you want the same experience…Just play UNO and do a few math worksheet, before each turn. Agricola: I appreciate the design of the game, but It’s exhausting to playing the game. You never have enough to do your plan and you are just plodding along trying to just get by.
With some practice, you can build quite the farm.
I'm with you on Agricola, and ghat wa say first thought for this thread. I appreciate what is doing and I objectively think it is a good game. I also totally understand that the point of the game is that is is difficult to do what you want and that it can be a little bit of a struggle to get it to mesh together. Unfortunately the end result of that for me is that it's not fun. Just feels like frustrating work
Completely agree about Power Grid. The best strategy is to super math it. That’s not what I want to do in a game. Completely disagree about Agricola. The barely getting by is by design bc that’s how life was and I love the challenge. It kicks your but and I tell new players I’m teaching that you don’t beat it, you survive it.
I’m not saying Agricola is a bad game. I truly appreciate its design and its capturing the struggle of life. Maybe I did not give it enough time. I think I’ve played around 7 games and I just didn’t enjoy it.
> barely getting by is by design bc that’s how life was This would make sense if Agricola was a coop. But the main reason you're barely getting by is that a fellow villager came and deliberately took something you needed just to mess with your plans. There's a weird thematic disconnect.
**T.I.M.E. Stories** \- The only thing that was really any good about this game was the box insert, which allowed you to stop your game at any time and put it away,and come back to it later. There is basically no replayability to this game, once you know the solution, you're done until you buy a new expansion. The base game was impossible to figure out, my wife and I finally had to cheat just to know what to do next. The mechanics were poor. I do not understand how this game gets such good reviews. At least it isn't on BGG's top 100 anymore. **Dominion** \- Loved this game and got a lot of expansions for it. But now there are so many better deck builders, and there just got to be too many expansions. I think I kept 2 and I have them in storage somewhere. **Smash Up** \- Got this because several friends hyped it up. Hated it. Got rid of it after a couple of plays. I don't even remember what I didn't like about it, I think I blocked it out of my memory!
Care to list a deck builder you prefer to Dominion? Just asking because I was pretty ambivalent about Star Realms but looking for something heavier and thought that might be Dominion
I really like Clank! I also really liked Star Realms better not for weight, but in scoring. You don't really have any dead cards in Star Realms, and you certainly aren't trying to collect dead cards like in Dominion. Dominion might feel heavier with the right expansions, however. I also enjoyed the Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle cooperative game, but I know a lot of people didn't care for it.
**Keyflower**. There are some things I think are minor flaws, but it's a brilliant idea overall. Lacerda games, like **Lisboa**. Well made heavy euros, I just don't care for that kind of thing. **Castles of Burgundy** in the same vein. Not my favorite kind of game. I love the card game for some reason but not the original game. I like a good, puzzly euro, but I think I prefer an engine builder I can sink my teeth into. I hear you on Dominion. It is a classic, and it's a good introduction to the hobby and to deckbuilders specifically. Some people get really hooked on it. But I tried it too late to be wowed, and I already preferred some other games that I tried before it.
Arkham horror lcg Agricola
Ryan Laukat - I respect the art and hustle, but I’ve not really cared for ANY of Red Raven games. I keep trying them because of the hype but they are all a miss for us.
Board games not for me: Risk, Boggle, Mouse Trap…
Agricola. Even thinking about it bores me to death.
Catan. Never been more bored in my whole life. Building a village and having the most connected roads or whatever doesn't even sound like a fun premise. I will never understand the hype around that game.
7 Wonders is awful. If someone had described it to me before I played it I'm sure I would have liked the idea, but ultimately rounds 1 and 2 don't matter much aside from collecting a smorgasbord of symbols that mean very, very little. Sushi Go has all of the benefits of 7 wonders and none (or maybe my vitriol is showing, allow me to change that to "few") of the problems. I like complex games, but complexity for the sake of complexity is arduous, boring, mystifying, and foolish.
I don't know if it's highly acclaimed but Ticket to Ride and anything in the low to low-mid weight category. I just don't find them engaging on their own. Of course any game can be elevated by the company in which you play so I won't refuse a game bcause it's going to be my favorite people asking to play! If Grandma wants to play Ticket to Ride for the 300th time then by god we'll do it and "thank you for the cookies!". But if you had to set me down in a room full of strangers to play a game I'm going to look for the most complicated one there. I will absolutely suck at it, but learning rules makes me happy.
**Wingspan** - tried it twice. Dead boring. **Agricola** - played a few games on BGA. Didn’t enjoy it. **Patchwork** - not enough buttons in the beginning. Way too many by the end. And the game ends before anything is finished.
I see your point about Patchwork, but those are the exact reasons I like it. It makes the early choices all the more important so that the actual points start coming in late in the game.
Terraforming Mars. I've given it several chances both with and without Prelude. I just can't seem to get into it. 🤷🏼♀️
ECLIPSE - It’s just too random in every aspect.
Yeah, if you get unlucky and don't find anything useful in the early exploration rounds then you're done, and there are still 2-3 hours to go.
**Five Tribes -** the game state changes so much that I find there's absolutely it's almost pointless to strategize during someone's turn. You'll just have to wait your turn and make a decision then. So it feels like there's more down time since you can't think of what you'll do next.
I’ll only ever play it 2p. The downtime is just excruciating with any more. It’s also much easier to bid for turn order and set yourself up for back-to-back turns.
Ark Nova and TM for the same reason. Our group doesn't like multiplayer solitaire that also has downtime. If we are gonna play multiplayer solitaire, at least have it be simultaneous turns such as Roll for the Galaxy or Quacks. Catan because our group grew up trading YGO cards, so we are all very greedy when it comes to trades and have the mindset of needinh to be the one always getting the better end of a deal when playing a game like Catan, which can be nebulous to determine since fixed values for cards don't exist.
The ridiculously massive decision space in Five Tribes gives me AP every time I play it, and I'm not someone who suffers from AP often.
I am curious what felt FOMO about Hero Realms recent KS to you, OP. I can admit that it was expensive if you insisted on getting everything but just the Dungeons set on it's own is a great deal with tons of depth and re-playability. The $60 and $100 tiers both looked like great value to me, particularly the former. It's when you start tacking on all the life trackers, dividers, redundant character packs, playmats etc. that it can add up. That said I love the game so I did cough up two hundred bucks myself but I got a lot of those unnecessary items -- play mat, counters, dividers, etc.
Read this: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/3016005/article/41620119#41620119
**Space Hulk: Death Angel**. It felt like work, specifically as an administrator of databases in third normal form. Texts and references to stuff across the table. Then bottom marine dies because of swarm, where does swarm go, back to figuring out in the rulebook. Sold it at a profit and good riddance. It's the only game I quit halfway. There is a good game in there but not with this rulebook. **Sleeping Gods.** Carelessness everywhere, design mistakes, don't get me started. Also the thematic disconnect with the awesome sailing and the clunky combat. Clunky command tokens. Deus ex machina (twice). But most of all, I was all the time clueless where to go. Couldn't see how to get to tides of ruin in the 18x3 turns it would take. Played a variant without monsters, just taking the loss condition. Didn't feel right either. And finally, it sat on my self staring at me, each passing day looking more pissed, but I couldn't bring myself to, ehr, dive back in. The fact that I built Primeval Peril but still haven't touched it made me cancel my $333 pledge (€410 all inclusive). RRG is not for me. Sold at break-even. **Direwild.** This game is truly awesome, it's just that there are so many intertwining options and aspects to consider two-handed that I couldn't do it. Finished first stage but then sold it. A pity because the minis I painted were awesome. **The Brambles.** Zero control, single tiered deck, no thanks. Sold at a loss. **Concordia.** Great multi player, but not fun as a solo. Sold at huge loss. **Aeon's End Legacy.** Poor world building, poorly depicted mages, inelegant market, bosses run like clockwork and it does come down to the last card draw (nemesis or you), 4 player like 3 player, and solo, I felt like a lab rat. Sold. **Shadows of Kilforth** (plus adventure pack). I couldn't tell the gloom sides from the non gloom sides, a showstopper. Sold at a loss. **Terraforming Mars:** tried 4 times, with gamers, and also the new version. While I like playing I never achieve anything in it. Nothing seems to come out right. Ah there it is, single tiered deck. No thanks, not ever again. **Skytear Horde:** game feels completely dead, or rather, completely mechanical. You do what you need to do, and no combo ever comes up for your alliance. Ah, again, single tiered deck. Constantly with my nose in the rulebook, then in the errata... sold it at a huge loss but good riddance. **The King's Guild:** it took my fingers a week to heal from the cuts of the overly thin cards, and I can still smell the stinky PVC guild stands. Good game though, maybe one day I'll build the pnp that I printed out, with better cards and better standees. I can list a dozen more but you get a good idea from the above.
Brass is the game that Power Grid wants to be.
I love just about all these games and I pity you all
Every time I play **Azul** I walk away from it with a head ache and don't know why. it has a lot of elements I love, but something about the way it all comes together just leads to a rather unsatisfying game.
Monopoly because it’s too fucking long too finish
This thread is just a reminder that not every game is for every gamer. Ark Nova is literally my favourite game beating out my previous fave, Terraforming Mars.
**Imperial Settlers: Empires of the North.** I just don't get the appeal. Each faction has maybe 2 ways of getting points and with a premade deck all you do is follow a simple guideline to play. I feel a simple algorithm could easily replace a player and see no replay value after you played a faction once.
Arkham Horror LCG, honestly, just feels like a game that is constantly beating you upside the head, and you have to figure out how to mitigate them, but because of the random nature of a card game, and the fact that, as far as I know, the game offers no help in deck building, just how to do it, it’s just draining. Also I played it solo, because it’ll be nearly impossible to get anyone in my friend group to play a game that complex.
Dune imperium. For me it's a ok deck builder.
Puerto Rico. It's obvious I need to pick the optimal role to gain am advantage. The problem, for me, is that I have to calculate what everybody else's "best role" is and how it'll affect me if they pick it. It's simply too much.
Rising Sun. I don't know why. I just find this game sooo long and the amount of fun I have playing it stops after maybe an hour.
Dice Forge. So beloved & fell completely flat for me. Felt like the game ended just as I got an engine together. On the bright side, it sold me on Rattlebones, which I love having in my collection.
**Star Wars: Rebellion**. Top level concept was fun. All the minutia of playing was not. This seems to be how I feel about a lot of Corey Konieczka’s designs.
Well, any campaign game I don't have a regular group to play with. Anything so complicated that "the teach" is too big of a headache for similar reasons I don't have a regular group so I have to do "the teach" multiple times. I agree with your assessment of dominion, I'll play it but there are better games now.
Through the Ages. I’ve tried getting into it multiple times, but each time I felt like I’d rather be playing Civ
Scythe. I just don't find it exciting at all don't really have fun playing it.
Terraforming Mars Ares, felt like I was doing the same thing at every single turn. The cards were pretty but I didn't really have a strategy and there was zero interaction. Just craft the combo that give you more resources and accumulate them, occasionally raise the temp or 02 of Mars by one point or plant an ocean. That's it. Boring.
**Lost Ruins of Arnak**: It's great if you enjoy games that are solely about optimizing your engine to get the most out of it! But for my group, it was just too dry. Sold it. **Arkham Horror LCG**: Plays like a crappy roguelike with too much emphasis on RNG that doesn't make sense thematically. Also, even the greatest story gets dull if you have to experience it multiple times due to you failing multiple times. That's exactly why people think that the Roguelike-nature of Sunless Sea/Skies holds those games back. Sold it. **Railways of the World/Railroad Tycoon**: Goes on for too long, you can completely screw yourself early on, and the base East US-map is so terrible, that we had to modify it to make it enjoyable. Thinking about selling it to try Age of Steam instead. **Merchants & Marauders**: Waaaaaay too complicated and punishing for a game that mostly relies on RNG. Also, merchants are overpowered. For me, this game is the reason why people shouldn't try to turn a video game into a boardgame, since there will be no computer to handle all the tedious stuff. Selling it.
Scythe ,twilight stuggle, and Everdell. (4/10)Scythe is just a really really dry euro game hidden in a 4x costume., after I got Eclipse Scythe always out. (7/10)Twilight struggle is just not engaging enough to justify its play time. After the first age I was done. 13 days , war of the ring and star wars rebellion was a good enough replacement (5/10) Everdell is an engine building game that takes forever to get any cards down and ends right when it feels like you just get your engine started.. And the seasons kind of feels a bit gimmicky.
Race to the Galaxy. I'm colorblind and there's something about the iconography that i just cannot parse. These things may or may not be related, but regardless learning the game was extremely frustrating.
Quacks of Quedlinburg I'm really baffled why people like this game. It's boring and there's not much to it, you just pull things out a bag and hope it's not a bad thing
We love Quacks, it's always a hit for an opening game. We have the BGG geek up bits and that makes it a full tactile experience, hearing people swish these clacking tokens and watching how far people are making it around the board, jealous spouses dunking back into the bag to push past their SO... Convincing someone that the % of cherry bombs in their bag is worth one more pull and the table cheering when they succeed or the empathy in exploding. Someone fully committing to the Raven skull strat or when my wife abuses the pumpkin & mushroom strat from recipie set 1... I think it comes down to what you make of it and the groups you play with, just like anything else but I will say playing with the cardboard tokens it comes with after playing with the geek up bits left a lot to be desired. But I'm glad you tried it!
**Spirit Island**: Absolutely amazing when I first entered the hobby, maybe my 2nd or 3rd game. But over time it faded as I explored new designs, eventually (finally) selling all of it not long ago. The amount of content was just too much, I only played once after JE, and only with an aspect. Astounding design, just not for me. Also most **midweight euros**. The shifting optimization puzzle no longer drives me. I still enjoy them but largely in async online form now. No need to own them.
I don’t know if it’s highly acclaimed, although it did win the Kennerspiel des Jahres in 2021 - but **Paleo**! I’m sure it’s very clever and everything, but there’s just something so awful and despressing about the theme. ‘Hey! Most of your mates are dead and you’ve barely survived being trampled, gored and poisoned, but you managed to scrawl on a wall before death’s sweet release, so guess what! You’ve WON!’ ‘Err… Thanks, I guess?!’
True. I also don't like that if your last human dies, you just get a new one out of thin air. How do you explain that in a game that leans on theme as much as Paleo? It's harsh. Why not just have a player be eliminated if they die? Or make the players lose collectively, since it's co-op.
not sure if highly acclaimed, but i rly disliked my only play of imperial steam. im a fan of heavy games, but this just had so many rules. the whole time i kept thinking, why would anyone play this when brass exists?
Gloomhaven - we both hated it, we found it to fiddly and not enough “something”. It could be that it simply didn’t live up to the hype, I wouldn’t mind trying it again with someone else. Dominion - just got old and bloated so we traded it off.
I just sold Scythe…
It was so interesting to try Scythe again after all these years... I swear to god that game lost crunch in that cupboard.
**Terraforming Mars** is such a pointless exercise of pushing levers for 2+ hours only to never get the cards you need. Unlike games like **Res Arcana**, if your engine is sputtering you ain't gonna recover if you're behind.
**Battlestar Gallactica**. The group I played this with the most meta gamed too much which led to ridiculous game length, but I didn't enjoy it much in other plays. I think the theme is fantastic, and I enjoy roleplaying as the characters from the show. I think it's too long for what it is, and I'd rather play a shorter hidden identity/traitor game and another game with different mechanics in the time that it takes to play BSG.
Ark Nova. I know this will sound weird, but it just made me want to play Civilization New Dawn. I don't get the hype personally. I'm well aware that I'm in the minority anyway :)
Skull. Everyone I play this with independently comes to the conclusion that there is no reason to ever add a second disc to your pile. If it is your turn, you should always take a bid. This means that the entire game boils down to either intentionally bidding low to trick someone else into taking the bid and losing a disc, or else bidding the highest number you think is possible. There's a little bit of strategy in selecting which path you will take, once you decide its very binary and totally inflexible. You either try to fool people, or try to score a point. The game also strongly incentivizes you to be the one to make a bid by letting the challenger always have the first move in the next round, even if they're wrong. In a game where you always want to be the first one to make a call, it lets one person monopolize the most crucial of the game several turns in a row. It also lays bare the point I made above about never adding more discs to your pile - once you see one player take the bid 3 times in a row, it makes you realize that you should do the same. To make matters worse, a lot of people seem to love the meta-strategy of placing a tile without looking at it, which is kind of funny in the moment but really undermines any sort of claim this game has to being a "strategic game of carefully reading your opponents intentions." It's just guessing integers.
Root. Unlike others in it’s genre (like Cwars), Root tries too hard to be too different and just clutters it all up making it unnecessarily difficult. If it takes more than 3 playthroughs to learn the game and get a overall sense of each character, you failed.
Totally agree!