Gaming and adjacent
Feb. 4th, 2019 11:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livI mentioned that this present-giving season was less book-focused than usual for our families. Instead, we exchanged a lot of games and puzzles.
Received:ghoti_mhic_uait gave me a really exciting jigsaw puzzle for my birthday: it turns out that some of the plates from The Ultimate Alphabet by Mike Wilks, a fantastic book from my childhood, have been made into jigsaws. And she made room in packing to bring the puzzle with us to France, and we were able to set it up on a coffee table and collaborate on it over the course of the holiday. It really worked well as a jigsaw because focusing intently on each piece was a good way to spot more of the tiny details in the delightfully complex picture. And the people who aren't as much into jigsaws still enjoyed helping spot obscure P-words.
That present was so successful thatcjwatson and I have rediscovered our love for jigsaws, and we've been spending quite a lot of our most recent dates working on a horribly difficult facsimile of a blueprint of Turing's Zeta Function machine. Does anyone have a recommended source of good jigsaws for when we get to the end of this one? I can probably find good stuff just by trawling charity shops, but it would be cool to choose another fun and interesting picture rather than the standard postcard scenes and soppy art.
cjwatson gave jack Cogs and Commmissars for his birthday. It seemed like it should be the most Jack-friendly game ever, it's a card drafting thing set in an AU version of Soviet Russia with robots, with lovely thematic art. What it does well is that it has some of the nature of Magic: the Gathering, on a small, self-contained scale. But it's let down by clunkily awful humour: it tries to make "sending citizens to the gulag" funny, and no amount of bad puns makes that actually pleasant to play. It appears to have been created by someone whose knowledge of Russia and Communism comes from a bunch of warmed over internet memes, and thinks jokes about genocide are edgy. (Apart from the poor taste, I was particularly annoyed by the way that "bourgeoisie" cards are worth more than "proletariat" cards.)
Given: Someone on Twitter recommended IQ Puzzler Pro, noting that it's a physical and mental stim toy, though they disapproved of the branding about improving one's IQ. I bought it as a Christmas present for my partners' middle kid, because I liked the idea of a puzzle game that's properly tactile, and packs into a little pocket-sized case. I think she was more excited byjack's roller coaster marble run puzzles.
I bought a copy of Camel up for the OSOs, since we've all enjoyed the game but don't own a copy. I think I like the more artistic and less cartoony art of the second edition less than the original, but it's still a great game.
This hasn't happened yet, but I have ordered King of New York as a seventh birthday present for my partners' youngest. I enjoyed the game a lot when I played it a board game meet, particularly the large cardboard monsters. I hope it's at the right level of complexity; there are some effect cards, but not too many, and most of it is about making quite straightforward choices.
Possibly my most successful present ever was buying Scythe forjack for Christmas. I had heard a lot of hype about it but wasn't sure; my impression was that it was a sort of Risk-like quasi-wargame thing, which didn't interest me that much. But I did some more reading, and found a bunch of reviews which said, if you're looking for a wargame you'll hate this. It is a bit more expensive than I usually spend on board games, but it was on sale, and I decided that it would probably suit both of us well enough to justify the money.
Scythe far, far exceeded my expectations. We spent Christmas morning unboxing it, and squeeing over the beautiful art, the detailed miniatures, the fantastically clearly explained rules. And we've replayed it practically every time we have two hours free in the past several weeks. In terms of sheer hours of entertainment it's excellent value for money! What it does is it takes worker placement to a whole new level. Everything is abstracted just the right amount so it's interestingly complex with lots of emergent strategy, but it's never fiddly. The scoring mechanism at the end is a glory; it simplifies counting up all the different paths through the game so that everything is rewarded but scoring is almost instant. It's amazingly well balanced, with just slight asymmetries between countries and specialisms, with really cool synergies in the combinations.
And the flavour! It's set in an AU early twentieth century central Europe, where giant mechs protect workers of different nationalities and occasionally skirmish over territory. Completely the opposite of Cogs and Commissars, it takes something that could be grim and violent, and makes it poetic and beautiful. Not by glorifying violent conflict, but by abstracting it. Asjack pointed out, the worker meeples are full of character, the landscapes are gorgeously detailed, whereas the soldiers are represented by entirely abstract cylinders. There are some lovely chance cards, which introduce really interesting randomness but also have delightful little scenes and stories to go with them. It's also remarkably non-sexist; in addition to having a good choice of female as well as male player characters, all the art has a realistic balance of male and female figures, and nobody is gratuitously sexy.
Rediscovered: Other than that, we managed to get a family game of Mysterium in at the weekend. 10yo Judith has been watching Tabletop videos about it, and really got into playing as the ghost. And Andreas, at nearly 7, really got it and joined in effectively as well as enthusiastically, so we had an awesome time.
Received:
ghoti_mhic_uait gave me a really exciting jigsaw puzzle for my birthday: it turns out that some of the plates from The Ultimate Alphabet by Mike Wilks, a fantastic book from my childhood, have been made into jigsaws. And she made room in packing to bring the puzzle with us to France, and we were able to set it up on a coffee table and collaborate on it over the course of the holiday. It really worked well as a jigsaw because focusing intently on each piece was a good way to spot more of the tiny details in the delightfully complex picture. And the people who aren't as much into jigsaws still enjoyed helping spot obscure P-words.That present was so successful that
cjwatson and I have rediscovered our love for jigsaws, and we've been spending quite a lot of our most recent dates working on a horribly difficult facsimile of a blueprint of Turing's Zeta Function machine. Does anyone have a recommended source of good jigsaws for when we get to the end of this one? I can probably find good stuff just by trawling charity shops, but it would be cool to choose another fun and interesting picture rather than the standard postcard scenes and soppy art. cjwatson gave jack Cogs and Commmissars for his birthday. It seemed like it should be the most Jack-friendly game ever, it's a card drafting thing set in an AU version of Soviet Russia with robots, with lovely thematic art. What it does well is that it has some of the nature of Magic: the Gathering, on a small, self-contained scale. But it's let down by clunkily awful humour: it tries to make "sending citizens to the gulag" funny, and no amount of bad puns makes that actually pleasant to play. It appears to have been created by someone whose knowledge of Russia and Communism comes from a bunch of warmed over internet memes, and thinks jokes about genocide are edgy. (Apart from the poor taste, I was particularly annoyed by the way that "bourgeoisie" cards are worth more than "proletariat" cards.) Given: Someone on Twitter recommended IQ Puzzler Pro, noting that it's a physical and mental stim toy, though they disapproved of the branding about improving one's IQ. I bought it as a Christmas present for my partners' middle kid, because I liked the idea of a puzzle game that's properly tactile, and packs into a little pocket-sized case. I think she was more excited by
jack's roller coaster marble run puzzles.I bought a copy of Camel up for the OSOs, since we've all enjoyed the game but don't own a copy. I think I like the more artistic and less cartoony art of the second edition less than the original, but it's still a great game.
This hasn't happened yet, but I have ordered King of New York as a seventh birthday present for my partners' youngest. I enjoyed the game a lot when I played it a board game meet, particularly the large cardboard monsters. I hope it's at the right level of complexity; there are some effect cards, but not too many, and most of it is about making quite straightforward choices.
Possibly my most successful present ever was buying Scythe for
jack for Christmas. I had heard a lot of hype about it but wasn't sure; my impression was that it was a sort of Risk-like quasi-wargame thing, which didn't interest me that much. But I did some more reading, and found a bunch of reviews which said, if you're looking for a wargame you'll hate this. It is a bit more expensive than I usually spend on board games, but it was on sale, and I decided that it would probably suit both of us well enough to justify the money. Scythe far, far exceeded my expectations. We spent Christmas morning unboxing it, and squeeing over the beautiful art, the detailed miniatures, the fantastically clearly explained rules. And we've replayed it practically every time we have two hours free in the past several weeks. In terms of sheer hours of entertainment it's excellent value for money! What it does is it takes worker placement to a whole new level. Everything is abstracted just the right amount so it's interestingly complex with lots of emergent strategy, but it's never fiddly. The scoring mechanism at the end is a glory; it simplifies counting up all the different paths through the game so that everything is rewarded but scoring is almost instant. It's amazingly well balanced, with just slight asymmetries between countries and specialisms, with really cool synergies in the combinations.
And the flavour! It's set in an AU early twentieth century central Europe, where giant mechs protect workers of different nationalities and occasionally skirmish over territory. Completely the opposite of Cogs and Commissars, it takes something that could be grim and violent, and makes it poetic and beautiful. Not by glorifying violent conflict, but by abstracting it. As
jack pointed out, the worker meeples are full of character, the landscapes are gorgeously detailed, whereas the soldiers are represented by entirely abstract cylinders. There are some lovely chance cards, which introduce really interesting randomness but also have delightful little scenes and stories to go with them. It's also remarkably non-sexist; in addition to having a good choice of female as well as male player characters, all the art has a realistic balance of male and female figures, and nobody is gratuitously sexy.Rediscovered: Other than that, we managed to get a family game of Mysterium in at the weekend. 10yo Judith has been watching Tabletop videos about it, and really got into playing as the ghost. And Andreas, at nearly 7, really got it and joined in effectively as well as enthusiastically, so we had an awesome time.
