Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[ftl]

How good is it for 2-player? Obv. there isn't the kingmaking problem in 2-player.

[eHalcyon]

I watched the 2012 Dice Tower Top 100 Games of All Time over the last week or two, as well as more Dice Tower reviews for specific games I pulled from those lists.  What do people think of Dice Tower?  I've already seen some conflicting opinions.  Alien Frontier is highly praised in their review, but DG clearly is not fond of it.  Likewise, Suburbia was well-reviewed but people here seem to have found it more mediocre.

After watching those videos, my list of interesting games currently looks like this (including some other games that didn't come from those lists at all):


Interesting, need to investigate further

Risk: Legacy
El Grande
Wallenstein
Robin Hood/Hart an der Grenze
Castles of Burgundy
Robo Rally
Gloom

Looks good
(but I don't really want to immediately go out and buy them, and probably won't ever get to them for various reasons)

Tichu
Tales of the Arabian Nights
Race for the Galaxy
yomi
Ghost Stories
Sunrise City
Suburbia
Ricochet Robots
Bohnanza
Kingsburg
Alien Frontiers
Keyflower

Must Buy
For Sale -- quick, classic filler that accomodates many people
Incan Gold -- like For Sale, but with a very different feel
Dixit -- sounds like a really great party game
King of Tokyo -- looks enormously fun
Cosmic Encounter -- Cosmic Encounter!
Kemet -- I just remember I thought it looked really cool




I was also extremely interested in "David and Goliath", a trick-taking card game.  It looks really neat, but seems to be out of print.  Does anybody know about this game?  Would it work with a regular deck of cards (even though the number of suits would be reduced from 5 to 4, among a few other small changes)?

I am still wondering about Alien Frontiers.  It looks really neat, but the heavy kingmaking and screwage DG mentions would be a deal breaker for me.  Unless that's supposed to be part of the game, that is -- Cosmic Encounter is all about screwage, right?

[Ratsia]

I was also extremely interested in "David and Goliath", a trick-taking card game.  It looks really neat, but seems to be out of print.  Does anybody know about this game?  Would it work with a regular deck of cards (even though the number of suits would be reduced from 5 to 4, among a few other small changes)?

As with most relatively basic trick-taking games, I've tried that at some point -- I tend to try them all once or twice. It seems my BGG rating for it is 6, but unfortunately I have played it before I started writing verbal summaries for all games and I can't quite recall how well it worked. Quite likely it was okay but not quite revolutionary in any sense.

Anyway, you don't need the official game to play it. You probably shouldn't try changing the number of suits, but there are a few games that have sufficiently many cards in sufficiently many suits. Just buy one of those and use it to play almost any card game that uses some sort of a variation of a regular deck. Where I come from, people typically use Sticheln, which fits perfectly for that purpose: It has six suits of 19 cards (numbers go from 0-18) and still two extra cards for three of the suits, reaching the magical 20 cards per suit. You can play rather many games with that one (and the actual game of Sticheln is quite nice too, especially since it works well for high player counts).

[Kuildeous]

Risk: Legacy is a really neat idea, and it can even make you not mind the fact that, on the surface, it's Risk. One nice thing is that they updated the rules so that a game ends when someone gets 4 VPs. So, those giant slugfests where it takes hours for some guy to finally take over the board don't have to happen. Just manage your cards properly and get 4 VPs. As the game progresses, you get more opportunities for VPs.

It is a game that needs commitment, though. Everyone has to be willing to play the game and accept the consequences. I thought I had that in a group, but now I have a $60 doorstop. It's not like I can even sell it at this point, since half the components have been opened.

I can see this being great awesome fun in a core group. The decisions you make in Game 3 can have an impact in Game 12. If your players aren't interested, then you've just wasted some money.

I'm hoping that now that the game's been out for a while that you can get a copy for really cheap. That may mitigate the risk.

[Qvist]

That may mitigate the risk.

I see what you did there. 

[Davio]

Re: Dice Tower

Well, just take it with a grain of salt. I find that they explain enough so that you can make an informed decision on your own, especially if you're an experienced board gamer already.

There's nothing wrong with conflicting opinions. A reviewer should show enough so that you can either agree or disagree, but there's no point in him just saying it's bad or it's good (without showing why he thinks that us).

I like personal reviews, I mean, you can't be objective anyway so might as well go with it.

I love Zee though, can't see enough of him, he's funny.

[DG]

I am still wondering about Alien Frontiers.  It looks really neat, but the heavy kingmaking and screwage DG mentions would be a deal breaker for me.  Unless that's supposed to be part of the game, that is -- Cosmic Encounter is all about screwage, right?

Games with screwage are best with easy come, easy go mechanics. Small world is at the top of end the planning scale for a game where the other players can entirely mess up your moves. Alien Frontiers is hard thought out analysis paralysis resource management with easy go mechanics and that doesn't fit well together.

[eHalcyon]

Anybody have experience with Equinox?

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/131121/equinox

It looks interesting.  Perhaps lends itself too much to AP though.