Board Games!

[Faraday]

Forbidden Island's good, although I prefer Desert (well it's just a little more complex while still being simple, which is nice).

Legendary is mostly co-operative deck building, although I guess there can be a competitive element too, can't there? (It seems kind of half assed though, being the "best winner").

Pandemic is fun, the On the Brink expansion gives it a lot more replayability too once you get bored of the base game. It's gets a decent amount of dislike for being "solvable" eventually, but that's whatever I think you'll get your moneys worth and I still find it fun.

[quadz08]

Forbidden Island / Forbidden desert is a solid Co-Op game. Pandemic is along the same vein, though it is frustratingly difficult to win.

Polyhaus has a mild obsession with Legendary, which is co-op but flexible enough to be played with some competition too if you are interested in such things.

In other news I have literally just copied faraday's post apparently

[Thesp]

EDIT: Maybe to say that I don't want any games with a traitor mechanic might be more helpful.

There are quite a few excellent cooperative games without a traitor mechanic out there now. Some of the ones I enjoy are (ranked by my order of preference):
Pathfinder Adventure Card Game
Flash Point: Fire Rescue
Ghost Stories
Arkham Horror
Lord of the Rings
Mice and Mystics
Escape: Curse of the Temple
Pandemic
Forbidden Island

[Mina]

Pandemic is along the same vein, though it is frustratingly difficult to win.

Huh, if anything, I found it easier than Forbidden Island/Desert when I played it.

[quadz08]

I mean, I've never won any of the above, but I had more fun losing Forbidden Island / Desert. I don't feel like I'm completely screwed from the start in FI/FD, whereas Pandemic feels like you're just destined to lose from about the first turn.

[Sudo_Nym]

Pandemic is along the same vein, though it is frustratingly difficult to win.

Huh, if anything, I found it easier than Forbidden Island/Desert when I played it.

I think the problem with Pandemic is that it's impossible to predict difficulty, and it feels so swingy and luck dependent. I've won games on Hard without really trying, and I've lost games on Normal on the second turn before anything could be done about it.

[BipolarChemist]

I enjoyed Flash Point, Forbidden Island, and Arkham Horror immensely, enough that I bought a couple of them. I agree, Pandemic just doesn't stand up anymore. I got tired of it way too fast and Forbidden Island just feels like a much better time.

I've heard Eldrich Horror is a simpler, more player friendly version than Arkham Horror, I might look into trying it. I think Betrayal at the House on the Hill might be my favourite co-op (well mostly) game out there, just so much variety and fun each time you play.

[quadz08]

Betrayal is definitely pretty fun.

[penguin_alien]

My game group loves Escape: Curse of the Temple with lots of expansions piled in, and my family likes Defenders of the Realm. The latter involves some dice and can be played with a 'best winner' mechanic, but they're both good for avoiding the micromanager syndrome in my experience.

[Glork]

Pandemic is quite excellent, especially with the expansion.

Shadows Over Camelot is rather fun, although it can often wind up in the unenviable "1 vs all" scenario.

[Shmugen]

Played Kemet for the first time the other day. Very fun, though I disagree with a few of the rules.

[Thesp]

After having played Kings of Air and Steam twice, I've really enjoyed both plays, even if there's one character in the game we're not keen on. (The other 6 seem to be entertaining.)

[Chevre]

Wow! This needs a bump!

Has anyone played any of the Spiel des Jahres nominees this year (Camel Up, Concept, Splendor)? All three of them look interesting, though I think my group would go for Concept way before Camel Up and then way way before Splendor.

[Thesp]

I haven't been able to play any of the SdJ or the kSdJ games yet, to my dismay.

On another note, I played quite a few games just this weekend:
Dominion x 5
Magic: the Gathering x 7
Confusion: Espionage and Deception in the Cold War
Witch's Brew
Web of Power
In the Year of the Dragon
Members Only
Aladdin's Dragons
Candy Chasers
Lucca Citta
A Study in Emerald
Railroad Tycoon
Mage Knight

[ChannelDelibird]

Wow! This needs a bump!

Has anyone played any of the Spiel des Jahres nominees this year (Camel Up, Concept, Splendor)? All three of them look interesting, though I think my group would go for Concept way before Camel Up and then way way before Splendor.

I've played Concept a few times and think it's great. Forces some fantastic out-of-the-box thinking - if everyone in your group is the kind to enjoy a good brain-teaser even a little then it'll get a hook into them. Would strongly recommend.

Played Camel Cup (the branding is seemingly intentionally vague about whether it's Cup or Up but I vote for Cup) for the first time tonight and I enjoyed it well enough. It's pretty quick to learn and the games will go fairly quickly when everyone knows what they're doing. Not sure if there's enough there for the price (the funky pyramid dice-tumbler looks like the main reason it's going for about £25 in the UK, and it's honestly just kind of annoying and fiddly to use) but the guys with whom I was playing it have all really taken to it in a big way and I can understand why.

Splendour is getting a lot of play at my local games night but I haven't had a chance to try it yet; must be doing something right, though.

[xRECKONERx]

how do you get to play all these games

[Lady Lambdadelta]

GreyICE and I just received City of Horrors and Cosmic Encounters in the mail.

We're excited to try them.

[Faraday]

cosmic encounter is really fun with like 5 or 6 I thought. really enjoyed the game at the reckoning.


ordered coup yesterday, should be right up my street with the bluffing/deception element

[Lady Lambdadelta]

cosmic encounter is really fun with like 5 or 6 I thought. really enjoyed the game at the reckoning.


ordered coup yesterday, should be right up my street with the bluffing/deception element

GreyICE and I love Coup. If you preordered like he did there's a bonus role card that you get with it. It's pretty cool (plus extra art and stuff).


Also, Avalon and Resistance are great.

[Lady Lambdadelta]

EDIT: Maybe to say that I don't want any games with a traitor mechanic might be more helpful.

There are quite a few excellent cooperative games without a traitor mechanic out there now. Some of the ones I enjoy are (ranked by my order of preference):
Pathfinder Adventure Card Game
Flash Point: Fire Rescue
Ghost Stories
Arkham Horror
Lord of the Rings
Mice and Mystics
Escape: Curse of the Temple
Pandemic
Forbidden Island

Note: Pandemic CAN have a traitor mechanic~. Bio-terrorist is the best~.

[ChannelDelibird]

how do you get to play all these games

I'd be amazed if there weren't a specialist store or regular meetup group for games in a place as large as Raleigh. Mind you, my local shop is 10 minutes' walk away, so it's not hard to seek out.

[ChannelDelibird]

ordered coup yesterday, should be right up my street with the bluffing/deception element

Coup is the shit. Big, big fan. Can't believe you ordered a proper set rather than a custom UK Scummers Meet 2014 homebrew design, though. I hear that's great.

[Lady Lambdadelta]

ordered coup yesterday, should be right up my street with the bluffing/deception element

Coup is the shit. Big, big fan. Can't believe you ordered a proper set rather than a custom UK Scummers Meet 2014 homebrew design, though. I hear that's great.

Please tell me more about this!

[ChannelDelibird]

The Captain is too awesome to be visible through a camera.

[Lady Lambdadelta]

Have you heard of the Inquisitor?