Author Topic: What do you look for in a game?  (Read 11368 times)

Offline Decar

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Re: What do you look for in a game?
« Reply #30 on: January 07, 2018, 02:36:31 PM »
I certainly dont like games with infinite variability. It makes me think the game designer has little to know idea that their game either comes with limits or has rules missing.
Kingdom builder is a great example of lots and lots of permutations of starting position. But the uncontrol nature of play really makes that interesting. DXV seems to do that with dominion too. The game starts with a clear victory path. But the sequence of hand draws totally messes it up. But you still have a good strategy to follow.

I have to say shadespire is doing this really well for us at the moment. The strategic placement of the boards and objects offset against the random nature of power cards with the added bonus of a couple of different factions means it's scoring highly here (but not infinite).

Offline Decar

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Re: What do you look for in a game?
« Reply #31 on: January 07, 2018, 02:38:58 PM »
I started waffling and forgot to say: imagine if Carcassonne had double sided tiles :D

Offline jungleboy

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Re: What do you look for in a game?
« Reply #32 on: January 12, 2018, 08:29:28 AM »
If you are a company making any type of board, you should make a flip side for variability.  Different point values, locations, or totally different game play are all current things found in some games. 

I certainly dont like games with infinite variability. It makes me think the game designer has little to know idea that their game either comes with limits or has rules missing.

I'm not sure if you are both talking about exactly the same thing here, but if so, I'd have to agree with Mike (dirk2112). Just to hash it out a bit more and see if we're all on the same page, take two similar games by the same designer: Navegador and Concordia. In both games you're taking one action per turn from a series of options, travelling by land/sea and trying to create colonies, acquire/spend resources/money etc.

Navegador has essentially no variability and no real growth for an expansion beyond promo stuff. The roundel that determines actions is fixed, the colonies all produce the same resources from game to game (i.e. the South American colonies produce sugar, the West African and Southeast African colonies produce gold and the rest produce spices) and there is a fixed, one-sided board. I happen to like the game a lot as it is, but the lack of variability means that you could figure out an optimum strategy and just repeat it every time you play.

In Concordia, a deck-building element changes your available actions game to game, the colonies are randomly seeded with different resources each game, and the base game comes with a double-sided board (therefore, two maps). There have been four expansions all containing another double-sided board (and, in fact, three of those four expansions have only contained a new board and nothing else) so there are now 10 different maps you can play on with different features/elements. The unhinging of the designer (Mac Gerdts) from the roundels that he was previously using and were 'restricting' him and the deck-building element in particular widely are seen as helping to make Concordia an improved version of Navegador. So while all of our opinions about stuff like this are subjective, it seems pretty clear that Concordia is the better game. And I say this as a fan of Navegador.

And while on topic...

If Imhotep wouldn't have double sides, I think we would have been sick of it by now.

I read that the expansion will have a C and D side for all the locations, so that'd be great.
« Last Edit: January 12, 2018, 12:21:11 PM by jungleboy »

Offline dirk2112

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Re: What do you look for in a game?
« Reply #33 on: January 12, 2018, 08:34:58 AM »
What Nick (Jungleboy) said!

Also, Concordia has been on my list of games to try.  For whatever reason the 2 FLGS don't have a demo copy  :(

I haven't played it yet, but there is a Legacy game called Charterstone.  It comes with 2 sides of the board too so that you can buy a "refill" pack if you wish to do the legacy aspect again.  That is a GREAT idea.  I wish the 2 Pandemic Legacy games did that.  I am not sure I am going to buy Charterstone.  We are knee deep in worker placement games. 
 


Offline Decar

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Re: What do you look for in a game?
« Reply #34 on: January 13, 2018, 02:27:14 AM »
Sorry maybe I wasn't clear. Certainly not disagreeing:  infinite-replayability is a marketting term.  It's often used when a game has some to lots and lots of replayability and variability....ive yet to see a gmae that's infinite...i assume they're still printing the prototype.

Offline InTheDark

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Re: What do you look for in a game?
« Reply #35 on: January 13, 2018, 05:16:49 AM »
I look in the title for the word "Carcassonne" :)
"Where Is the French Monasteries Mini Expansion At?" -Guy Wondering Why Game Set In France Gets Expansions Set In Other Countries.

Offline jungleboy

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Re: What do you look for in a game?
« Reply #36 on: January 13, 2018, 05:33:22 AM »
Also, Concordia has been on my list of games to try.  For whatever reason the 2 FLGS don't have a demo copy  :(

It seems to be between print runs at the moment, but still possible to acquire in certain places.

Sorry maybe I wasn't clear. Certainly not disagreeing:  infinite-replayability is a marketting term.  It's often used when a game has some to lots and lots of replayability and variability....ive yet to see a gmae that's infinite...i assume they're still printing the prototype.

Got it now, thanks for clarifying!

I look in the title for the word "Carcassonne" :)

In this case I don't recommend Cardcassonne for you.  ;)

Offline jungleboy

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What do you look for in a game?
« Reply #37 on: January 14, 2018, 06:27:26 AM »
Re: game themes. If theme doesn't matter to you, then that's great for you because it gives you a wider pool of games to potentially enjoy. But hopefully you can understand why I wouldn't want to play, or even look at, a game like this:


Offline Decar

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Re: What do you look for in a game?
« Reply #38 on: January 14, 2018, 06:47:33 AM »
I was going to bring that to our next meetup  ;D

Besides HATE is an acronym for:  Happy Artisans: Trading Empires


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