日常生活

Since Gears of War didn't turn out to be the awesome "board game that we play every weekend" I've kept searching for another game to play. (Really, I've been pushing to play GoW again, to at least beat that first annoying level, but the others won't comply. What do?)

I noticed Ad Astra was on sale and figured we should give it a try. I didn't really know what the game was about and after having seen a quick review on the game on Youtube - after I had ordered it - I didn't think it would be very good. (But hey, it was on sale..)

My brother, a friend and I tested the game yesterday and as it turns out, Ad Astra is actually a lot of fun to play! There's a lot more strategy in this game compared to many of my other games (which are mostly just all about killing stuff). Travel to various planets, gather as many resources as possible to score more than the others and eventually win the game. For some reason that setup worked out just fine with us. Maybe we're getting too old for mindless mayhem? Grah, the horror!

The tokens, or pawns, are all pretty neat. A few of them look a bit fragile and the ships are a little skimpy for my liking, but all in all, they're very nice looking.

Both my brother and the friend commented that it would've been interesting if there were a way to attack the planets in an "intergalactic war kinda way" somehow.

I suppose there's still room for some mindless mayhem, after all. :-)

One of my brothers bought the game Rock Science and the three of us broke it in yesterday. It's a trivia board game with a Rock-theme and we quickly found out that neither of us is a Rock Scientist. A lot of the questions were super hard (or rather, they're about bands that neither of us listen to). To move your marker (which is a cool guitar pick) you have to answer a question correctly. Or - and this is what got us around the board - you "bet" that the player answering the question can't get it right (which happened about 90% of the time, even on the easier "Poser" questions).

Yeah, we suck.

Eventually I completed a lap around the board, just shy ahead of the others, winning the game. Woop! But rather than feeling victorious, I walked away from the table full of shame, feeling like a poser. Not worthy..

There are some additional rules with the game, such as a drinking game variant, which I'd like to try out some time. (Not that I see how that would make things any better)..

Everytime we start playing a new game there are always some rules that we miss. Rather, that I miss - I'm usually the first one to glance through them. GoW:tBG was no exception.

Three of us started out on Friday, gathering up all the pieces from the box, setting up the first stage and taking the first plunge through the Locust swarms. After a few unlucky turns, near-dead and hardly off the first map-piece, I realized that we had missed a couple of rules that would have made it easier on us. After some yelling at me we decided to start over.

The next time we set off things turned out better for us, but we still faced a lot of resistance as we pushed forward through the swarms. We got up to about halfway through the map when one of us had to break up early on account of work on Saturday morning. We decided to leave the table overnight and come back the next day.

When we came back on Saturday we still faced a lot of resistance, and my brother started to lose his patience when we realised that there were more rules we had missed. Come on, this is the first level, it can't be this bloody hard...

Turns out no, it's not really - we (ok, me) are just stupid and very unlucky with the rolls. We decided to restart once more, but my brother had had enough, so our friend took over the role of both their characters, while I grabbed the last char we hadn't played before then, meaning we were now 4 "players" instead of 3. That ought to even the scores some, right? Right? Nope. Still hard as all hell.

We went at it for little over an hour (or maybe two) when my brother returned to the table announcing he wanted to play Magic: The Gathering. I groanded a bit, but agreed - it had taken us too long time to get nowhere on the first level. It's a hard ass game...

Come Sunday, I decided to try play it solo. The amount of starting monsters on the map changes depending on how many players there are which made it pretty easy to get through each room; either killing the Locust or skipping by them, rushing to the end objective of the map. It took me less than half an hour to kill the last of the Locust and beat the level. For serious and like a baus.

I actually think it's a great game and having played Gears of War I & II on the 360 I think the transition from digital media to a board game captures the feel of those games pretty well. It's just very luck-based with the dice, but there are ways to turn them in your favour.

I like how your life is slowly regenerating over time (like in most modern day shooters), instead of as in say, Castle Ravenloft, where your life pretty much just drops all the time. ;)

I'm insisting on another round next weekend to get through the first level, hopefully further than that, because I know we can do it....we have the technology...

Edit October 9: No.

We haven't touched a board game in a while, the weekends being occupied by Magic: The Gathering. I've been meaning to change that, and have been looking for something new and fresh. I stumbled upon Gears of War: The Board Game. Buying it on Friday.

It looks pretty sweet, kind of reminding me of Doom: The Board Game except it's full-on co-op against an "AI", like Castle ravenloft (meaning not one person will be stuck playing the DM; cards determine how enemies react). Brilliant, really.

Looking forward to playing it. :-)

(Click image for video)

It's been a few months since we took on the behemoth that is Dungeons & Dragons. We finished off the starter-set campaign and I bought a few of the books and boxes from the Essentials line. We then started out on a new journey to save the land.

But we didn't get very far. The roleplaying aspect of D&D turned out to be a little rough on all of us; too much were said and not enough got done, so to speak. And we found the character sheets and spells a bit hard to read out. All of us enjoy a good fight, but it got more complicated than it probably had to.

And that's where the D&D board game Castle Ravenloft comes into the picture -- It is a slimmed down version of D&D with the main focus on exploring the dungeons (in this case a castle) and fighting monsters. What makes it great is that no one is locked down playing the DM (which would always be my peril); everyone gets to control the monsters they reveal, which in my opinion is ingenious. I like that a lot, because now I can be part of the group of adventurers instead of hiding behind a DM screen.

I got the game a few days ago and my brother and I have played a couple of rounds to test it out. We both enjoy it immensely and I think Castle Ravenloft will be the favourite among my games for a long time to come. :-)

I'm planning on buying the "sequel", Wrath of Ashardalon which was released mid-Februari, as well as The Legend of Drizzt due for release in October.

I'm a sucker for board games, especially if they're fantasy-based and/or treasure-oriented. Monopoly or Risk can be fun to play, but they're too anchored in the real world for my liking. Bring me a Troll or someone weilding a sword any day. ;]

Drakborgen: Legenden

Drakborgen: Legenden was the first board game I bought and also the one we've played with the most. It's based on Drakborgen I & II which was released as Dungeonquest in English. The objective of the game is to enter the dungeon with your character and move towards the center where the dragon is watching her treasure. On the way there you'll face monsters and traps, opponents that may try to thwart your progress and the occassional dropped piece of treasure. It's a good fun game and I really only see two flaws; the timer sometimes move too fast and the dragon is too bloody strong. Other than that, it's golden. :]

Dungeon Twister

This is the most recent game I've bought, i got it only a few days ago. We've played it only twice, but it's a fun - and rather fast paced - game. By itself the game is for two players, but there is an expansion allowing for 3 or 4 players that I'm looking into buying. Two teams built up of characters with various strengths and weaknesses are trying to win by getting five "Victory Points". You earn points by escaping the dungeon or by killing your opponents. The players move through a maze built up over a set of rooms, and at the same time trying to keep the other team from leaving. All the rooms can be rotated, which makes for an everchanging maze. The floors have traps and some rooms are sealed off by "Portcullis", a portal-like door that only two of the characters can either open or break so the rest of the team can move through. And there's one character that moves through walls, which can make for some sneak attacks.

Dungeoneer

Dungeoneer is a series of stand-alone decks that can be played individually or combined with other decks. I have Dungeoneer: Call of the Lich Lord and Dungeoneer: Vault of the Fiends, the first two decks in the serie. Dungeoneer uses playing cards instead of tiles to construct the dungeon (which in my opinion is both good and bad; it's easier to stash the cards, but you can mess up the dungeon by breathing on it.). Each player gets to control a hero and you explore the dungeon while fighting monsters, completing quests, and leveling up along the way. It's good fun, except that I rarely win. In fact I think I have come out victorious only once...

Doom: The Board game

"Attention all Marines! We are under invasion. I repeat, we are under invasion!" While it's not fantasy, it's fantastic enough for three games. Doom is built closely resembling the videogame with lots of figurines portraying the Space Marines and the demonic invaders. One player controls the invading forces and up to three other players control the Marines that are trying to escape the base on Mars. During the game the players encounter new weapons and items that will help them on their way through the vast hordes of demons. I'm not a huge fan of games where one player is the "game master", but Doom is a pretty neat game none the less.

Cave Troll

Each player controls a group of explorers that are raiding the Cave Trolls...well...cave. This game isn't as fantastic as the others, the map is always the same and the gameplay is almost too easy, so it gets a little boring after a while. We've never tried playing with the alternative monsters and rules though, something that might make it more exciting.