Hot Heart

It was a great episode overall but daaaamn...

On the home release, yay.

Okay, I've also discovered there's a version of Century: Spice Road on there. Which is a great, easy-to-learn but surprisingly deep game. Could probably make Android: Infiltration and DC Deck Builder work too. Any strong thoughts from you guys on what you would like to play?

I used to love this show as a kid.

Some people's reaction to that really confused me. I mean, I think the show covered who the real culprits were twice already, possibly even in the episode after it. It was the mere fact that the Lannisters didn't know that makes the confession significant. Maybe The Unsullied are going to have a Warriors-style journey now. Come out to play-ee-ay.

Okay, having looked over my "own" games... - Hyperborea should work fairly well. It's all in Italian but none of the components are language dependent. And I can pretty much remember all the relevant rules. It's a sort of civ/area control game with a "bag-building" mechanic, which is sort of like the deck building of Dominion, Legendary, etc. but you get different coloured cubes which activate action icons for movement, attack, etc. Could take as long as Scythe to play, but you can adjust the end-game conditions for short, long or medium (although, short might be too short) - Paperback is like Scrabble but with a deck building mechanic in that you draft extra letters to spell out longer and longer, higher-earning words. You then buy scoring cards which count at the end of the game but will only count as single "wild" letters and not help for buying other cards (so like gaining VP cards in Dominion). I think it could be pretty fun. - London is a sort of hand management, engine-building game that could work. Fairly straightforward gameplay. - 6 nimmt should work. It's pretty basic so you could learn it in a few minutes but a lot of fun. I might just need to have the rules handy so I remember where a card is supposed to go when rows are already full. I think it's pretty obvious in that "cards go next to the closest card that is lower in value" but best to be prepared. - Epic Spell Wars is also dumb fun that shouldn't overrun with three.

Hey! I'm working Saturday, so I'm afraid I won't be able to make that time. I can most likely do Sunday evening. I might be doing IRL games down a pub in the afternoon but that should wrap up around 6pm at the latest, so assuming I'm not too drunk, it'll be okay. That is, if I even feel up to going out after the week I've had. So, yeah, consider Sunday evening a strong possibility. Games-wise, Wizard's Academy interested me physically (that sounds wrong...) so it might be cool to give that a try, although if I recall it could be fiddly... but at least co-op probably mitigates that a bit. Three Cheers for Master and Tiny Epic Galaxies (I think that was on TableTop) could work. I'd also add Legendary would be okay since it removes the fiddliest annoying bit of setup and takedown, and Concordia would work well enough. I'll look into some others later.

Love the one where she thinks she's posing for a photo but NOPE.

At this time, I was hanging out a lot with a close friend who lived nearby (and still is a close friend who lives nearby, except we've mostly switched to table top games) and we would play a lot of different things. Forefront in my memory is Burnout 1 (2 would release later that year) which we played a whole bunch and loved the one feature that none of the later games continued: superlong tracks where they joined all the smaller ones together, so you had US tracks and EU tracks and it made "marathon runs" by combining them and reversing them, etc. which kept things fresh enough for us. As for how it holds up, well, I think all the later Burnout games surpassed it but I did miss that feature. Secondly, my dad had picked me up some chipped mini PSone and a bunch of games through someone he knew. Most of these games were pure PS1 shite, but there was this Bomberman game (I think it was "Party Edition") that supported 4 players and had loads of cool features. I think Bomberman Ultra back on XBLA was similar but it didn't quite have everything (and it was online and laggy as all fuck for me). Basically, you could tweak all sorts of settings so you had crazy maps with conveyor belts, traps, etc. and you could get animals with special moves and even if you were knocked out, you could ride around the outside of the arena chucking bombs in (with an option to bring you back into the game if you got a kill). I really wish someone would make a new version of that. It was amazing. We also used to play Crash Bash and Poy Poy 2, with the former possibly being okay today (think Mario Party without all the loading) Then there was Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, which was... alright at the time and probably unbearable now.

Ex Machina Decent thriller with some strong performances from all involved and interesting subject matter. I think there's some fun discussion to be had around one element... but it probably doesn't hold up to scrutiny.

Yeah, TTS worked pretty well overall despite the odd calamitous drawing/dealing/dragging moments that were funny more than anything, and it was a real pleasure playing with you guys. I'm up for trying most games unless they're a bit too fiddly or perhaps require too much communication. I mean Scythe was super fun but it still took three of us a bit over 3 hours, I think. Then again, that is slightly more fiddly than most, just that single turns can be fairly quick. I suggested Concordia because it's a sort of "step up" from Catan and moves fairly briskly all in all, plus I can remember all the rules, which usually helps. I think the only problem is needing to keep zooming in on text if you don't know the cards that well and having to check other people's discard piles (since one type of card can copy the top card of any discard pile)

That's how I've cut them when doing sandwiches to fit in a lunchbox. Never figured it made that much of a difference. Is... is that why I'm not married?

Do it, DO IT!

Small updates: Played Century: Spice Road again. Still love it. It's surprisingly deep once you get into the "timing" aspect (e.g. holding off nabbing scoring cards straight away because you can see others aren't close) and I had some cool (as well as lucky) events on my way to a pretty convincing victory without using the 3x upgrade card. Also did a 5P game of Concordia this time, which changes the dynamic somewhat (more actions to copy with the Diplomat card, money becomes tighter with more players occupying the cities) but still flows just as well. There's a bit too much to keep track of, even your own score (which is only calculated at the end), but it just means you might need to think a couple of turns in advance and give yourself options. Kind of a bum finish as the two players who didn't like it as much conspired to cause a game end earlier than it might have come naturally; kinda soured the whole thing but I don't think it affected the overall outcome. As for new games tried. Total Rickall We only played the basic co-op version to get a handle on how it worked. It translates the episode well in that you are trying to eliminate all the parasites - represented by rows of character cards for all sorts of ones from the episode (Pensylvester, Baby Wizard, etc.) with a secret Identity card tucked underneath - while not killing the Real people, until you exhaust the deck or over half the players feel confident you have only Real people remaining. So you have a sort of minimal discussion allowed, simultaneous action card game where you peek at identities, swap identities, shoot people, etc. It was okay and we won quite easily (though, we might have discussed a couple of things in too much detail) but I'm a little skeptical about the advanced version where you might have Parasites among the players themselves, with almost everything else virtually the same. One player hates social deduction games like that though, so we didn't try the advanced version. Lovecraft Letter Lovecraft-theme version of Love Letter that does more than just essentially reskin the original but also gives it super deluxe presentation. The advantage to this version is that you can play it with even 5 or 6 players but without the problems I'd heard the Premium Edition of the original game featured. This is because of the Insanity mechanic that introduces a risk-reward type element that also runs down the deck a lot quicker. (I can't speak for 6 player but 5 player worked just fine.) This game has the expected cards (the reskins) but also "Insane" versions that feature the standard effect plus a more powerful effect, which can only be accessed if you have already played an Insane card. For example, the Investigators is the standard "Guess the number of another player's card except for 1" effect but now there are Deep Ones which has that or the Insane alternative of "Choose a player, if they have a 1, they are out. If not, name a number" effect. The risk element is that by playing any card with an Insane effect, it makes you Insane which means you have to make a "Sanity Check" at the start of each of your following turns. You do this by drawing a card from the deck for every Insane card in your discard. If you draw a regular card, you discard it and carry on as normal but drawing an Insane card will knock you out of the round. The Sane/Insane condition also comes into play for scoring as any victory you earn either gives you a Sane chip or an Insane one; you need 2 Sane to win the game, or 3 Insane. However! There is an alternative victory condition: if you discard Cthulhu when you already have two Insane cards in your discard pile, then you just win the whole game. "Fair enough," you think, as that sounds pretty rare. THINK AGAIN BECAUSE THAT'S HOW I WON BITCH. I think maybe it soured the others on the game somewhat because one player had already won 2 or 3 rounds when I'd not won any, but it was already a pretty amusing round from the off. I had one of the two 8 cards (highest value) which was the Necronomicon (one of this game's two versions of the original's "Princess"). My first turn I used the "compare cards, highest wins" to eliminate someone but no one was quite sure what I had... or never got Investigators... or just focused on the other players. It came to my next turn and I got the "swap hands" card which I had to play since the alternative of discarding the Necronomicon just knocks you out of the round. So I swapped... and got Cthulhu, the other "discard this and you lose" 8 card. "Well, fuck..." Fortunately, I made it to my next turn, survived the sanity check and got the card that lets you choose a player to discard a card. Bye bye, Necronomicon owner. I got to my next turn, survived another Sanity check and drew the Libor Ivonis which meant that nothing could knock me out that round, i.e. the player who uses the Insane effect will be there comparing card values at the end of the round, assuming everyone else isn't already knocked out. Of course, this had already won me the game because the only other remaining player couldn't knock me out (even guessing correctly with Investigators like they did got nothing more than a "Yes) and I just discarded Cthulhu to take it. So, yeah, I still think it's quite rare because anything besides Libor Ivonis at that point would've lost me the round and it is pretty memorable and cool when it happens but maybe if it turns out to be a regular occurence it would be better to houserule that you get 2 Insane victory chips. That way the player still has to have won or go on to win a round while Insane to actually take the game. Overall, though, I think it does the job really well. We also tried Port Royal with the Contracts expansion It's a fairly simple addition that I thought would just add a few more decision points each turn... or at leat make it more interesting for my friend who always tries to go for all the different colours of ships (usually busting instead). This is because the contracts reward different elements such as drawing lots of different colours, hiring certain combinations of crew, defeating all colours of ships, etc. However, our game was ruined by 2-3 lucky turns for one player which basically snowballed for them. They got all 5 colours of ship out on their first turn, which corresponded to two of the four contracts and also netted them a lot of money, which also enabled them to buy 2 of the required crew member for a third contract. Meanwhile, they player who likes to draw loads of cards, busted twice in a row after 3-4 cards. So rather than a tight little engine-building game it was... minimal risk, maximum reward. I think it really was just another of those "rare occurences" where the contracts and the cards lined up too well for one player, however.

I should be able to teach everything. The rules are available here if anyone wants to read up.

I got a hankering for some Scythe, myself.

That should work for me!

I forgot to mention a little detail that I liked: Tyene Sand styles her hair very close to her mother's now.

That's not what the beta was for though. I wasn't around while the hub was up, but I can find a video if people are interested. Only the environment was there. No vendors, vaults, chickens, footballs, etc. as they were literally just testing capacity... which sounds odd if you don't have everything present as it should be, but Bungie know better than me. I know people were having fun just jumping all over the scenery and getting on top of the buildings...

I'm liking the look of this. Especially considering how much time I spent in patrol in Destiny 1. And these make for some neat phone wallpapers.

I think I'm off food now. Got a real urge to grab books off shelves though.

That's just because of limited stuff in the beta (and you already start with a fair few weapons anyway). Although, if you're referring generally to the shoot-and-loot cycle then, yeah, that won't change. That said, given the amount of cutscenes and stuff they're supposed to be including, it sounds like it might make for an okay campaign experience (like, even The Division was alright in that respect). Yeah, I saw the full announcement after that. I thought they might try and test something else like they did with the social space (and I think the D1 beta got extended for some stuff), but it's just things their end; seeing what it can withstand if this and that are unplugged, break etc. EDIT: Oh, and in general terms, I'm feeling a little more positive about the game based on a) the little details and things that people are spotting/uncovering that suggest Bungie really are keeping schtum about a bunch of things, b) what Bungie are saying with regards to addressing or having already addressed some of the concerns from the beta.