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Archive for Doug Herring
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Doug Herring
United States
Pflugerville
Texas
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iPadGhost Stories
First off, It has been a while since I have added a blog entry but I started a new job and RL gets in the way. I am going to make an effort to do some reviews and blog, etc more often now that I am settling in.
Anyway, I was on app shopper last night(If you have an Ios device and don't have app shopper, get it) and saw Ghost Stories FINALLY on there so I immediately grabbed it. I never feel that the price of these games, even at 6 bucks, is out of line either.Compared to the board game counterpart it is a steal.
Uhm...I liked it, yes, I did. I have had to convince myself of this because of some things I will note but overall it IS the same as the board game if not a little harder (for me) for some reason, even on the lowest difficulty.
I played five straight games and I will first touch on what I see needs to be in a patch already.
1) If you are using this app to learn to play Ghost Stories, forget. The help interupts the game with the e-rulebook and as peopel who have played know, it take some time to get the iconography.
This is the biggest flaw in the app. They have a nice blank sidebar on the left that COULD dispay the power of a tile, or ghost, or monk when you hover over it but it does not. You must know the icons and even for me who has played it I immediately found this entirely annoying and had to doe the "now what does that do" thing to often. Heck, I almost went and got the reference sheet from the game box.
BIG flaw that needs to be looked at as I am one who uses the apps to improve my skill on or learn a board game. This is definately directed at those who already know how to play.
2) This one might be user error but I could not for the life of me find a way to play all four monks in pass n play/ hot seat gameplay. Maybe on line play will be different and all four monks will be playable but I could not figure out how to do that at all.I can't for the life of me understand this restriction.
3) The game seems really tough. I started on the lowest difficulty to get to know they game and lost the first four of the five games and only narrowly won the last one. They may need to tweak the difficulty.
The Good Stuff:
The gameplay is exactly like the board game which is great. All the board game art is used and the app runs nicely. It is a quality production with the exception of a better way to know what the icons do.
They need that if they want to draw in new players.
Overall, I am happy to have bought it and I can already tell, as frustrating as losing often might be, that I will play it alot along with Ascension, Ticket to Ride, Carcasssonne, Small World and a few others.
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Doug Herring
United States
Pflugerville
Texas
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It is Sunday and later today I am going to our board game meet up. This is a pretty large group with well over 100 members and at least 20 or more showing up on Sundays. Really fun and good group of people.
What is nice is this weekend has already been a pretty fun gaming weekend for me.
Memoir 44: I played Memoir 44 with my son. He wanted to play Omaha Beach as the Allies. I for the life of me could not figure out why. I even told him that the allies got chewed up even though they eventually won it would be hard.I "try" not to let him win all the time and in this game he did lose by two medals but he had a great showing for an eight year old. I love seeing him use and contemplate strategy.
Braggart: This game, well, it is just funny and fun with the right people. In this case my family. Now, my boys don't always go for the win here and often times start giggling at "running in a panic from a scared urchin boy" but we always have a good time putting together some fun brags. My one son loves to shout out "LIAR" and play the liar card on me. I am a target of his for sure.
If you have not played this game it is really fun but those playing need to be willing to boast loudly and proclaim the tale with some flare for it to be really enjoyable.
My older boy won this game by a landslide even though he would make some low scoring boasts for the funny factor of them.
Red Dragon Inn: Introduced this to friends since I got the third installment late last week. The third one does play very differently from the others with some characters having a special secondary deck like potions, gear, or a wolf (I can imagine a revamped pooky deck coming out like the Wulfric deck in this third installment).Another game that is a blast with the right folks who enjoy light hearted games that are not really strategy deep. I won the game using the new Tinkerer character.
Today, I am going to head off to my meet up with Pergamon, Troyes, Dakota, Alien Frontiers, Kingsburg (do you see a theme here), and maybe take Braggart and Family Business for some filler games.
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Doug Herring
United States
Pflugerville
Texas
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Some new games to talk about:
I have had the luck and opportunity to end up with a number of newer game titles recently and have been playing the heck out of them; thus the lack of updates from me here.
I don’t want to spend this time doing in depth reviews on these games but just wanted to let you know if I am enjoying them, can get them to the table, or they are simply not fun. The good news is I have not run into much of the later as most of the new releases have been pretty solid.
Dungeon Lords
I will start on the lowest note and while this is not a new game it is new to my collection. I had recently picked up Dungeon Lords and eagerly read the rules. OK, it was immediately obvious it was a bit fiddly but I am ok with that. The problem is I cannot get it to the table. Those of my gaming group that have played it were not hyped to play it again. The general comment was that while it is a neat idea it can fall flat during gameplay. So, I will give this a thumbs down for the simple reason no one wants to play. I am sure I will get it to the table at some point and the game looks really neat.
Braggart
One of my recent additions is a little filler card game that I saw review by Undead Viking a while back called Braggart! Now, this game was not super high on my list but it was cheap and looked like something different. My family really likes this game. It is simple and fun and if you are playing with the right people, willing to boast their hearts out, is very enjoyable. It is a filler game to be sure but it is satisfying to play multiple times.
Alien Frontiers
Man oh man was this game hyped up by the time I got it. A true Kickstarter success story and by all accounts a LOAD of fun. I have played it a few times now. Not enough to really do a deep dive review but enough to say it is an enjoyable game and will hit the table due to the ease of rules explanation and game mechanics. Is the game all it is hyped up to be? Well, I probably would have said yes if not for the game up next. They share only a shred of commonality but it is the dice worker placement style that makes people compare them. Before moving on I DO like Alien Frontiers though i did run into a couple in my group that felt it was simply OK. To me , it is way better than OK but to each their own. I like dice and spaceships so combining the two is cool.
Troyes
This is by far my favorite of the new load of games I have. I am very eager to play this every chance I get. Even when we went through our first couple of plays and botched some rules it was really fun. I think what sets this above Alien Frontiers is the variety of each game. While the mechanics are clear enough and the game play is the same the cards change it all u.p every time. This keeps the game pretty fresh.
I highly recommend this game and if you like the dice mechanic, go get Alien Frontiers and Kingsburg (with expansion of course)too as all three in your collection make for some darn good dice worker gaming.
Yggdrasil
My complete inability to pronounce the title of this game not withstanding, this has been another solid addition to my collection. It has been compared often to Ghost Stories but to be honest, I d not see the comparison. This game plays a lot MORE like Legions of Darkness by VP games, which is a solo only game that I like.
Other than the fact you can play solo, or you can play with others and there is a good amount of iconogrpaphy I found this and Ghost Stories entirely different. I have played Yggdrasil solo and with others and it is a load of very tense fun either way. I was surprised to find that playing the game unmodified (basic difficulty level) it is actually harder to win with others than it is solo. It is definitely one of my top solo games along with LOTR: The card game, Ghost Stories, and Thunderstone. I need a few more plays in a group before judging the multiplayer aspect of the game.
Games I have that have not hit the table yet for one irrelevant reason or another are Dakota, Letters from Whitechapel, Pergamon (started a game with my son but did not finish), and some older games that are new additions: Return of the Heroes (and Under the Shadows of the Dragon), and a brand spanking new copy of Puerto Rico. I am not sure why that last one was not in my collection but there you have it.
I also got to play some new IOS board games on my Ipad and thought I might share some thoughts there.
Tikal:
I should like this more. It is, after all, exactly like the board game for the most part. It plays fine and the implementation is decent (though the jeeps are a little small). For some reason after a couple of plays I am just not playing it anymore. Strangely, another game I recently downloaded I have been playing a lot of.
Feast & Famine:
I saw a review of the board game on Dice Tower recently and remembered that there was an Ios version to try. It was very cheap so I grabbed it. It is actually pretty good. Like the board game you can play the Feast part of the game separately from the Famine, and visa versa. It makes sense to play both to conclusion as the games do not take long at all. It is not horribly deep but the implementation is pretty good and it is a solid time passer.
Ticket To Ride:
Next to Carcassonne and Small World this is probably the best implementation of a board game to IOS that I have seen. With a couple of updates which are supposed to come soon (pass & play) it may very well be the best board game conversion to date.Pick this up if you have an Ipad.
All in all this a GREAT game month for me. I am really looking forward to getting some of the games to the table I have not had the opportunity to play yet.
If you have any questions about these games feel free t o ask.
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Doug Herring
United States
Pflugerville
Texas
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So, The gaming groups I play with are rather large and we are often introducing a new game (or at least someone is) to the group. Last weekend we played some stuff none of us had really played. I had read the rules and went through the game by myself with the help of my son and one other person had read the rules on line.
We missed a WHOLE bunch of little things. Partly because of the way the rules are laid out but partly because we were relying on two of us who had no real play time with the game for intruction. Now, it was not as bad as it sounds and we had fun regardless, but I have decided I do not like teaching new games to people.
On that note I have two questions.
How do you handle this in your groups? Should everyone at least take some time to read the rules first or is there a better way?
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Doug Herring
United States
Pflugerville
Texas
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Ticket to Ride
So, I am kind of a tech geek anyway and am often fiddling with upgrades to my PCs or trying to convince my wife why I need the latest Android phone.
But, I am also an old school board gaming fan who will never want to give up face to face interaction and moving cool pieces around with my very own fingers.
Last night I saw that the Ios app for Ticket to Ride AND it had a launch sale price of $3.99. Let's start there. Due to the massive audience and general ease of development for Ios apps (compared to PC development) I can actually buy Ticket to Ride for that price. Plust they had multiple expansions already available for a whopping 99 cents each. I got several Ticket to Ride games for less than $10.
Now, the kicker here is that the app is outstanding. It is polished and really, really well done. There is only one drawback, and I mean only one too, and that is no pass and play feature. it is either solo play or online play. But if I want to play with people around the table most of us own a copy of the board game in one version or another.
I played five games of Ticket to Ride in about an hour or so and it was fun, even just playing against the AI. Online takes a bit longer but you get the advantage of playing against actual people.
So, I am all fired up here. This is the best thing since I played Wizardy and the original Ulitma on the PC and saw a great future in RPG that would enhance my RPG experience but not replace the face to face role playing.
The bar keeps going up on the quality of the apps and I find these to be GREAT ways to practice before playing with people. I have Smallworld for the Ipad too and I can tell you my many dozens of Ios games against the AI has made me a better player of this game.
If you are on the fence or thinking this will NEVER be for you I hope you stay open minded because this will be a big enhancement to our board gaming experience in the future and it will NEVER replace the fun of sitting around the table with friends and cardboard. I never has too.
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Doug Herring
United States
Pflugerville
Texas
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About 3-4 months back I picked up an Ipad. I got it for the express reason that a ton of great board games were being ported to the Ios and the list of them just kept growing and growing.
I have found that I love my Ipad for a number of reasons (HBO GO anyone!!!!) but my focus was and still is boardgames.
I ABSOLUTELY love Gabe's Ios blog and would love to write a review or five for it (hint!) and personally feel it is appropraite here at BGG (as opposed to Ios game sites or Video Game Geek). While I find myself of a certain oppinion in this regards I wanted to pose a couple questions to all us BGGers and see what the general answers are.
1) Do you feel that it is appropriate to discuss Ios (or Android,etc) apps that are board game ports? (This may have been asked before).
2) Do you see yourself migrating to tablet board games at all or heavily? Can they replace table top board gaming for you?
3) What do you think of the general quality of the apps available that are either board game ports or native to Ios but board game/ strategy games that would be appropriate as a board game?
BTW: Played Bohnanza on the Ipad a bunch already. The harder AI players are pretty tought to beat. Any thoughts here?
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Doug Herring
United States
Pflugerville
Texas
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It all started with the family not wanting to play any boardgames this weekend and a whole week until the gaming group gets together so I was itching to play some games.
Played Bohnanza on the Ipad (new app replicating the card game nicely) and lost to the AI three times straight. Well, I was learning to play the app version so...OK. I can live with the loses. Besides, for me it is not all about winning but the gaming experience as a whole. That does not mean I don't like to win, I am just not a grump about losing.
Then, I bust out Lord of the Rings: The card game. A fine solo game in my opinion. I was warming up to play a few things solo so I chose what I believed was the easy quest, Mirkwood with the Leadership team of Aragorn, Threodred, and Gloin. After all, I had played it a few times and had done pretty well, winning at least half the time and coming close the others.
The bad card draws started immediately with the King Spider coming up first followed by the web whatever card that won't allow you to ready a hero without paying with one of his or her resources. Ugh...I sighed heavily and put it on Theodred. Before I had even 4 travel tokens on the main quest Gloin was dead, my allies in play all had injuries from orcs and the like and even Aragorn had 3 wounds on him of his 5.
I lost the game even befor clearing the second quest card where the path forks....It forked right up my you-know-what.
SO...that hurt a bit. I cleaned up. took a liitle break to play with the kids but still had an itch to play something.
Busted out Ghost Stories, another fabulous solo game. I decided to make it a tad easier and play with all four monks. Besides, it is more fun that way.
By the time I was four cards away from the incarnation I had one monk left with one Qi and a board loaded with ghosts. I could not resurrect and move fast enough so another tile got haunted and all was lost.
OK...Double ouch. Now, I know Ghost stories is very hard to beat but I felt trounced upon and normally do better even when playing stricktly by the solo rules.
Took another break until Sunday. Broke out a VERY fun solo only game calles Legion of Darkness by VP games. I also like to call it Stronghold light, the solo version. Its not really that similar other than theme but equally as good.
I played the basic scenario against the orcs and can pull off a victory more often than not. I won't even elaborate on the embarrasing loss here where I am not sure I lasted even half the game. Really, really bad dice rolling. I even tried using the mini-me dice that comes with the game to see if I could get better results.
I was resigned to thinking I was just not on my game and not going to win this weekend. I went back to the Ipad to play a couple of games of SmallWorld against the AI. This game I win at!!!! Get me some satisfaction here.
Nope, lost two in a row. Narrowly but still lost.
I was about to bust out another solo favorite of mine; Conquest of Planet Earth but thought better of it. MAN, this was a rough gaming weekend and I did it all to myslef. I sure wish I had some PEOPLE to play against so I at least had a good excuse for losing so much.
Oh well, Next weekend I got a full day of gaming so perhaps I got all my bad luck out here and can win against some real humans. A humbling experience to have when the games themselves are beating the snot out of you.
Still, had fun losing even though I was getting mildly frustrated by it. I absolutely love these soloable games and have a bunch more I really like such as Thunderstone, Castle Ravenloft, Wrath of Asherdalon, Defenders of the Realm, and even Agricola. I will probably try to beat a few of these over the week and see if I can turn my luck. At least with Agricola the solo experience is not actually about losing but how good you can get your score.
PS: Pardon spelling and stuff. Wrote this on my Ipad
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Doug Herring
United States
Pflugerville
Texas
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One of my all time old favorites, reprinted and redesigned FIVE times or more and on its 4th edition is Talisman. Yes, it is random and does not have a ton of forward thinking strategy but it is a good adventure style board game.
Talisman (fourth edition)
When you add the many expansions it is loaded with stuff to do. The problem with this game is and always has been that, due to the sheer chaos if it, the game can go on and on with no clear winner or the obvious winner not going for the big prize.
There are a few games that do this but Talisman is by far the worst in this regards. We played a fun four player game last weekend and I enjoyed it a great deal BUT I noticed towards hour three that everyone was becoming a little fidgity and I was thinking...hmmmm...no end it site here. Runebound tends to have this problem as well. I am not sure if it is the potential length of the game or the fact it is hard to tell if a clear victor is emerging. I have played equally long games of Dominant Species and not felt this way at all but the end game and objective is always clear, even though this game too can have a fair amount of chaos to it.With DS you do have a timer of sorts when the Ice Age card comes out and marks the end of the game. You can count on this happening. Maybe that is the issue with Talisman, that piece is missing from the game. if no one goes for the Crown of Command (or random card) the game can NEVER end.
Anyway, I am sure there are tons of variants for Talisman that can quicken the end game a little but I tried to figure out why I get this way with this game and not others of equal potential length even though I enjoy Talisman while playing.
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Doug Herring
United States
Pflugerville
Texas
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A mysterious box arrived the other day from Miniature Market upon my doorstep. Within it was the 2nd printing of Dominant Species and Cargo Noir. OK... So it was not such a mystery- I ordered them but had to act surprised with my wife.
“I uhm, have no idea honey, where this uhm, box of new board games in shrink came from. Really, I pinky swear or something...but can I keep em? You know, since there here and all."
Why this tactic never works is beyond my limited mental capacity to understand.
Anyway, I was both pleasantly surprised and at the same time a bit disappointed in the two new games. Now, I knew what to expect. I have played Dominant Species and enjoy it much and I have read about the short coming in Cargo Noir but I got it anyway.
My pleasant surprise came in the 2nd printing of Dominant species. I was not thrilled that I missed out of picking up the first printing and refused to pay more than retail for a copy. That was a good decision on my part. GMT has made some fundamental improvements in the components. I knew this already too as it has been commented on BUT it is a different thing all together to see this with your own two eyes.
The tokens and tiles are where the improvements are. In the original both were very, very thin. The tiles were way too thin (very bendy and flimsy) and the tokens you place on the board were thin enough that a slight breeze might blow them around. Now, both are very thick and sturdy, giving them a sense of weight. The box for the game is HEAVY now. While I am not 100% sure it also appears that the game board has been mounted on a thicker board stock."Hefty"is the word that comes to mind and that invokes and perceived increase in the value of the game for me. Good job GMT and thanks for listening to your customer base.
While these improvements might not seem like a big deal, having played the game a few times from the first edition, I can say that these improvements are great and meaningful. If you have not picked up this game now is the time before the second print run is out of stock. This game was great before but this improvement easily puts it in my top 5 games of all time.
Now, I will move on to Cargo Noir. As I am sure you already know this was my disappointment. I already knew the short comings of the game but again, when playing it you really feel those shortcomings.
This is not to say the game is not enjoyable enough to play. It is pretty good and the art and production quality is outstanding. I realized, like many, how disappointing it is for Days of Wonder to leave the Noir out of Cargo Noir. They had such a great theme and fantastic artwork to support the theme but they might as well have called the game "Shipping Stuff" instead.
Again, I knew this when I bought the game but it seems like a nice filler to have around when time is short and you don’t want to burn your brain. The disappointment lies in the fact it would have been so easy to tie into the theme better. Even though I just bought this game and have only played through it one time I have already come up with a few different ways to tie the theme in completely AND make the game more interactive between players outside the bidding competition.
I am glad I bought it because, like games such as Kingsburg, I think one expansion could make this a great game with a fantastic theme. So I eagerly await Days of Wonder’s announcement to do just that. Expand the game so there is some Noir in Cargo Noir.
I think I am even going to post up at least one of my concepts to do so soon.
I liken this to when I see a movie that is clearly bad or misses the mark to EVERYONE that sees it. I find it hard to believe that a group of educated people can sit in a screening room and say"Yeah, we nailed that" only to have the entire public and all the reviewers bomb it. Someone had to have sense to see it was not very good.
With Cargo Noir I have to ask myself why the play testers, producers, publisher and designers did not see this fundamental problem. The problem may not be as profound as a genuinely bad movie but it is painfully obvious to everyone who plays it the ties to the theme were missing.
So the victory cards try to do this a little bit but fail as there is nothing actionable about most of them. What’s the big deal about owning a sleazy bar? It does nothing but give you some victory points. The card should have a special ability that ties into the concepts of smuggling and crime families.
Also, the artwork on the crime family boards (which should have been on much thicker card stock but that is minor) are inspiringly good. They evoke a great deal from your imagination. A simple family special ability would have made it work. The same can be said with the game board itself. The art is so good and thematic it all actually highlights the fact the theme is (mostly) missing from the game play. The more I write about this the more it seems like lazy design to me.
The good news is that it is a Days of Wonder game. I cannot help but think they will take in the many comments about this and do right by the title which has so much potential.
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The interesting thing about both games is that neither will hit my table all that often. For Dominant Species, it is because of the time commitment to the game. I do have four hours to play but I like to try to get more than one game in on my game days. Regardless, I deem this game to be an excellent purchase and know, when it does it the table, we will enjoy it.
Cargo Noir will hit the table a few times as the novelty new game but once that wears off I think it will start to collect dust unless said suggested expansion comes out. So this one will stop coming to the table for all the wrong reasons.
That was a bit of a rant, I know, but I definitely wanted to add my voice to the chorus on both of these games.
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Doug Herring
United States
Pflugerville
Texas
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Finally, after a long time in pre-order, I got my copy of Stronghold. This is a new or second print run I believe, put out by Valley Games.
Stronghold
If you have not played this game you are really missing out. I am writing a review and session report but wanted to pre-empt those by telling people to get a copy and play it. This is one of the best games I have played from an enjoyment factor.
Even though there are cubes involved (and lots of em) the game manages to capture the theme of a besieged city/keep very, very well. It is a fantasy setting so the invading forces are comprised of goblins, orcs, and trolls and the invader player can even sacrifice little goblins to generate spell effects.
The game has a real sense of tension for the defending player, which I was in two of my three games played of this over the weekend. After turn 2 I felt the pressure mouting and had to hold out as long as I could against overwhelming odds.
The game, as fantastic as it is, is not without some flaws.
The new rulebook, which can be found here on line, is apparently much better than the old one. It is clear enough but has some muddy spots where wording choices are poor and leave room for some big potential mistep.
Some of the components don't align well with the list of game pieces in the manual. While this could be a detractor the error is that there are more pieces than listed, not less. I think this only really impacted resources but there may have been a couple of other parts.
A big destractor for some who are playing the Defender is YOU ARE GOING TO LOSE the keep at some point. Your victory comes in how costly you can make that to the invader (equates to how many turns you can hold out).
The mechanics are great in my opinion and the game playes fast enough with boths sides having plenty to do.
Anyway, definately worth the money and time it took to get a hold of it.
Now to get the expansion some how...ugh.
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