Board game resources

Today I thought I’d talk a little about the resources I use to find new board games. “But Matt” you exclaim “Aren’t you just pointing us to your competition!” Alas no, the only way for me to have competition is if I were to be paid to be doing reviews. So far I have amassed exactly $0 from my reviewing. I review board games because I like to, I like playing board games, and I’d like other people to find board games to love. Besides finding people more help to buy board games inevitably leads to them buying more games, in turn supporting the companies and getting them to make more games. That’s a win for me.

So first of all is TableTop. Both my wife and I really enjoy this web series; So much so that we backed season 3. Using this series I was able to introduce more players to newer board games in an entertaining and informative way. The format of the show is designed well to intro gamers and non-gamers alike. What I love most is that the game is played after a quick introduction to it. Watching celebrities play a game and learn makes me feel less like a dunce when I finally get a chance to play it with friends. Being able to watch a play through in an entertaining manner is a great way to learn a game. Sometimes that’s better than some random guy on the internet blathering on about a game… like I do… but random internet dude can still be informative!

 Another series I've recently gotten into is Shut Up & Sit Down. Two unabashedly geeky gamers Paul Dean and Quintin Smith come together to do reviews of games. They do podcasts, video reviews, playthroughs and blog type reviews. I love the theatrics they put into their reviews. They dress up and act out in attention grabbing ways. They are fantastic at going over both the good and bad in each game giving viewers a better grasp of whether or not you would like them. I also like that they don't always agree on a game and each reviewer will argue their position in a way that helps you understand their game preferences and if your own preferences match up. If you are looking for second opinion on any game I've reviewed you really should check this show out.

The Dice Tower is another review site to check out. Tom Vasel and friends are a group of board game geeks who review board games. I particularly like their top 10 lists. Pick a style of board game and they’ve done a top ten list. They’ve even done top worst lists. The strange thing is that all three guys do a top ten together so it’s really a top 30 list, but they sometimes overlap in their lists or disagree with each other. The debates they have on their videos are where you can get to know which of the guys most reflects your likes and you can decide whose advice best fits your playing preference. I keep going back to his reviews of Twilight Imperium and thinking I should redo mine. Also every time I see this I get the urge to build myself a dice tower. One day I will...

Mission Fun and Games is my local board game store. Well not really…it’s a little bit of a drive our to St. Albert but it’s worth it. They do have a webstore but going in the location is a fantastic experience. The move a while back put them in a better location; the feel of the shop is geekier and has upped the fun factor. The Sunday open gaming is a fantastic service where you can go in and try out the huge selection of store copies of games. The ability to try it before you buy it has me going back. The owner, John, did a play through of Castle Panic with the wife and me before we bought it. I think everyone at that store has happily spent an inordinate amount of time helping us select games. In particular both of his daughters were extremely helpful with my wife, who is very tight on the game budget and quite indecisive about games. That's not exactly a bad thing, I would spend all my money on games then starve to death... nullifying the point of buying games.

A board game store should look like a Castle!

Hopefully you readers will get a little help in finding more games with these guys. Maybe you could suggest some more places for me to look, as I’m always in the mood for more board game talk!

Lazy board gaming attempt two.

Attempt two at weekend board gaming went about as well as attempt one. We moved it to a Saturday thinking people might be more willing to come out. The time frame of 1 to 6 meaning people didn't have to get up too early and people could still go out after. Well it was just Nikki, Victor, Nadine, Pattie and me.

We started by chatting a bunch as most game nights go. Victor and I talked zombie games while the wife and Nikki kept talking shopping, family or some other boring topic. I went to my mind palace and ignored it. I saw that company brought their own beef jerky and needed to run out and get my own from the corner store.

We finally started playing with Legendary Encounters: Alien. For some reason we decided to randomize our role cards and we ended up without a medic. We played the second movie and made it to the final objective when things quickly went sideways. I was the first to die from a brutal strike, followed quickly by Nadine and Nikki. Pattie was the last player alive. We hoped for a Ripley ending but she was overtaken by a hoard of acid xenomorphs.

After that we played Scotland Yard. Pattie was our Mr. X… or Mrs. would be more appropriate. After a rough start of having to remind players of some nuances of the game we managed to have a very frantic chase and much heated debate. We didn’t manage to catch her until the very last turn.

The last game at our event was with Betrayal at house on the hill. We didn’t manage to trigger the haunt until the 8^th or 9^th omen. Most of the board was played and we had managed to collect the items we needed already before the haunt even started. Poor victor was the traitor and he really didn’t have a chance with his zombie hoard. I probably could have made the game even easier for us by healing Pattie before the haunt started but I was worried she could have become the betrayer… so I hid my medic bag from view and let her slowly lose health with the grave dirt card. It was a jerk move and I ended up not being able to get to her after the haunt started. She had to spend the last half of the game fleeing from zombies and hiding in a corner. We still won.

It was at this point we decided to move the game to Nikki and Victors. They had to get home to feed the dogs and let them out. We ordered pizza and played a few more games.

Here we started with Pandemic. We actually had an easy time with it because we managed to cure the red and black diseases quickly. Victor was the medic and cleaned up the diseases fast. The blue disease was cured and eradicated in a single turn. However we barely cured the yellow disease because we had a hard time collecting those cards. Even though there was a single yellow disease cube on the board. The last player managed to cure the disease and eradicated it on the same turn.

We followed up with Smallworld. I snatched up the ransacking skeletons but they weren’t much use. People kept going into decline and I wasn’t able to use them to their full effectiveness. I think I held them longer than I should have. I also should have targeted those pillaging kobolds and beat them into submission. Nikki easily swept the win with them instead. For some reason people target Victor every game of Smallworld and ignore Nikki. She always wins and he always comes in last.

We ended the night with a game of Castle Panic. Nikki was the second player and she managed to pull the “extra four monsters,” the “extra three monsters,” all monsters advance and a boss all in the same draw. Luckily she pulled a boulder at the end which killed the boss and gave us a chance. Half the walls and a tower were down before I even got a turn. We pulled the win though because we kept getting some helpful Boulders come smashing in and killing monsters.

We ended the night tired and happy. I went for what I thought would be a relaxing drive home… until I noticed a red truck was following us. He made every turn we made and kept on the bumper. I swung onto a utility road before our place and parked. He slowly drove past me then pulled into the next entrance for the utility road and parked. We sat there for a bit then I decided to cut into the neighbourhood and drive around to get to our house from the other direction. The guy got out of his truck and watched me go. After I parked and made sure my wife got into the house I went out back so I could cut through the alley and come out to see his license plate. By the time I got there he was speeding out of the area and I couldn’t see his plate. I might be paranoid but it was very odd. And I just realized I left my hickory sticks at their house and I'm very depressed now.

Anywho we are thinking of trying to go to open gaming at Mission Fun and Games one of these Sundays. Either we will try to convince people to come or we will just go on our own. I recently got the wife into watching The Walking Dead so I might be able to convince her to get Dead of Winter on our next board game purchase. We shall see.