Tag Archives: boardgames

Spaghetti & Meeples types about The Great Dalmuti

Behold! I am The Great Dalmuti! You can tell because I got rid of all my cards first. Bow down to me! Or at least stand up and move aside so I can sit in the chair designated for one as important and powerful as myself. Don’t know what I am talking about? Let me explain.

The Great Dalmuti is a rummy style game wherein players must create matched sets of cards and set them down. The first to get rid of all their cards wins and is declared, well, The Great Dalmuti. That is the basic premise, but there is much more to it than that. Everyone, you see, will be assigned a status or rank and that status or rank will affect not only where you sit, thus creating a physical representation of just how horrible your social status is, but also give you advantages or disadvantages.

The Great Dalmuti

Come with me as we venture into Status Symbol Land in order to learn more about how this game works on a Pleasant Valley Sunday…er, or Monday…because today is Monday, at least it is where I live….

Anyway! You already know how to become the Great, or rather Greater Dalmuti, then there is the Lesser Dalmuti. You may look down on the Lesser Dalmuti, but then you both may look down on, and laugh at, the Greater Peon and the Lesser Peon. All players between the Greater Peon and the Lesser Dalmuti are run of the mill citizens. Boring!! But also they aren’t taxed. Taxed?! Whatever do you mean Brandon? You see, at the beginning of each round there is taxation. This is where the Greater and Lesser Peons give there best (lowest numerical) card to the Greater and Lesser Dalmutis respectively. And the Dalmutis schluff their worst cards off onto the peons.

Then, as the Greater Dalmuti, you get to go first, thus setting the tone and furthering the oppression of the masses. Players lay down one or more cards of matched numbers and others lay down cards until no one can top any cards and the last person to lay down cards wins the hand and gets to go first on the next hand. For me this game is a great representation of a modern capitalist society despite its pseudo medieval theme. Sure, you can work your way up and become the Greater Peon and then the Lesser Dalmuti and then the Greater Dalmuti! But the cards are quite literally stacked against you.

My wife and I immediately fell in love with this game when some friends introduced it to us about twelve years ago. It was out of print at the time and we assumed it remained so, but then we saw it in Cloud Cap Games and had to snatch it up. The gameplay still held up, we still enjoyed it just as much, and we were able to introduce some new people to it. They had just a good a time as we did on our first play though. The Great Dalmuti Is a fun rummy game with a twist for 4-8 players where charcoal is burning everywhere and no one seems to care.

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Thursday Thoughts: Expansions

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Thursday Thoughts: Diversity Of Designers

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Spaghetti & Meeples Types about Ticket To Ride

Who’s got a ticket to ride? This guy! And I’m loving it. I am a captain of industry, transport, and travel. In Ticket To Ride players attempt to complete different train routes to gain points. Players may opt to take additional route cards as the game continues. Longer routes equal more points. More routes equal more points. And hey, you can get points for the longest route!

TTR and 1910

A player’s choices are simple in Ticket to Ride; take train cards, take route cards, or play train cards and set your adorable little trains on your map and score points. You may only do one of these actions on your turn, so choose wisely.
Why do I like this game? It has a great look. It allows me to play with tiny trains. I can try different strategies every time. Most routes? Longest routes? Do I block my opponents or focus on my own game? I also like that even though it has many expansions I haven’t really felt the need to get any of them. It’s light fun every time, whether we’re playing with our whole family or with friends.
What I don’t like? When my opponents have analysis paralysis(AP). Hurry up! I want my turn! I have a plan! Oh no! You took the train card I wanted. You blocked my route! Ok, I actually like those other things. It makes the game fun. But not the AP. Never the AP.
We’ve had our copy of Ticket to Ride for a couple years and have only now gotten around to acquiring the 1910 expansion which adds full sized train cards (the originals are tiny. you will feel like a giant!) and new routes. The cards also have a great Americana look to them, if you’re into that kind of thing; which I am, occasionally.

If you are looking for a light game with a great look that’s fun for the whole family I definitely recommend Ticket To Ride.

I purchased my copy.

Ticket To Ride

Ticket To Ride 1910 Expansion

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Spaghetti & Meeples Looks At Leviathans

Leviathans! Leviathans offers an expansive, immersive experience. It’s 1910 and you are in a steampunk alternate universe where Rombaldi fluid makes these giant ships fly! Nope, sorry. Rynchowski. They’re not dragons, but the turrets on the ships move!!

You have your ship, or ships, and you have a card that corresponds to each ship that shows you all of the stuff you have on it and where that stuff is. Crew, guns, engines, Tesla coil things. You move around on these hex boards trying to blast each other out of the sky. You don’t have special cards, but there are tokens and dice in 6 colors and two shapes. D10 and D6!

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I have wanted this game for a long time. It’s steampunk. It’s these awesome miniatures. Did I mention the turrets move? And it has this incredible world of fiction surrounding it. It includes two stories in one book and The Gazeteer deepens your understanding of the world of Leviathans.

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Leviathans feels like it’s a game for people who play miniatures or war games. My family has Axis and Allies and Memoir ‘44. That’s about as tactical and war gamey as we get. Well, except for D&D Attack Wing…. Now, while Leviathans doesn’t have the resource management aspect that Axis and Allies does it feels like this is a war gamer’s war game. But I am saying this as an outsider and I am sure I am wrong. But I’m probably right.

This is a tactical game. Where is your enemy going to move? Where should you be? If you are in range to shoot the enemy, where will you be shooting them? Are you taking out their guns? Their engines? Are you exposing yourself to defeat?

Leviathans is a great game. And it is big. Both physically and figuratively. And I do like it. It’s an immersive world. It requires a fair amount of your time. And it’s an expensive world.

If you are looking for a flying type game and are on a budget I have to recommend any of the Attack Wing/X-Wing games. Starter sets can be as low as $30/35 American and adding additional vehicles or creatures can be as low as $11 or $15.

But if you want to spend more time against your opponent while wearing top hats and monocles, really getting into some serious strategy, and reveling in a rich and wonderful world you should save up and get Leviathans. Oh, and there are two expansions which means more ships!

Or maybe you should go ahead and get both and make them battle each other!

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Runeslinger has some great videos on gameplay and movement.

I purchased my copy of Leviathans

 

Leviathans Core Box Set

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Thursday Thoughts: Age Recommendations

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ICv2 Article On Continued Growth in Hobby Games

SIX STRAIGHT GROWTH YEARS IN HOBBY GAMES

The hobby games market grew around 15% in 2014, the sixth consecutive year of growth, according to a new report inICv2’s Internal Correspondence #87.  The market is now roughly 2.25 times as large as it was in 2008, the last time the market declined.

So now we wait for the crash…?

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News Feb. 18, 2015

Oh crap! It’s unicorn poo.

One of our family favorite story telling card games, Gloom, will have a Fairy Tale edition of the game out in May of this year.

Remember when i told you how excited I was for Extra! Extra! Well, somehow I missed Penny Press.

Mayfair Games has relaunched their Cones Of Dunshire Kickstarter. They have reduce there goal from $300k to $125k. $400 gets you a game. If I remember correctly you had to pledge $500 the first time around, so that’s something…

More info on the forthcoming Magic The Gathering Board Game.

Thunderbirds are go for a board game!

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A Look At Jetpack Unicorn and Poo

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We recently grabbed two games that we wound up really liking. Jetpack Unicorn and Poo! I will add that we bought these games mostly based on the box art. Yay graphic design!

Jetpack Unicorn is a card game for 3 or more players. Players take turns being the judge and ask questions about scenario cards. The non-judge players try to give the most interesting answers using transmog cards, which have specific words or phrases on them. The judge chooses the winner and that player gets the amount of points that are shown on their transmog cards.

Sounds easy. Except that it’s not that easy to figure out. The rules state that the judge asks anything about the scenario on the card, but the scenario card IS a question. What they mean is to ask any sort of clarifying question about the scenario, but that’s not easy to figure out from the way the instructions are written. We had to watch the online tutorial to figure that part out, and even then it seemed to me like they were playing a different game than the one we purchased.

Even with how frustrating it was figuring out how to play what is a simple game we did have fun once we figured it out, assuming we actually did figure it out. It is fun and silly and I would recommend it, but DO watch the online tutorial. Do a YouTube search for TeamHyperCube Jetpack Unicorn quickplay. Or just click here

I also feel it’s important to watch most of the videos from the Creators of Jetpack Unicorn. I not only got a much better feel for the game, but also got some great insights into the concept of the game beyond the basic mechanics. Here’s a video from the creative team explaining what they want to happen as you play the game. I’ve started it at :38 for you.

A game that was very easy to figure out and tons of fun right out of the box was Poo, a card game for 2-8 players. You are a monkey in a zoo and something in the food has made all the monkeys wacky and wild. You all start flinging poo at each other. The first player to get hit with and accumulate 15 poos loses. Our 6 year old, Finney, and I wound up playing 6 rounds at a go one morning. It’s tons of simple fun.
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Players are dealt a hand of five cards. On your turn you may then play one, Poo, Special Poo, Event, or Clean card or discard any number of cards and replace them from the stack. That’s it. All of the cards tell you what to do. But wait! Just because it’s your turn doesn’t mean you don’t get to defend yourself. There are Mishap cards. Maybe your opponent plays The Big One dealing 7 poo to you. Oh no! That’s a lot of poo and you already have 9 poo. You could lose the game. Unless of course you you have Slip. All of the poo is sent back to your opponent and there is nothing that can be done about it!

Clean cards allow you to clean poo off of yourself an occasionally shake it off onto your opponent. Event cards are interesting and add an unexpected layer of strategy to Poo. For example, let’s say you play the Keeper’s Got The Hose card. The card allows players to clean 1 poo off at the start of their turn. You can still keep flinging poo at each other and all it takes is one poo flung at the keeper to make him disappear. So what do you do? Do you take advantage of being able to clean one poo off every turn? Can you afford to let your opponent do the same? Will you miss your chance for victory by dispatching the Keeper?

Poo is a great game to play between other games, but also fun to just play round after round for an afternoon. For me, Jetpack Unicorn is fun, but is a game that we only bring out once in awhile.

Poo The Card Game

The World Needs A Jet Pack Unicorn

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A Look At Dawn Of The Zeds for Zombease.com

I did a short video looking at Dawn of The Zeds for Zombease.com. I hope you enjoy it. Be sure to visit Zombease.com and AllThatHumains.com for information on how to survive that post-apocalyptic dystopia we are heading for.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AMp8q0oXnw]

Edit: Original video is gone from the interwebs. Here’s one of me unboxing Dawn of the Zeds.

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