________ ________ ________
2019-05-28 / \/ \/ / \
/ __/ /_ _/
I love board games and card games and I / _/ / /
have a humble collection of them squirreled \_______/_\___/____/\___/____/_
away in a closet, but I rarely play them. / \/ \/ / \
Partly because I just have trouble finding / _/ /_ _/
the time but mostly because I have trouble /- / _/ /
finding players. For a little while we did \________/\________/\___/____/
have regular games at a friend's house but
even that was only a small group and once he moved down to Tasmania that
stopped.
That has kinda worked in my favor though, since it means I sought out
mostly two player or solo games and found a few that ended up being my all
time favorites.
I'm a fan of quick, punchy games and I'm a fan of heavy themes, here's what
I would consider my top three right now:
1. Cypher (AEG)
I love this game to death, it's so good. Only 19 cards, games
lasting only ten to fifteen minutes or so, cyberpunk themed. It's
uper portable and easy to learn, everyone I've played it with has
loved it, though the theme has put one or two people off trying it.
It's the one game I always travel with "just in case".
The goal of the game is to have the most valuable characters, from
wealthy and influential to street-level hustle, under your control at
the end of the game and the game can end as quickly as the second
round. It's got a sly strategic element to it that I just love and
the way the cards are always being moved around means you need to be
able to think on your feet. Your winning strategy can fall apart in a
single turn. Though it doesn't scale down to two players that well
it's still playable. With four players though, there's really not
anything else I'd rather play.
2. Space Hulk: Death Angel (Fantasy Flight Games)
This one is a very, very close second and my absolute favorite
solo game. It's criminally out of print but if you can find a copy
grab it. It's a card-based abstraction of the Warhammer 40K Space
Hulk game and though the mission can vary from game to game, the bulk
of the game is your squad blasting your way through hordes of xenos.
Game play is fairly easy to learn and it's one of those games that
can be difficult but that feels fun to lose. Shit can get out of hand
very quickly. This one plays solo with the exact same rules as a
multi-player game which I really appreciate. I play this one a lot
almost as meditation, setting up the column and the stacks of
monsters, just zoning out and being in it.
Though way bulkier than something like Cypher it's still a fairly
small, compact game. It was taken off shelves because Fantasy Flight
lost the 40K license but to my knowledge they still own the game so I
have my fingers crossed for a re-skinned release in the future.
A fun gopher factoid; one of the very first files I put in gopher
space, long before FAX SEX and baud.baby was an ASCII version of some
Death Angel house rules around locations in the game, opening up
additional scenarios. At the time I was mostly using my Eee PC and
throwing that file on gopher was the quickest way for me to pull it
up from the terminal. You can still find it in files/.
3. Hive (Gen42)
This one's a new to me and maybe making this list because of hype
but I'm really digging this game, it's simple and the game pieces are
really a pleasure to use. It's a simple strategy game where the idea
is to capture your opponent's queen bee while protecting yours, using
a squad of critters that each move in different ways. It's often
described as chess-like which I can understand but is far lighter.
Also, like chess there's no solo play on this one, it's strictly two
players.
This one is also really small and travels well, there's a pocket
edition which is the one I got but even the full size version seems
like it wouldn't take up that much space.
Runner-up: Lazer Ryderz (Greater Than Games)
I'd say this is a pretty close four so I've included it as a
runner-up. It's still kinda compact when you compare it to big box
games but it doesn't travel anywhere near as well as the other three,
likewise this one needs a bit of space to play. Lazer Ryders is a
racing game kind of similar to the light cycles in TRON but your goal
is to capture prisms to win the game without crashing into anyone.
It's fast paced, fun and wrapped in a retro Saturday morning cartoon
theme. No solo play on this one, though the random element of prism
placement and spinning out makes it kinda fun to play against
yourself.
And with my current top three out there, I know there's some other avid
board and card game players in the phlogosphere so lay it on me fam, what are
some of your favorites? Do you know any punchy little games I might enjoy?
