BGG CON

I've made it to BGGCon about 7 times. It's a huge boardgame convention. I don't play nearly as many games as some of the attendees, but this year I got a few in:

Mario Level Up

We wanted to play a cute and silly little game. This fit the bill nicely, but had a little more depth than I expected. Looks like a good game to play with the kids. 

2 or 3 out of 5. Light and simple with no good reason to own it, but if someone brought it out it can be a fun time.

This War of Mine

I haven't played the computer game but I was told the boardgame was very faithful to it. It was quite dark and difficult cooperative game with scripted storytelling events. It it took a long time to play and made me wonder why I wasn't playing a computer game. 

2 out of 5. Worth playing once to experience it, but too slow and random for what it is. Computers make this stuff better.

Puzzle Hunt

I do puzzle events a few times a year. I've done about four of them at BGGCon but have missed the last few years, so I was excited to get a team for this year. We had a great time and got about 12th place.

5 out of 5

Sub Terra

A cooperative game about spelunkers that get trapped in a cave with monsters, floods, tremors, and other dangers. Pretty simple and quick. I think it has about 5 or 10 games in it before getting old. I only played once but I'd be happy to play again.

3 out of 5, wouldn't buy it but I'd push to get it played if I saw it.

Asking for Trobils

A silly theme backed by a decent game. You amass victory points by removing Trobils from a planet and dumping them into the sun. To lure the Trobils away you must amass resources. It's a fairly light worker placement game but has enough meat to be interesting. Ultimately it is too slow and a good example of why I don't like games where players take turns. With simultaneous turns, it would feel like Race for the Galaxy, an excellent game.

2 out of 5, not a flawed game but not my cup of tea.

Mountains of Madness

A cooperative game in the Lovecraftian style where you must ascend a mountain while cursed with afflictions. Each turn the group has 30 seconds to figure out who can play the correct resources to get a reward. During that negotiation, everybody has a different curse to hamper them. For example one curse is to only speak in rhyme. Another curse forces you to stop talking if anyone says a certain word.

3 out of 5, should be my kind of game but somehow misses the mark. The curses are a little too goofy. Feels like Space Alert, which I prefer.

Dimension

A quick filler game where you have 30 seconds to use small spheres to build a pyramid according to rules. Imagine using different colored Legos to build something, but some rules said things like, "all red bricks must touch a yellow brick" and "you can only put blue bricks on the bottom level".

4 of 5, a perfect filler who's only sin is being too quick and simple.

Loot Island

Try to force the pirate ship to dig for treasure at a location where you will get the most loot. There are different types of loot that score differently. Feels a lot like Dragon's Gold with a hint of something like Ra.

2 of 5, too slow for what it is. I'm sick of this multiple victory point theme. I'd rather play Dragon's Gold, Ra, Medici, or a slew of other similar games. If it had simultaneous turns, it would be much better.

Flick Em Up Dead of Winter

With the Flick Em Up games you have meeples on a table with terrain, like carboard buildings, cars, barrels, lamp posts, etc. You move and attack by flicking a disc. This game was Dead of Winter themed, but really it was indistinguishable from any other zombie game. It had some cleverness to it. The rules for the scenario apparently were convoluted. 

3 of 5, I love me a flicky game but there are plenty to choose from and this does not distinguish itself. I could give it a 5 if it were the only flicky game I knew about. Also, zombies aren't my favorite theme, even though I do own Dead of Winter.

Viral

Game about viruses infecting a body. Really just an area control game. You evolve special powers. The turns are somewhat simultaneous but the resolution is serial and you often change your mind based on the previous players. There are some clever mechanics, but there are countless area control games with clever mechanics. I suspect winning strategies require annoying calculations like trying to be in last place on the penultimate turn so you can set up a monster final turn.

2 of 5, maybe I would have liked it more if we had played more quickly. I'm pretty jaded to this type of game.

Unlock!

Basically an escape room told through a phone app and story cards. I really like the puzzle aspect, but both games I played were ruined by not understanding the very simple mechanics. 

3 of 5, it has potential to scratch the puzzle itch but there are so many other sources of puzzles I am not sure how to recommend buying this one.

Too Many Bones

Probably the winner of the con for me. A cooperative dice adventure rpg where you level up and kill monsters and get loot. Each class plays very differently. We had a lot of tense moments but made it to the final boss. In the end we almost won the fight, but not quite. Sadly, I don't see it for sale for less than about $300.

4 of 5, fun but pretty brutal. Seemed to take longer than it should have.

Barbuda

We have a con tradition to play card games in the wee hours. This year the game was Barbuda, a strange game that combines hearts, spades, and some other similar games.

5 of 5, the king of all card games

Njet

At 5 am we finished Barbuda but wanted more. We started Njet to accommodate a 5th player. 5 am trick taking is lots of fun. Njet is sort of a generic tricks and trumps game but you have a bidding process to determine trump, scoring, card passing, etc.

4 of 5, a little deeper than Oh Hell / Wizard, hearts, or Spades. 

Offworld Trading Company

Offworld Trading Company combines the best aspects of a Real Time Strategy game and watching the Business Channel.

Summary

You represent a corporation building mines and factories on Mars to assist a new colony. Competing for that business are other companies. You must predict the needs of the market, grow your business efficiently, and possibly sabotage your competitors.

Gameplay

The gameplay feel a little bit like a RTS in that you must make tough real time decisions about what structures to build and that greatly informs how the game will play out. There is a ton of strategy about these decisions. Each corporation consumes resources in different amounts, and you also want to provide for the needs of the colony. These means you likely want to create the resources you will need but also might supply resources that your competitors will buy.

In addition to building structures, you buy and sell goods on the stock market. As materials are consumed by corporations and the colony, the price will go up. When people sell their supply the price goes down. Generally market manipulation doesn't seem to work as well as predicting supply and demand, but it's all pertinent. 

Exploration

At the start of the game the map is filled with fog of war. You click around to revel the map to find resources. Eventually when you find a good place to land your base you take it. Grabbing a landing spot early grants an advantage in that you get to claim the nearby resources. Also, your workers can start working while the other players are still exploring. On the other hand, the last players to drop their base are given a few bonuses, like extra tiles to claim. This is a neat concept, but I don't like the implementation. Once you place your base, all fog is lifted so you can see if your base is in a good location or not. Sometimes you don't realize there is a shortage of materials and your workers will have to move across the whole map to mine something rare. Other times you think you are monopolizing a resource to find there were two giant caches you didn't scan. 

In many games, the positioning isn't very important. There are sufficient resources, or maybe fuel is cheap for remote workers. So in some games you want to drop your base early, others late, and often it doesn't really matter. This leads to and awkward system that probably could have been skipped. Perhaps it would be better if players could see the entire map and then got to bid on placement order.

Combat

There isn't really combat. Direct aggression comes from the Black Market where you can buy items that help you or hurt an opponent. This isn't my favorite part of the game, but it doesn't bother me. The game has a steep learning curve and this should have been introduced later, but you can disable it in the game options, so not a big deal.

The other form of aggression is price war. If you can monopolize a rare resource you can force the other players to pay a lot to obtain it. In my experience this is a good idea more because you can sell for a higher price, but it's also nice that the opponents must buy at a higher price.

Winning

Depending on the mode the game either ends after a certain number of days or when one corporations has bought out all the others. Both of these have a bit of awkwardness. When the game ends after a set time, you don't get credit for any stockpiles you have, so you have to be constantly aware of the time. Buying out corporations has its own set of problems. You have to figure out if you should buy stock early when its cheap, or invest that money into buildings to grow your economy. You can't buy your own stock from another company but they can buy it from you. This mean games often end with two companies trying to buy each other up as quickly as possible, and it feels weird. 

Overall

This is a fun and challenging game. It took many games before I could win a stand-alone scenario on the hardest difficulty. The campaign is interesting but after losing twice I gave up. A few aspects of the game could be changed someone to make it more fun. In some ways this is the perfect game for me. I'm always looking for real-time crafting games with a strong economy and Offworld Trading Company nails it. For me, this game is 7/10 but I suspect most people would rate it lower.