Any Vital Lacerda fans on here?

I have played it twice now as well. Really sort of pleasant game? Ha. Seems like the best word to me. Fun but relaxing too. The production is great too, really nice components.

Sort of want to eat those eggs though...

It is a great one, especially with the Tuscany expansion.

I just got Maracaibo the other day as well. It is Alexander Pfister’s latest, but still haven’t played it yet. Have heard very good things though and have liked everything else I have played of his (Great Western Trail, Mombasa, Isle of Skye)

I like Mombasa better, but GWT is great.

At last! I was worried no one else had played anything of his on here.

I also backed Kanban EV. I have all of his games, but still haven’t got On Mars, Escape Plan, or CO2 to the table. For me Lisboa > Vinhos > Gallerist so far.

Not familiar with Mindclash/Trickerion... will have to look into them.

Tried playing Maracaibo yesterday. After over an hour of trying to figure out 3 players first turns we packed it up.

Looks fun, and understood many of the mechanisms... but the rulebook was really poorly laid out IMO. I will try again someday when I am more highly caffeinated perhaps but it was pretty frustrating to not even be able to make it through a single round.

Anyone else played it?

The first time I played Munchkin with family I vowed I would never play it again.

2 player won’t work because one player will end up being a ‘traitor’. I have it, and it has some cool aspects to it... but never bring it to the table anymore because the itches it scratches are done better in other games.

Different board games are fun (or not fun) to different people for different reasons and sometimes for very different reasons. Look at some things they do enjoy (e.g. tactile, puzzle-solving, trading, building, etc.) and try matching up game mechanisms to those things. As an example, I have a niece who has some almost crippling OCD sensitivity to textures and got her Azul because I thought she might like the feeling of the pieces (success!). I also thought a couple other family members would like the barter/trading aspect of Bohnanza... also success.

Yeah, gaming should be fun... and most people are just not gonna find a good chunky thinker as a good time (I love a good Lacerda myself).

For lighter engine-builders: Splendor and Century:Spice Road. For a little heavier: Terraforming Mars and Keyflower.

I agree with this. Setup is not bad for TM. One other thing that I do like about Wingspan that TM shares is the amount of in-game variability due to the sheer number of cards and how different they are. This makes one game to the next very different experiences and removes samey-ness.

I do have a couple criticisms of TM: the quality of the box and cards don’t match the price, it really needs overlays for the player boards (to prevent cubes from sliding around), and the text on some of the cards is really small (some people whose eyesight isn’t great have trouble with it.)

It was the same for me. At some point I was just buying everything that BGG had in their top 100 or new from a designer I liked (and that list kept growing). Eventually I had the same realization you mentioned and almost totally shut down my buying.

Looking forward to giving this a play today (latest puzzly filler from Vital Lacerda that I just got via Kickstarter)

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I managed to get a vaxx appointment this week... am really hoping to get some game nights with friends to start removing my ‘wall of shame’ games (never been played / some still wrapped... currently 44 games ).

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Last game I played was the new Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition. Basically they stripped down the game to the engine building, and you can play it in just over an hour.

The Hamburg/Amsterdam (Stefan Feld) Kickstarter is the only one I have going right now… and that feels like a cluster F. Had wanted to get the original Bruges/Macao games for years but never found them so was hoping Queen games would knock this out of the park. Will never do another kickstarter from them again.

I think some great less difficult / more accessible games (that I still enjoy now and then) are Al Hambra, Splendor, Sagrada, Azul, Century, Isle of Skye, Carcassonne. If you haven’t played Pandemic, I would add that to the list too. Wingspan is a little more involved, but still not difficult and very fun. That middle area difficulty unlocks all kind of fantastic ones… get there!

In my opinion TigerLaw the most important thing is that the entire group is enjoying themselves… a game can be the greatest ever made, but if even one out of four people is bored/frustrated/pissed/etc. ain’t nobody happy. Figuring out what scratches everybody in your playgroup’s itch is the toughest part of the equation… and add to that the fact that people’s tastes change as they experience more games (getting tired of and hungry for different things).

Make sure everyone feels comfortable expressing how they actually feel about what you’re playing (and want to play) so there is no ‘obligation playing’ and you’ll all have a better time.