Which game is it and what did you not like about it?
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Munchkin. I guess nowadays hating on Munchkin is no longer unpopular, but when I first played it the game had a rabid cult following. I understand that it might be fun to play with alcohol involved and with everyone just looking to have a good time and to laugh at silly things happening, but as a game where all the players are playing with the intention of winning the game isn’t enjoyable to me at all.
Munchkin is a great game, but it’s one you can’t play with board game or TTRPG people. You need either alcohol or people who aren’t used to/don’t worship strict board game rules and who aren’t afraid to muck about with stupid shit or pile on other players. The sort of person who’s favourite game is CAH or "uh…I dunno chess maybe?', not “here’s my six hour dissertation on why Jamestown: now with Wheat is the best”
Munchkin was my first modern card game (lets call it like that) and for this particular reason, I loved it. As a young adult (had the version without colors, just draws), I was such impressed, at that time, by how intense feels and interactions you could get by just playing a game. It truly creates a story around.
But depicts all the love I had for it, I realize the biggest selling point for me (active cooperation-but-go-in-hell!) was what tired gamers the most. Some wants to play game, and not discussing/fighting for everything happening on the table.
Now I’m definitely an adult and having play to many games, the intensity of a Munchkin game is just too much for me. Would love to play with young adult/teenagers because I know how fun they can get from it, but it’s definitely not a game for… (let’s say) Gamers.
Played so many 3 hour games where everyone just held their stoppers for when someone was going to hit level 10. By the end you’re just silently pleading that someone dings so it can be over.
There are better sober games and there are better drunk activities than Munchkin.
If you’re at a point where you’re having fun with Munchkin you’d be having fun without it as well…
I agree entirely, hate Munchkin with a passion
Munchkin soured me on Take That style games for years. My friends loved it, but I did not.
When I first learned about ttrpgs I asked a friend if he knew anything about it. He invited me to play munchkin with him and some other friends, saying “It’s like ttrpg but only the fun parts”. I no longer have contact with that person
Mage Knight. This game threw me in to an unbridaled rage with how much I loathed it. I couldn’t understand why it was rated so highly. So, I went to BGG to see just how so many people could like this awful game.
Turns out everyone plays it cooperatively. Not a soul plays nor recommends the competitive mode; the mode I was playing in.
Mage Knight was without a doubt the worst boardgaming experience I have ever had.
The blame is totally on the game owner who thought the “Full conquest” mode was appropriate for 4 players who had never tried the game. It was a miserable experience, lasted more than 8 hours long with up to 30 minutes between my turns.
Settlers of Catan is one of the worst board games ever made. I will die on this hill.
you wont die alone on it. I am with you. So far, whichever game is on display together with Monopoly, Risk and Cluedo Harry Potter is doomed from the start
Hey! Risk europe is amazing !
Being a fan of engine/tableau builder, Wingspan really disappointed me. It’s not a bad game. It a very nice game, but the flow is average, at most.
Depicts some interesting ideas that push me to buy it with it’s first expansion (goal board, mix of engine and tableau building) it’s hugely luck based and the fact this game is rated 8+ on BGG, that tends to rate games mostly on advanced mechanisms and long run, is still a mystery to me.
I give it 5 plays with different peoples. Yet, I had no fun at all (I mean, zero… Watching flies around was the funniest part of my last game, sadly)… Then I played 51st State, which is a very good (yet not awesome) engine builder and have instant fun from start to end. The feeling of controlling things.
There are some highly rated games on BGG, and while I like some better than others, the ratings never seems off to me. Like “mmh, OK, I see why peoples like it”. But this offset has never been so huge with Wingspan.
So yes, I have it on my shelf, I watch its wonderful box like a disturbing mirror of my gaming tastes, knowing it’s praised by many, but I could almost try to find another table just when someone come up with the idea, while I usually really force myself to play games with different peoples because I know you will make peoples happy.
First time in my 20y of gaming, and it makes me feel so weird.
Thanks for reading me.
I wanted to like Wingspan but, like you say, it’s maybe something with the flow that just turns me off. Same for Parks. Maybe I’ll make do with just ogling the cards (because the art/graphics are gorgeous in both) vice playing with them haha
Getting into tableau/engine builders games. Any recommendations?
Wingspan is still worth checking out especially since it’s so easy to try on BGA. There is a reason it’s so popular, it works well for many people. Everdell is another very popular one with great production. Kinda falls into the same camp in that it often shows up on these “popular games that didn’t work for me” lists but it’s quite good for what it is.
On the smaller side Wild Space can be a good entry point. Small box, inexpensive, very easy to play, fun combos.
Or if you want to jump straight into the deep water and go for the best that’s Lorenzo Il Magnifico for me. Deus is another one I like a lot but that has a map component too.
The only saving grace for Wingspan fore are the achievements in the digital version. I enjoyed having some bizarre setups needed to unlock the chievos and as a result I got better at the game I feel and was able to sort of get around the luck of the draw style.
What sent Wingspan into the stratosphere of popularity was more tapping into the non gamer middle age market with articles like the NYTimes.com at the time spreading the word.
Had it not pulled a Wii (a term I use when a company attracts a new demographic) I imagine Wingspan would have hovered around or above Viticulture popularity.
Had it not pulled a Wii
A good expression for the situation. Wingspan’s success is definitly to a large part because of it’s accessibility. Every problem you have (no cards, food, eggs) has an immediate, guaranteed and obvious solution. Everything you CAN do improves your position. And if you play on the blue side there is barely any direct competition in the game. There’s no way to shoot yourself in the foot. There is no requirement to plan ahead.
But it does have some potential to plan ahead, optimize and compete for those who want to.
It also doesn’t fall into any of the typical setting tropes like fantasy or sci-fi that might put some people off. It’s production values are pretty enough to catch some eyes.
as a result I got better at the game
Reminds me Pokemon Stadium and Star Realms. The fast pace of digital versions improve your skills very quickly and gives new perspectives to the games. Maybe Wingspan is simply to slow paced for me.
One Deck Dungeon is another one where I had this experience. The ability to easily experiment with undo and retry has helped me get better at the game on the table too. And I am not sure that I’d have tried two-handed solo otherwise which is a fun way to play the game.
Ark Nova - I just had very bad starting cards and couldn’t mitigate it, so I was doomed to be behind the whole game. Seriously with that big number of cards you can just get very unlucky and have no good combo available. It’s too much chance in this game, but I might just be more of an Euro game fan…
Its a pity, its my favorite game this year. If you would ask my girlfriend, she would agree with you. So far, while I had kinda meh starting hands I managed to have a tight game. I think that its essentially a 2 player game and more players can really hinder the game flow. As a 2player it is probably one of the deeper ones out there. Rarely is a game best played at 2, unless its a duel game
Risk. Just rolling the dice and let the highest one win would be an equally well designed game.
It’s a shame that risk Europe is so good and so connected to the name risk.
@dpunked My gaming group lives by Terraforming Mars. I’ll play it but I just can’t get into it. I strongly prefer Ares Expedition, but they don’t. #firstworldproblems
I am the same. I prefer Ares. It is so much better in my opinion.
I feel like Ares Expedition is a really nice compromise. I love placing tiles on Terraforming Mars, tho. Really miss that.
Hoping to borrow Ares Expedition from a friend soon. Played it once in Essen and wasn’t wowed. Gonna be tough beating TFM after that…
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Probably quite lukewarm at this point, but Gloomhaven. Too much effort to set up and manage, losing often is annoying, losing often with no consequences for losing is even more annoying. It always felt like it would be better as a video game, and guess what? There is one now. It’s probably good.
Monopoly. It’s only fun if you are winning and you don’t like your opponents.
That’s exactly the point of Monopoly: Showing that capitalism leads to monopoly and misery, to those who have and those who have to pay for it.
Indeed, it’s amazing how prevalent the game is.
Monopoly is a really bad 1-2 hours game but the absolute worst part is that everyone plays with dumb house-rules to make it last an entire afternoon. Really grinds my gears.
I never refuse to play Monopoly, I’ll just say I’ll gladly play if we play by the rules. The end result is the same, we never play it. I have never met anyone who wanted to play by the rules. Hell, I never found anyone who knew Monopoly had auctions or mortgage.
The game it was ripped off from The Landlord’s Game. It was created to show how landlords and rents were screwing the public and enriching the man at the top.
Was never even meant to be fun. I think it’s interesting that people take so long to recognize that it isn’t fun, simply because it is presented in the form of a board game. You need to understand games pretty deeply before you can evaluate them, and by that time, modern commercial games have used psychological tricks to addict you rather than actually appealing to your intellectual or emotional interests.
Never fails to get family members crying.
I can’t say I was disappointed, because I liked it at first, but Gloomhaven really became a drag after a year or so of playing. I feel like you really need to be invested in the lore and story to get anything out of it after a while, otherwise it’s basically glorified, over-complicated chess. It doesn’t help that 90% of scenarios have the same winning condition: “kill all monsters”. I feel like there could have been a lot more depth to the actual gameplay, and not just the fluff in-between. What’s more, each scenario takes 2-3 hours at best, and to make any real progress you need to set aside at least 6 hours per session, which is crazy. It’s basically a job at that point.
Also, in the later stages, when you have a level 3-4 party with unlocked classes, encounters become exhausting, because you need to keep track of a million modifiers and buffs/debuffs, sometimes cancelling out eachother twice. And it’s not a Gloomhaven session if you don’t keep going back to the BGG forums for rule clarifications. It’s a mess of a game, really.
After seeing what the scenarios with different win conditions looked like I am GLAD most were just “kill all monsters”.
As for session length we always played just a single scenario (unless we lost the first super quick). It took us a good year maybe one and a half to play through the campaign. IMO the problem is less the session length and just how much of a time hog this game is in general. We’re talking 150+ hours dedicated to a single game.
Yeah, I see your point. My group could only meet up once every so often due to differing work schedules and adulthood responsibilities, which I guess contributed heavily to the slow progress and the fact that we wanted to cram as much progress as possible into a single session. We were going on 2 years when I dropped out, and had made it halfway or two thirds into the campaign. The sad thing is that we could’ve exhausted several other games by that time instead of barely finishing the one.
Despite my rant, I’m not trying to put people off Gloomhaven entirely. It might be the best thing ever for some people. Just know what to expect when getting into it.
I can’t blame you. It literally took us pretty much weekly sessions for over a year to reach the final scenario. That’s a daunting comittment. I actually low key burned out on the game a few times during that period. But it always pulled me back in again.
For me this is Lost ruins of Arnak. The game is a sort of deckbuilder but it never feels like it. It also left us with the impression that you need to min/max from turn 1 and there is only a limited way to victory. Its on our list of games to resell. Do not understand the appeal
This is the same for me. Feel like a collection of half-baked attempts at mechanics from too many other games. The five turn limit is to short to do anything interesting with them, and makes it so the winner of the game is basically decided after turn 1. I like the theme and there are lots of games that are technically worse, but it just feels kinda mediocre and dull.
Catan and King of Tokyo. Catan was I think the first “modern” board game I was introduced to and it did not click at all. King of Tokyo wasn’t awful but given how popular it was at the time, I was expecting more. I’ve only played them once, to be fair, so it’s a bit hard to get into details but they’re the 2 that come to mind!
Catan just feels weird. The thing is - and I kinda validated that recently by watching highlevel competetive play of the catan base game, but: You only have like 2-4 meaningful decisions in a game. The rest is just follow through and dice.
And these things aren’t that hard to see at a decent level. And when you make these decent decisions, you mostly just win. Even with the robber, there’s limited counterplay to these good initial choices. This makes it hard to play casually as well once you know the good things.
I also do not like Catan. Tired of getting pigeon holed in resources and then having to convince another player to trade when I have no real bargaining power.
I had great hopes for King of Tokyo but realize it’s one of those rated because of the production + reach the masses.
You should not expect more from KoT than a funny and visually appealing confrontation game. The more players you have the funnier it is.
As young teens KoT was amazing
Fuck that robber
Same with me and Catan. I generally do not like resource-hoarding “competitive” games anyway, and Catan did not help that.
You’re right, Catan sucks. Tokyo is much more interesting with powered up
Probably Everdell. Just seemed to be very much style over substance. If you were lucky you could get some synergies going but luck is the key word there. The huge deck means there’s no guarantee what you need is going to come up in the game at all.
Kind of feels like if you want a nature themed tableau thing Wingspan does it better.
I was kind of mystified by its appeal too, all that tiny text, the pointless tree…
The few times I’ve played it (with my admittedly competitive group), we’ve always gone through the entire deck. If a group of 4 isn’t getting through the deck, it means people aren’t calling card draw/card selection enough, and may be plopping down suboptimal cards just to use what they have.
I would also recommend Wingspan, but it’s not the same style of game. Everdell felt a lot like Agricola, but less punishing and more fair about card availability and variance.
Interesting - I only played it irl a few times with someone else’s copy but I do have the digital version and we were having similar issues (including with quite experienced players of other games) - not to doubt your experience in any way. I might try playing on advanced AI if I have time and see if that makes a difference.
Because we do have one of our online group who is a massive fan but unfortunately it doesn’t really gel with any of the rest of us do it would be cool if we could find ‘a way in’
I really like Everdell, but that tree is the definition of style over substance. It actually hinders gameplay.
Ticket to Ride unfortunately did nothing for me.
My friends and I had been playing mostly Catan for about 5 years before we tried Ticket to Ride. It just didn’t feel very strategic, but maybe that’s because it was our first time playing. It felt like the cards you were dealt basically determined whether or not you would win, and “blocking” someone else didn’t feel like it was truly worth the effort. Years later, my CS and EE professor would say how it was a fun game because of how it actually resembled some problems in networking, but I just never grasped that level of depth.
I like Ticket to Ride, but more to play with people that are not into games. Something easy, just a fun session in the evening with parents or other relatives.
That’s exactly the group of people where I enjoy playing it quite a lot, too. Ticket to Ride Europe is now also family-owned.
Stone Age. Worker placement and set collection point salad and not much else.
Yeah. It got recommended to me as an easier Tzolkin. Well, it IS easier but not anywhere near as interesting and every game feels sooo samey.
Yeah. I like worker placement games, but Stone Age seems to think “oh player X goes before you this turn and gets dibs on spot Y so revise your plans” is the most interesting part of worker-placement. Which, no, it isn’t. It’s an important mechanic, but it feels like that and collect-em-up is basically the whole game in Stone Age.
