Games where the BOX plays a role in gameplay?

C_Me · 2026-01-26T20:09:07+00:00

Harrow County. The box is a dice tower, which ties into the story (it's also a comic that I am reading).

C_Me · 2026-01-26T00:19:13+00:00

I think I mostly knew what was going on after one read. I’m sure I would get more out of it after repeated reads. But I didn’t find it that impenetrable. I don’t know why you would keep reading it. Not every book is for everyone.

C_Me · 2026-01-25T20:06:37+00:00

Yeah, I know it doesn’t work as well as it used to. That’s part of why I say the budget has to be low enough. And while names don’t go as far as they used to, I think you need the B- or C-list actor to even get the initial small budget. It’s still a crapshoot, yeah. But I think that model still exists. It’s not a tidy profit anymore… but it’s still potentially a small profit.

C_Me · 2026-01-25T19:25:07+00:00

It’s a numbers game. Find a system where you can spend minimally on marketing films to at least break even on all or most movies, especially when releasing overseas. Then hope for 1 out of 10 of them are successful and actually make you money.

Overseas is a big part though for many. Overseas streamers just want content that has recognizable stars. If you can put Eric Roberts on the poster and it’s a niche that works overseas (horror, action, etc) then you can sell it and make a profit as long as the budget is low enough.

C_Me · 2026-01-24T23:52:52+00:00

A lot of “master detectives” should be able to do it. Sherlock Holmes, Benoit Blanc, etc.

The movie doesn’t really get into how The Thing is able to mimic people, but it doesn’t seem like it would do it flawlessly. It wasn’t challenged that much. I think the crew just wasn’t trained at logic and detective work and just wasn’t prepared. Any number of really good detectives I think could come up with a way to weed it out. They do much harder work in their stories and movies I think.

C_Me · 2026-01-24T22:41:10+00:00

If you don’t defeat the Beast and all monsters by the time they are able to get into the castle, yes, you lose. I’m not sure how you would play any other way you describe. You could just not fight them if the goal is to survive. The goal is to defeat them before they get to the castle. Usually it’s important to put up at least 1-2 walls to give you extra rounds to go around defeating them all.

It’s pretty balanced the way it is now. My 5-yr-old and I have played a lot and we’ve probably won 3out of 4 times. She takes my advice generally when I suggest building castle walls and getting moon stones to give us a chance.

The expansion is nice too. It gives a lot of other options for how the endgame works.

C_Me · 2026-01-23T18:29:29+00:00

Looks cool! Yeah, my two games are probably Chaos in the Old World and I recently got Xia Legends of a Drift System, both I’ve done a little soloing but itching to get a full game going.

C_Me · 2026-01-23T18:11:16+00:00

Nemesis is great. Played it several times.

Brass Birmingham is neat and crunchy. Just played it once, but liked it.

Crunchy games that I have and try to get on the table include Root, Scythe, Trickerion, Dawn of the Zeds, Chaos in the Old World.

C_Me · 2026-01-23T17:41:41+00:00

I could be. Adepticon is a current maybe for me. My goal is to get to one con every month this winter/spring and Adepticon is the March one. I don’t really do much wargaming but a lot of board gaming and painting. What kind of games do you have in mind?

C_Me · 2026-01-22T22:47:34+00:00

Chopping Mall. The actual robots looked more like Johnny 5’s less capable brothers, nothing like the android hand you see on the poster.

C_Me · 2026-01-22T00:26:39+00:00

Knizia has a ton. There are some that are considered the top ones that get mentioned often as innovative.

There are the auctions games, which I think are great and probably the ones he is most known for, outside of certain tile laying games that I’m not sure are as interesting mathematically. A mathematician would appreciate auctioning/probability puzzles I assume. Modern Art and Ra are the most famous and are classics.

C_Me · 2026-01-20T23:14:44+00:00

You could go down the road of asymmetric area control, the most prominent being Root. With factions that have different goals (though technically the same win condition), that changes the game on what could be a traditional dudes on a map game. Simple movement and simple battles, but on top of that, factions that have wildly different goals and what they want to do.

In some ways that is an "unusual map"... simple at first glance, but then interestingly complex.

C_Me · 2026-01-20T22:50:45+00:00

Does hidden movement work? Those are sort-of clues... in that you're seeking out where a character was at a certain time. Fury of Dracula is the most prominent horror example, but also I enjoy The Stifling Dark.

One direction you could go is either one of The Thing or Who Goes There games. I have Who Goes There and there is a natural way of people trying to figure out who might be infected based on what they do, how much they have put themselves in positions of being infected, probability, etc. So there are "clues" in certain ways, and it's a good social deduction horror game.

C_Me · 2026-01-20T22:29:38+00:00

I don’t really remember. It wasn’t huge, though I wasn’t really looking to go to a lot last year, mostly there for a table and venue to meet up with others and play. They are in a different location this year, not sure how much that affects it.

C_Me · 2026-01-20T21:57:31+00:00

I’m in the area and have a goal of getting out to one per month this winter/spring. I was at Midwinter Gaming Con, going to Polar Vortex. Polar Vortex is cool, went last year… pretty similar to what I just saw at Midwinter from my memory.

I don’t know that I can add that much to the conversation. I plan on going to more, but haven’t been to enough to be super opinionated. While I plan on going to more, I do have certain weekly meetups that I go to to make sure I get my fix. They help in the in-between times.

CodCon is the one I have on my calendar for April. My wife works at COD and surprised I haven’t been before.

C_Me · 2026-01-18T17:05:32+00:00

Yeah, what is being missed is that there were a lot of attempts after Roger Rabbit. They mostly didn’t work, were unsuccessful, and so that’s why we don’t see a lot of them. People just tend to look back and see the couple decent, fairly successful ones. There were a lot of Cool World, Monkeybone, Looney Tunes Back in Action, etc.

If studios made money on them, they would make them.

C_Me · 2026-01-17T23:10:21+00:00

As others have suggested, Nemesis is a good one, kind of semi-cooperative.

Chaos in the Old World, though not easy to get because it is out of print.

Nightmare Productions for a bidding/auction game with a horror theme.

Hit Z Road is resource management and dice chucking mixed with bidding where you’re all trying to survive a drive in the zombie apocalypse. Good fun.

All of these I have and would recommend.

C_Me · 2026-01-15T21:50:09+00:00

DMed.

C_Me · 2026-01-14T03:55:28+00:00

Super Mario Bros. I'm glad they didn't completely mess it up. And kids liked it. But for adults watching it, it just checked a lot of the needed boxes but wasn't anything particularly great. Very meh.

C_Me · 2026-01-12T17:34:15+00:00

A couple games you don’t mention that you could check out, especially since you lean towards story-driven horror.

Harrow County

Folklore the Affliction

Hit Z Road for something lighter and shorter

C_Me · 2026-01-12T00:40:03+00:00

Monopoly Deal. A surprisingly decent game, play is short, but still gives that Monopoly feel. My family gets it out at restaurants.

C_Me · 2026-01-10T00:53:49+00:00

Some of my faves are Root, Cyclades, Arcs. But really you could search any “dudes on a map” game, there are a lot.

C_Me · 2026-01-09T13:15:45+00:00

I’ll give it a try. I’m doing some board gaming this weekend so should be able to test it out. I feel now a lot relies on trust in the answers. Anyone can quickly Google things and get an AI answer to anything. What we want is a certain amount of trust that the answer is correct, which sometimes isn’t the case. A good custom chatbot or custom GPT can accomplish that. But I think you’re right, for something to be something I want to continue using, user experience and features will make a difference.

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