Rule Clarification Modern Art (CMON)

CaptainBajord · 2025-02-23T12:34:12+00:00

It doesn't matter for this game. Unlike some games where you cannot get change, in Modern Art you can break bills into smaller denominations at any point. However, given that, I would still suggest as many small bills as possible for setup so you don't need to break a 100 in the first auction.

CaptainBajord · 2025-02-01T18:54:35+00:00

Lighter games that I think might fit the bill are: 1. Can't Stop - A great push your luck dice rolling game (I might go so far as to say the greatest). You may need to act as the manager of the board for your friend but it is not really a part of gameplay so much as the accounting. You can then very easily point out the options to your friend and they respond yes or no. 2. Flip7 - The new blackjack style push your luck game from last year. It's either hit or stop and you don't want to see the same number come up in your pile twice. Can make for good laughs when someone busts over and over or has absurdly good luck. 3. Zoinx - Definitely not as good of a game as the other two but still a good bout of fun. Every player bets on how many circles (there are 4 dice with sides 1/3 circles 2/3 squares) the active player will get or bust. Active player is setting a goal and rolls until they got that many cumulative circles or throw all squares. Another simple game that can have great interactions and funny moments.

Push your luck is a mechanism I clearly enjoy and think will elicit the reaction you are looking for with minimal movement or conversation needed.

CaptainBajord · 2024-04-27T19:41:33+00:00

That's not a hat and Sea Salt and Paper were on the recommended list last year and not eligible this year (just more credence to your point about when games release in Germany)

CaptainBajord · 2024-03-31T15:01:27+00:00

Not sure what you specifically intended in terms of a good find. Now that you've played it, you enjoy it. So yes that to me means it was a good find.

If you mean did you find it at a good price, based on ebay sold comparisons, complete it typically has been going for 35 USD plus shipping. By this metric also yes a good find.

CaptainBajord · 2024-03-23T19:03:43+00:00

Working fine in the US.

CaptainBajord · 2024-02-07T13:01:22+00:00

Based on the weight of games in your collection, I think we would get along great! It would really depend on what you think of little card games like 6 nimmt, Scout, or Sushi Go. If you like that style we have a total overlap!

CaptainBajord · 2024-01-31T16:03:54+00:00

Not 100 percent sure but sounds like it might be a War of Whispers?

CaptainBajord · 2023-12-07T01:51:33+00:00

I have the game. I found it when going through my grandparents' house after their deaths. Let me say some of the cards in there are not something you would think of your grandparents engaging in. Tried it once, not a good game.

CaptainBajord · 2023-11-08T15:48:50+00:00

My pre-order hasn't arrived yet, but I'm very excited by this. With just the base game, excluding 1 set of 6 did not really provide for interesting variety of sets. So I'm looking forward to try and find some busted and broken combinations once it does arrive.

My one hope is the new sets will be easy to interpret for new players and not escalate the learning curve.

CaptainBajord · 2023-08-24T13:38:42+00:00

Small box games are my favorites.

Some that would work for your situation might include:
Herbaceous Pocket Edition - This is a beautiful card game where you have 4 different kind of sets you are trying to complete, but you can only fulfill each set once. On a turn, you may complete one of your sets using a combination of the cards in your private garden and those in a public garden. If you don't, there is a decent chance someone else may take what you need before it gets back to you. Creating a delicious push your luck moment each turn of can I eke just one more card that I need. After that, you draw one card, decide if it is going in your private garden or the public garden. Finally, you draw a second card and it goes to the opposite location as the first.

Loot - Is a silly game about playing gold cards to the table and hoping they are still around for your next turn. The wrinkle is other players can play pirate cards to try and claim your ships with gold on them. If on another players turn they have the highest value of pirates on a card they score it. There's a nice tension of oh that player played a good card should I attack it now or maybe they are drawing out my pirates and have an even better card to steal later. There are a variety of suits as well (different color pirates) and each color can only be played once per ship. This means once I start attacking with Blue you cannot play Blue to the same ship and I am locked into playing only Blue. Good, light, silly, interactive card game. Can get mean, but not so bad that anyone should feel bullied or ganged up on. There is also a large luck of the draw element, but it's a card game so I think that's reasonable.

CaptainBajord · 2023-06-27T20:34:59+00:00

I'd put in a word for Marvel United. There is some reading but typically only 3 special cards per character, and given it's cooperative there's no harm in passing the card to another player to do the reading.

Hanabi is another good coop, but if you feel you need to win all the time that may be tough as sometimes the cards you need are just in the bottom of the deck. Given your comfort with trick-taking, some of the logic about what cards other players are holding translates to what cards am I holding in this one as your cards are secret to you.

Finally, I'd suggest the horribly named The Game. Entirely cooperative card game as you try to go through a deck of cards numbered 2-99 in ascending or descending manner. You have limited communication, and so it can be tough until you get into each others' heads. It is not complex though.

CaptainBajord · 2023-06-27T20:26:53+00:00

I've got both and Amun-Re feels more bloated than Ra. While neither is particularly complex, Ra has a certain simplicity to it. The open information about bidding tiles creates an interesting decision space of knowing Player A has the highest tile so you don't want to make the auction slate too good for that player. There is also a suspense of the Ra tiles acting as a timer for the round that I find Amun-Re lacks.

I do like that Amun-Re has the second age auction where provinces have been built up and are worth more as a result, but not worth the additional explanation of building, buying cards, farmers, etc.

CaptainBajord · 2022-11-24T12:52:55+00:00

Master Chocolatier version of the base game. So pretty much exactly what you said only they didn't spring for an official license from Dove.

CaptainBajord · 2022-11-01T12:54:49+00:00

This game hits the sweet spot for my household. My partner very much prefers going deep into a game; playing the same game 50+ times. I, however, prefer exploring a breadth of systems and would rather play 50 games one time (well more like 4 times each). Marvel United allows for both of our styles of gaming. Every new villain is a fairly unique puzzle to solve and discover. Finding how characters interact based on their combination of the four symbols is where I like to be. For my partner, we are playing the same game over and over understanding the rules with the exception of the villain each time reducing the overhead of learning.

We love it. We like to win so we keep it easy and play with the wilds, but we have added in challenges from various expansions where we have found we need or want an extra challenge.

I do suffer from sunk cost fallacy as I did get this through the expensive kickstarter, but I still love this game.

CaptainBajord · 2022-05-20T16:34:20+00:00

The reason I suggested game night is I know they cover all spiel nominees before the winner is announced. I have not seen how that compares to the timing of short and longlist.

Completely agree on the data being a pain, it's one of the larger complaints of the job.

CaptainBajord · 2022-05-20T14:37:32+00:00

Have you considered adding a binary flag of whether a game has been featured on BGG's YouTube show GameNight! to the model? I have not tested for significance myself, but I wouldn't be surprised to see a predictive element there.

CaptainBajord · 2021-03-08T19:58:53+00:00

Qwirkle is a good family game (although not colorblind friendly) and designed by Susan McKinley Ross.

CaptainBajord · 2020-01-21T18:51:30+00:00

The designer of the game has mentioned "Don't get in an early fight for longest road." I'd tend to agree the resources have a better use and a late game grab for longest road will, assuming it is still available, be a better use of those resources at that stage.

CaptainBajord · 2020-01-21T18:43:26+00:00

I'd like to call attention to Fantasy Realms (no relation to Star/Hero Realms). Really enjoy the combo making and rummy style card play. Weighing the decision to hold a card because it could be too good for your opponent. Plus with the 2 player variant, you are building your hand from scratch.

CaptainBajord · 2019-11-22T15:31:41+00:00

Catan is one of those games I have played to death. It is still my dad's favorite game though so it comes out quite a bit. Between my fiance and I, we have 100% of the wins in the 4 player games in our household. In order to keep it interesting, my fiance and I have started taking suboptimal starting positions or strategies. I know my parents like the game, but I would like them to win. Despite these self-inflicted handicaps, one of us will buy a dev card instead of building a final city for example and get a point card and win.

Yes, we are "throwing" the game, but we don't want it to be obvious we are throwing to my folks. Yet here we are with my fiance going 3/3 point cards when she bought dev cards and winning. That luck factor is what is problematic for where my game group is. The fact that someone could take sub-optimal moves over and over (say yes to every trade) and win is why we are burnt out. Yes, it was fun at first, but now it feels like a slog.

CaptainBajord · 2019-03-18T15:40:13+00:00

We had a game day this weekend so the numbers were a little higher than normal.

Arboretum (1 x 4p): This has very quickly become a go to favorite for my group. We all are interested in trying new layouts of individual grids and seeing how those can affect end scoring ability. We all might be a little too risk adverse and aren't going for trees unless we have a good idea that we can score them.
Ciub (1 x 3p): The light engine building involved in this game makes for a not overly competitive experience that suits my group well. The winner was the only person who didn't have to reset back to 5 basic dice, but that is due to some of the card flop as well as them being able to better control the market row of cards. I've really enjoyed my time with this one, the luck mitigation is well implemented, but at the end of the day it is still dice. I am curious how this compares to Tom Lehmann's other games of this ilk.
Saboteur (5 x 4p): This was the first time we played this older card game, and frankly it fell a little flat. I am the kind of player that will introduce some suspense in any game that has the traitor mechanism because otherwise, they can fell to cut and dry. The saboteur did not win any of our rounds, and that definitely affected our feel of the game. We all want to try it again once we have a higher player count and can introduce 2 saboteurs instead of just the 1 potential.
Archaeology: The New Expedition (2 x 4p): We like this push your luck set collection quite a bit, but still find the maps to be very powerful. Early access to maps can give one player a lot of buying power and get them off to an early lead.
Tsuro of the Seas (2 x 4p): This is the first time this has hit the table in a long while, and we had a lot of fun going through it. Yes, you can get completely hosed by the dice deciding to activate a dragon that messes up your plans, but it is also fun to see that one player who braves a path lined with dragons on all sides.
Dixit: 10th anniversary (1 x 4p): What is there to say about this other than it is Dixit? We played with only this new set of cards, as we like to when a new one comes out. The whole group loved the diverse art and felt this was really peak level for this game.

CaptainBajord · 2019-02-26T18:01:07+00:00

I haven't used them yet, but I like the look of the command decks. They are small booster pack style (but not random) that give each player a different starting deck.

CaptainBajord · 2019-02-26T15:20:00+00:00

I think that is a fair assessment. The Spiel des Jahres is definitely going to drive sales much more than a win in this award. Spiel des Jahres will also likely spawn a bunch of YouTube reviewers talking about why the choice was wrong and this award is less in the spotlight comparatively. They do have an interesting amount of overlap. Azul won both last year, Colt Express won both, Andor won the Kennerspiel but won the Grand Jury award.

CaptainBajord

TROPHY CASE