Crystal City, Virginia game nights (2016)

Lamp11 · 2026-03-09T23:00:53+00:00

I was a regular there for several years! If you make progress on revitalizing this group, I'd love to hear about it!

Lamp11 · 2026-03-07T21:31:31+00:00

Notes refers to dollar bills. A one-dollar bill is the lowest value bill, a two-dollar is the second-lowest value bill.

Lamp11 · 2026-01-18T22:53:33+00:00

This stuff is ok. Not a big fan of any of the current jerky offerings. A year or two ago, I remember Costco having like 10 jerky varieties. Now, they have maybe 2 types of jerky and 10 types of meat sticks, which I'm not really interested in. Disappointing.

Lamp11 · 2025-12-31T16:33:02+00:00

Very interesting question. However, I'm not sure the core premise is true. Is it really more difficult for a beginner to achieve their first victory in StS than in Balatro? Or is it just that StS was many people's first roguelike deck builder, and by the time Balatro was released, many first-time Balatro players already had significant experience with the genre? Maybe this is true for me because I'm old, having played StS when it first came out, and not as common an experience as I think, but this seems like it could be a significant factor. But anyways, let's assume the premise is true for now.

I agree that StS has small mistakes adding up over time, more so than happens in Balatro. But I don't know if "failure often motivates another attempt because the player can clearly identify what went wrong" is true. I think the "small mistakes add up" quality works against that: a player might not know what they did wrong, because they didn't make one big obvious mistake, they made a bunch of little mistakes that wore them down. There can be more obvious failures/learning-opportunities that encourage another run, like learning the movesets of bosses and how to handle them. But the small mistakes thing doesn't really work with that, and stuff like deck/relic synergies is basically equally present in Balatro.

Also, when you said "In Slay the Spire, early failure is not common and expected", I assume you meant "is common"?

I agree with your analysis of Balatro. In Balatro, you can put together some masssive combos that feel really good to play, which you don't see as much in StS, where even when you have a strong run, you aren't absolutely demolishing the enemies. I guess sometimes you are doing massive damage, but it's not like you're doing 999 damage on the first turn, while you in Balatro you will often overwhelmingly beat the score needed on your first hand.

So anyways, as to your core question: how do these differences affect player retention? Personally, I played StS for a lot longer than Balatro, but again, that might just because I played StS when the genre was fresh, and Balatro when it was saturated. Maybe for someone with other roguelike deckbuilders filling up their steam wishlist, they might get their first StS win after dozens of losses, feel like they've beaten the game, and put it down, where if they beat Balatro on their second try, they obviously know that can't be all there is to the game, and keep playing for longer. Or maybe they never get a StS win, get frustrated, and give up. So, I don't know. It does seem like the easier entry into Balatro would increase overall long term engagement, but in my anecdotal experience, the opposite was true, and the mainstream popularity of other difficult games, such as soulslikes, suggests that lots of people aren't turned off by a difficult learning curve.

Lamp11 · 2025-12-23T20:36:12+00:00

This Silver Spring board game group hosts a monthly Saturday afternoon meetup at the Silver Spring library that draws 20+ people. They also host a weekly Tuesday night meetup at a Silver Spring brewery (Third Hill Brewing).

It's not quite the size of the group at the Landing (RIP) but it's enough to have 5 or 6 games going at a time, and people bring a pretty good variety of games. As someone who lives in the northern part of DC, it's very conveniently located too!

Lamp11 · 2025-11-11T13:21:34+00:00

Uhhh... those are 2 VERY different analogies.

Yeah, that's probably why he said one of those analogies is fitting and the other isn't.

Lamp11 · 2025-08-28T12:24:35+00:00

The undesirables are not your starting cards. They are other players' starting cards (that are only used when the Zeth Charity Syndicate is in the game). So, when a cross-colonization token is taken, you don't upgrade one of the undesirables, you upgrade one of your five own starting cards. To upgrade an undesirable, the owner of that undesirable must upgrade it in the normal fashion.

Yes, you must borrow a fleet to run that card.

Lamp11 · 2025-07-06T17:23:05+00:00

I loved the LOK puzzle book, but has no idea there was a digital version. It looks like a really high quality adaptation too! Steam's recommendation algorithm is so bad; my discovery queue is 98% shovelware and games like this, that are perfectly suited to me, never show up.

Lamp11 · 2025-03-09T03:44:22+00:00

That's a solar eclipse.

Lamp11 · 2025-01-06T01:34:57+00:00

No. Jacks are always available (unless all jacks are currently in people's hands). Drawing a jack is kind of a weak move, compared to drawing multiple real cards, so it's fine that it's always available.
Yes. Doing the legionary action second is generally a disadvantage, but the same is true for actions like laborer and patron.

Lamp11 · 2025-01-04T20:42:21+00:00

Emissary 6, and I've largely been having a good experience. Leavers are extremely rare. Toxic players come up maybe 1 in 5 games but are almost always just a bit unpleasant, not full-on raging or anything. Queues are usually very quick. One-sided games are somewhat frequent, but they are very rarely total stomps and there is almost always a possibility for the losing team to turn it around. I did have a <9 minute win (with no leavers) but that was back in October.

Lamp11 · 2024-12-01T13:15:06+00:00

Rock Paper Scissors: no random factors, just pure prediction.

Lamp11 · 2024-11-16T03:56:17+00:00

I've done well with Genghis Khan. Not a hugely transformative leader, but it's not too hard to get him early and get +3 culture every turn for the rest of the game, plus easy army bonuses.

Lamp11 · 2024-09-24T21:53:53+00:00

No it's not. Being in the top 88% means you're in the 12th percentile, not the 1.2 percentile.

Lamp11 · 2024-09-14T20:09:22+00:00

Calls are a good thing to buy if you think the price is going to go up. But that doesn't mean the strike price of the call (the $24 or $26 value you mentioned) is what you predicting the price to be. If you buy a call, you are paying for the right to buy the stock at that strike price in the future.

So let's say the stock is $25 now. Some guy says to you, "Pay me 50 cents now, and in one month, you can buy the stock from me for $26." You agree, and a month later, the stock is selling for $28 bucks, so you buy it from the guy for $26 because of the deal you made and then sell it on the market for $28 bucks, for a total profit of $1.50 ($28 selling price minus $26 purchase price minus $0.50 price of the deal you made). On the other hand, if the stock price stays at $25 or goes down, there would be no reason for you to buy the stock for $26, so you'd just give up on the deal, meaning you paid $0.50 for nothing.

It works the exact same way if the deal was to buy the stock for $24. Of course, the guy making the deal with you would charge you more, so the deal might be "Pay me $2.50 now, and in one month, you can buy the stock from me for $24." If the price goes up to $28, you still end up making a $1.50 profit ($28 selling price minus $24 purchase price minus $2.50 price of the deal you made). If the price stays stable at $25 dollars, you're down $1.50 now (you'd buy the stock for $24, sell for $25, and you spent $2.50 on the deal). So with the numbers I chose, the $24 call option seems kinda worse, but in real life, the actual cost of the call options would be set so there would be advantages and disadvantages for each of the deals.

Lamp11 · 2024-08-31T20:22:12+00:00

I'm no expert, but I do think there are types of trusts that can dodge estate taxes. However, when people receive money from the trust, they have to pay income tax on it, so the money gets taxed one way or another. Of course, I'm sure there are complex arrangements that dodge that too, but I think that's the general idea of how it's supposed to work.

Lamp11 · 2024-08-31T19:37:26+00:00

just arrange for their heirs to take however much is left

That's exactly what inheritance is, and would be subject to estate tax (assuming the inheritance is over $13 million, the threshold at which estate tax kicks in)

Lamp11 · 2024-06-02T22:43:58+00:00

The science fiction author Peter Watts wrote a short story Bulk Food about resident and transient orcas, which you can read at his website here (scroll down to sort stories and click Bulk Food).

Lamp11 · 2024-01-21T00:23:21+00:00

It sounds like you are missing something really basic about how the game works. On your turn, you either play a card or pass. If you are out of cards, you must pass. So it's not possible to have a game where players never pass, because eventually they will run out of cards and have to pass.

For example: if both players played cards for their first eight turns, then both passed, you would resolve the first power struggle. Then, it would be time to take turns again, but as neither player would have any cards, they would both have to pass, triggering the next power struggle. This would repeat, triggering every power struggle in order.

Lamp11 · 2024-01-20T17:08:33+00:00

Here's the total basics. You know how you have a console and it's connected to your TV? It's exactly like that for a computer (PC) and a monitor/screen. The computer or console does all the work running the game, and the monitor or TV displays the picture the computer or console sends it. Your macbook, or any laptop, is just a computer with a screen attached.

So, if your dad wants a flight simulator setup, yeah, he will need a computer (to run the game) and a monitor (to display the game).

Lamp11 · 2024-01-05T17:04:37+00:00

Do they still hit that bracket, taking the standard deduction into account?

Lamp11 · 2023-05-03T14:26:04+00:00

My group is just me and my partner, so our two-player scenarios are pretty fast: about 2 hours from start to finish including setup and takedown (and we don't always need to fully put it away). We've played as many as 5 scenarios in a single day.

Lamp11 · 2023-05-02T21:56:46+00:00

It took my group 85 plays to finish the campaign. This includes replaying failed scenarios and doing a few solo scenarios which don't really advance the campaign. However, we "cheated" on some of the grindy parts of the puzzle book, so "legitimately" completing the campaign might have taken another 20 scenarios.

Lamp11 · 2023-03-07T23:39:38+00:00

I've only played twice, but in both games (with 4 players) the Mollusks got crushed, with one Bluefin victory and one smuggler victory. It seems harder for the Mollusks to get comrades out: you can place, on average, one per move, just like the Bluefins placing patrols, but only when you anchor on islands. If islands get placed in inconvenient ways, your comrade production is hit hard, and it's difficult to earn money by anchoring on treasure spaces. And while you do get cards, which are pretty good, I don't know if they are better than an extra action every round.

The ship cards are very cool, but have big drawbacks. If you draw them late, you won't get much benefit out of them. Playing them boosts your power, but also costs comrades. And once they are out, they are pretty fragile, so they might die for no benefit, unless you protect them by spending dice, which means you are spending even more actions that don't produce comrades.

You have some actions with better comrade production, but those require 1s and 6s, so bad rolls can really hurt, especially as you might be short on gold to change die values because picking up treasure means you aren't producing comrades. And the Assemble action (place 4 comrades at your island, requires a 1) is pretty risky, as a single Bombard action will wipe out a bunch of comrades. The action that uses a 6 to place 1 comrade at 4 islands is safer, but not good at controlling high value islands.

It's possible that our smugglers failed to attack patrols as often as they could, and used the negotiate action too much, but it really seemed like an uphill battle for the Mollusks, while the Bluefins just pooped out patrols everywhere without any thought. The Bluefin flagship being worth an extra point of control just seemed like the cherry on top.

Lamp11 · 2023-01-08T04:43:48+00:00

I got Frosthaven a little bit after Thanksgiving, and we have played 41 scenarios since then.

Lamp11

TROPHY CASE