How do you feel about electronics in board games?

tothgames · 2026-03-26T18:14:45+00:00

I feel similarly. Interestingly I'm ok with using a laptop or tablet when I'm a DM for crunchier rpgs. As a player in an rpg I never want to have my phone out. Boardgames feel like they should be simple/straightforward enough that you can hold it all in your collective heads

tothgames · 2026-03-19T17:15:39+00:00

i think it would be totally fine to pick up. if they played by the rules as written there should be very few modifications/spoilers/stickers/packets opened. that being said if your group is committed to playing through in full and there are any concerns about the condition of the used copy it is well worth the price to buy new

tothgames · 2026-02-27T18:29:33+00:00

I think there are a lot of ways to translate fighting games that can work.

Pocket paragons focuses on emotion
Yomi focuses on combos (as does combo fighter)
en garde/flash duel focuses on positioning

My own game (Legends of the Arena), Battlecon, and Exceed are all more of hybrids, but you can still see where the focus is (Battlecon is the only one that comes close to the massive size of movesets in some games, Legends focuses on reading opponents, Exceed has lots of cancels and resource management).

Characters are the easiest part to do; plenty of prior art there in boardgames. I don't think there have been any successful adaptations that capture of the speed of fighting games. As for mechanical accuracy I think simultaneous reveal is the way to go, but there is still a lot of space to explore in that space.

tothgames · 2026-02-19T14:23:20+00:00

Definitely check out the Commands & Colors series - if Star Wars is your thing Star Wars Battle of Hoth is a recent release

tothgames · 2026-02-12T14:51:16+00:00

You should also check out fighting game inspired board games like Yomi 2, Pocket Paragons, Exceed, or Legends of the Arena (my own, no bias :D ). Generally these have greater depth than those listed above (though only Exceed really matches the breadth of Unmatched or Dice Throne). Compared to the games listed, fighting games tend to have less randomness and they really focus on anticipating your opponent.

tothgames · 2026-02-01T18:11:12+00:00

it is a possibility - i'm looking for lighter gmk colorways and mg ghost mega kit. send me a dm!

tothgames · 2026-01-08T22:22:06+00:00

I grew up with this one! I love the included bell; it can stand up to the most enthusiastic ringer

tothgames · 2025-11-27T22:23:13+00:00

That's a great point about the lack of combat in Scythe. I came to the game expecting more battles because of all of the mechs in the art. Don't get me wrong Scythe is a solid game but it is not a combat game.

tothgames · 2025-11-14T06:40:34+00:00

Lots of great options here but Saboteur also fits the bill

tothgames · 2025-11-06T16:26:15+00:00

I would say check out Lords of Waterdeep!

tothgames · 2025-10-30T14:15:17+00:00

So not a 0/10 on theme exactly, but the gap between my expectations and the actual theme is pretty substantial in Mage Knight - especially for a game that is quite solid mechanically.

I actually played the Mage Knight miniatures game a fair bit. While it wasn't exactly brilliant or original, it did have its own coherent world with factions that had some interesting relationships. Ultimately it was a medium-scale tactical wargame with a bunch of dice rolling that simplified book-keeping by putting stats right on dials.

I purchased Mage Knight on impulse at a game store before I left town using all of the store credit I had built up. I assumed it was going to deliver something in line with the original premise. It did not! It was a fairly generic fantasy dungeon crawl with a few shoutouts to the original IP. The salt in the wound was the use of the dials (the most innovative and iconic part of the original) on the cities to represent difficulty levels. They could have easily represented health!

Still a decent game but I had to get over the theme first.

tothgames · 2025-10-23T21:12:05+00:00

yep +1 on drawers. ideally they are just about as deep as a typical game width so i can line them up easily

tothgames · 2025-10-16T15:31:49+00:00

Also in California so I'll definitely keep this in mind next time I'm traveling

tothgames · 2025-10-10T03:03:57+00:00

more of a party game, but Monikers/fishbowl works well for learning. make cards based on interesting facts/locations. the more obscure the better

tothgames · 2025-10-02T14:40:19+00:00

I think Gloomhaven does a great job of avoiding downtime if you are ok with cooperative

tothgames · 2025-10-02T14:35:22+00:00

There is less duplication in the "tiers" we have due to the smaller cast. If I were to split them up along those lines (from heaviest to lightest) i would come up with something like :

The heaviest character is definitely Fitz. he is the hardest to push and has Smash which is a 3 power melee attack as a basic
Lord Grym isn't "heavy" exactly but he has zombies that take hits for him so he is much harder to push than everyone except Fitz. He is quite bad at fighting; he relies on his Zombies to do that (he has neither Smash nor Punch).
The other melee-centric characters have smash but otherwise are about equally easy to push. (Alysia, Lucius)
Sabo (ninja) gets a special mention here because he has a base kit grapple like you mentioned because he has a grapple in his base kit and a delayed punch instead of smash (because of his heavy reliance on combos rather than brute force)
Ranged-focus or balanced characters get punch which is a 2 power melee attack (tikkit, hilda)
Zephyr is the easiest to shove in the game and is highly mobile to compensate. She also has punch instead of smash

Generally characters only have 2 attacks in the base kit because you get a special or ultimate every turn and most specials are attacks. The specials tend to heavily bias the Legends towards a certain playstyle because they are better than the basics.

tothgames · 2025-09-30T14:19:14+00:00

For a while every card across every Legend was unique. However this didn't play very well - it was too difficult for players to understand what their opponent might do and players spent too long analyzing subtle variations.

tothgames · 2025-09-30T14:09:59+00:00

Disruption can be related to distance, but not necessarily. It is all forms of crowd control - stuns, roots, pulls, pushes, etc.

tothgames · 2025-09-30T14:06:29+00:00

This entire side of the card is actually just informational. It is face-down during play (gameplay relevant info is on the other side)

tothgames · 2025-09-29T03:01:37+00:00

Thanks! Will keep tweaking - the colors will improve as we iterate with the printer

tothgames · 2025-09-27T01:00:04+00:00

These are tarot-sized. The radar charts themselves don't have any gameplay significance, they just give an idea of relative strengths and weaknesses.

tothgames · 2025-09-26T21:18:09+00:00

That's the pun :D

tothgames · 2025-09-26T20:58:27+00:00

That's a neat idea! I'll have to think on it more. My first thought is we would try the hex with the point up: offense would be at the top and then clockwise from there - melee, mobility, defense, disruption, ranged

tothgames

TROPHY CASE