Other Christmas Recollections

[toosuto]

Rona has started calling secret_hippie mummy, or sometimes mumma, but she is definitely acclimating to her new surroundings.

Tsuro is a pretty awesome game.

BaHotH is still the most fun broken game ever.

Also giantlaser: Yes, Crunchy Nut Clusters did change my world.

Comments

[theosphere.livejournal.com]

That game looks pretty cool. I dig the format and overall aesthetic.

What's BaHotH, if I might inquire?

[toosuto.livejournal.com]

Betrayal at House on the Hill, it's broken all to hell, including the need to download brand new rulebooks from WoTC upon purchase as well as erratta. Add to that the experience of books still not agreeing with each other and "Wait a minute, that's still broken," decisions to be made while playing. It also has far too many bits (I have 24? 25? tic tac containers filled with carboard chits). Suffice to say buy it off eBay for cheap, never pay the $40 it costs new.

It is still a good hour long role-playing game as long as no one gets too serious about winning or it being "unfair" (it generally is). Perhaps dr_tectonic, bryree, saintpookie or kung_fu_monkey might be able to better quantify why the game is still so awesome.

[theosphere.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes - the hardcore gamer's willingness to be tortured by an ill-made game, because the concept is so damn cool. I would call this "Wizards" syndrome, which is named after an early-80's game that asks you and at least four of your friends to take the next 6 to 8 hours to save the Wizards world.

The first two hours are grueling. But hours 3-7 are fantastic. Generally hour 8 involves everyone losing, because the board slowly eats itself and it's hard to complete all your quests with no location tiles.

[toosuto.livejournal.com]

Well it's not quite that bad. But some of the endgames end up horribly unbalanced and result in a straight out blood-bath slaughter of the heroes. Luckily it's pretty easy to enjoy the carnage in some way. Plus it's really only about an hour a game.

Looks like Wizards is also published by Avalon Hill, maybe the broken is written into the corporate genetic code...

[theosphere.livejournal.com]

Conspiracy!

That could be a fun board game - uncover the bureaucratic mess at Avalon Hill, and destroy them!

[giantlaser.livejournal.com]

Behold the awesome that is those little clusters. :)