Board-Games on Shrieking.net

Board Games I Played in 2022

Sun, 03 Sep 2023 09:00:00 +0000

I haven’t written the full list out this year. I got to play a lot of games, but I don’t have a lot to say about them.

Codenames

Forever a classic. This was my most played game of 2022, and I wish I had counted up how many times I’ve played this over the years because I’m sure I’ve played this more than anything else ever, possibly including chess. Codenames is the best warm-up game - people can join in mid-game, it’s very very easy to teach, games are short, and there are never any hard feelings because it’s always such a team effort.

Board Games I Played in 2021

Fri, 23 Dec 2022 09:00:00 +0000

It’s almost the end of 2022 so I know what you’re all thinking: what did Mac play in 2021? Well, here you are, here’s the list.

Wingspan

We played Wingspan online while we couldn’t meet in person. I don’t think it deserves the hype it got but I do enjoy it very much. It’s very relaxed, the player interaction is subtle and the theme is really unique. It’s a shame the online version doesn’t include the expansions, I really want to try them out.

Board Games I Played in 2019

Thu, 04 Jun 2020 10:16:35 +0000

Well, we’re half way through 2020, so this is rather late, but here it is!

2019 was a fantastic year in board games for me. My wife and I got into the habit of playing most Sundays, and I tried hard to get out to the Witney board gaming club as much as possible. I haven’t written about every game I played (there are over 50 in the list), but here’s a selection of things I wanted to write about.

Essen Spiel '15: Day Four

Wed, 28 Oct 2015 10:17:43 +0000

The last day! About half of these games were played in the halls and the other half were played in the hotel lobby as we sifted through our purchases.

##Queen’s Architect

Queen’s Architect has fantastic mechanics: your workers are on hexagons which dock into your little player sheet, and as you use them they rotate, changing which point is docked with your sheet. Some workers get better as they work, some get tired. When they complete a full rotation, they retire, but you can rotate them the other way by sending them to the inn. That whole thing is great, but it’s just solitaire - you barely interact with the other players at all. As a result, I felt that this game was missing an important piece of the puzzle. It feels like the next game to leverage this mechanic will nail it, though, and we’ll have something to shout about.

Essen Spiel '15: Day Three

Mon, 26 Oct 2015 13:42:40 +0000

Yes, I’m still writing about Essen. Onwards!

##Artificium

We arrived at the hall as a group of 6, which is a ridiculous number when trying to demo games, but Artificium seated 6 and had a free table, so we played it. I found it ok, but many members of the group were less charitable. It had a bunch of dumb action cards which let you steal from other players, which screwed up the strategy element of the rest of the game somewhat.

Essen Spiel '15: Day Two

Thu, 22 Oct 2015 08:38:06 +0000

##Viticulture

After reflecting on day one’s lack of purchase success, we stumbled upon a free table for Viticulture and solved all my woes. This game is beautiful in every direction and feels deep and intense and well thought out. I want it. The edition on sale was 65 euro, however, so I decided to hold off. I’m not sure I’d ever get to play it, anyway, I don’t have much time for long games like this these days. Still, I was delighted to find a game that felt really, really good.

Essen Spiel '15: Day One

Sun, 18 Oct 2015 16:37:11 +0000

Last weekend Spiel ‘15, an absolutely huge board game fair, took place in its long standing home of Essen in Germany. After years of wanting to go to Spiel but never quite being organised enough, I finally made it. It was a good year for it, as something like 14 of my friends managed to go this year: it was a great crowd and I had an awesome time. Here are the games I played on day one.

Watch The Skies: Actual things that happened

Mon, 08 Jun 2015 12:12:54 +0000

This is the third in a set of three articles about a megagame I ran this weekend. I’ve split it into these parts:

Watch The Skies: Organising a megagame (planning, making)
Watch The Skies: On the day (set up, logistics, event management)
Watch The Skies: Actual things that happened (My view of the game)

Finally, a few notes about actually playing the game and the things that happened from the controller’s end. This is rather fragmented and quite possibly out of order, and assumes some knowledge of the game: if you don’t know what Watch The Skies is, you may find some of this rather difficult to follow. Sorry!

Watch The Skies: On the day

Mon, 08 Jun 2015 12:06:04 +0000

This is the second in a set of three articles about a megagame I ran this weekend. I’ve split it into these parts:

Watch The Skies: Organising a megagame (planning, making)
Watch The Skies: On the day (set up, logistics, event management)
Watch The Skies: Actual things that happened (My view of the game)

On the day of Watch The Skies, set up began at 8:15 for a 9:15 start, and I was surprised to find players already at the venue waiting to get in! We had meticulously planned our get in and it ran like clockwork - everything was ready to run by the time we started briefing. It was a huge boost to see players so keen and it was great to have everything organised so quickly.

Watch The Skies: Organising a megagame

Mon, 08 Jun 2015 12:00:47 +0000

This is the first in a set of three articles about a megagame I ran this weekend. I’ve split it into these parts:

Watch The Skies: Organising a megagame (planning, making)
Watch The Skies: On the day (set up, logistics, event management)
Watch The Skies: Actual things that happened (My view of the game)

I was one of the primary event organisers. You can also try these excellent reports from players:

A Weekend of Risk Legacy

Mon, 19 Jan 2015 13:49:14 +0000

We’re on the fourth game of Risk Legacy this weekend, and we’re a little tired, but we can’t stop, because this game is amazing, and we need all five of us to be in one place before we can play it. Simon has the benefit of placing his troops after me, so he can see what I’m up to. I place my HQ near a city in Australia, which I’m hoping to capture, along with the continent, to set myself up early. There is an advantage to be gained here, he realises. He swoops.

What I Played Last Week Stag Edition Pt. 2

Tue, 02 Dec 2014 10:19:40 +0000

Here are the longer games I played during my stag weekend.

Suburbia

I like boring looking board games. I’m not sure why - maybe it’s that I think they must be so good they don’t have to worry about looking good. Suburbia takes the form of nothing but bits of cardboard: cardboard hexes, cardboard score sheet, cardboard money. There are a few wooden tokens per player to track income and score, but that’s as three dimensional as it gets. There isn’t even a board, as such: you build up the board out of hexes as you go along. Anyone who looks at it would be forgiven for never even giving it a chance.

What I Played Last Week Stag Edition Pt. 1

Fri, 14 Nov 2014 15:12:12 +0000

I played 11 different games over the course of my stag weekend, most of them several times over, so it seems fitting to do a bit of a stag edition of my usual What I Played chats.

I have split this into 3 blog posts for the sake of your sanity. Here’s the first: party games!

One Night Ultimate Werewolf

Every time I introduce this game to new people, I find that it surprises me in different ways. We mess with the roles a lot, we find new ways to lie, we find new tactics to catch people out. This time around, we saw an incredible move from the werewolves claiming masons in a game where there were already two masons, causing much chaos, and an incredibly well played robber into werewolf that no-one saw coming. I can’t wait for the expansion.

Board Game Review: Terra Mystica

Mon, 29 Sep 2014 15:02:54 +0000

“Here, pick a race, don’t think too hard about what they do for now.” says Sina, handing me a thick stack of cardboard sheets. He is unpacking Terra Mystica, rated number 3 on Board Game Geek’s list, behind only Twilight Struggle and Through The Ages on their scale of board-game-ness. It’s a brightly coloured Euro game full of bits of wood, featuring absolutely no cards, plastic figures, or dice. I’m already sold. The groups of people you can choose to play as are on two-sided sheets of cardboard, each piece being themed to one colour. The colours match certain places on the board, marking that certain groups of people have affinities to certain types of terrain. Simple enough. I choose the nomads. They look cool.

Daft Souls Talk Board Games

Wed, 03 Sep 2014 09:48:45 +0000

Hello! Just wanted to drop in this episode of a podcast that I rather like, Daft Souls. It’s a video games podcast but in this episode they kick off with a chat about board game Dead of Winter.

They start with it, so just get listening, you don’t need to skip ahead.

They touch a little on the topic of my last blog post here: while video games often provide a good story, board games provide a framework of rules and narrative moments which allow you to create your own stories.

Narratives and Risk Legacy

Mon, 01 Sep 2014 12:01:10 +0000

There are plenty of games out there, like Ladies and Gentlemen, Fiasco, and even Minecraft, that aren’t about winning, whether that’s baked into the game or just clearly not the focus of it. They’re great experiences and I love them dearly. The goal in those is to create an experience, and they’re a lot of fun. Most games, though, are, on some level, about someone winning and someone losing. And I like that. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a bad loser - I’m fine with losing. I might be a bad winner - I’ll get back to you on that. I just love it when a game is close and everyone involved cares about the scoreboard and cares about making the right play. I love that moment when the chatter stops and people get serious.

What I Played Last Week 18/08/14

Mon, 18 Aug 2014 19:55:13 +0000

Fun games this past week! I don’t think one blog post will do them all justice, but I am excited to talk about them, and I think I’ll come back to them in future.

Tzolk’in

Worker placement on steroids, Tzolk’in looks like a euro version of terrible board game classic Mouse Trap. 6 huge gears rotate as the game progresses, moving workers around the board, so when you place them in one turn, you have to consider where they’ll be when it’s time to take them off. What blows my mind about this game is the scarcity of actions available to you each turn. You’re forced to place or remove at least one worker each turn, and quite often, that scuppers your plans, because you were really hoping you could hang on for just one more round while the wheels span. That said, the options open to you for those few actions is usually massive. I think it’s love.

Board Game Review: Through The Ages

Mon, 28 Jul 2014 09:27:44 +0000

![Through The Ages](https://s3.amazonaws.com/ksr/projects/1032430/photo-main.jpg?1402001361)

Through The Ages recently arrived on Board Game Arena, which is our favourite website for online board gaming, so we decided to give it a go.

First up, a note about online board gaming. It’s never, ever going to be anywhere close to real life actual board gaming, in my eyes, but it’s worth being involved in anyway. The ability to get a game any time is great, and the computer-enforced rules solve all disputes. Board setup is a non-issue, and with a voice chat system of some kind, you’ll barely miss being in the same room as your opponents. I also think it’s a great way to try out games and learn them. In fact, Gear and Piston debuted on Board Game Arena, so you could try it before backing the Kickstarter campaign. Brilliant. Not a replacement for real board games, but an excellent addition. Check it out.

What I Played Last Week, 14/07/14

Mon, 14 Jul 2014 10:45:19 +0000

Well, in the last two weeks actually. I’ve had a busy few weeks of playing games, finally getting back to Oxford On Board and managing to get to Thirsty Meeples once, so I’ve got a lot to talk about.

Caylus online

I’ve been playing Caylus online with Sina in a play-by-email format. We make 1-2 moves a day. It is slow, methodical, and intense. On Tuesdays we catch up and talk about the game. It’s a totally different board gaming experience, and I love it.

Board Game Review: Keyflower

Mon, 23 Jun 2014 09:07:11 +0000

![Keyflower](http://cf.geekdo-images.com/images/pic1402797_md.jpg)

I like worker placement. I wouldn’t call myself an expert in it, but I’ve probably played Caylus more than any other board game, and while I do lose a lot, I like to think that I “get” worker placement. I also like auctions, being a computer scientist who’s studied them a little, and I like pretty things, being a person, so when Max and Wayne from Oxford On Board started piling hexagons and meeples onto the table and explaining the rules of Keyflower, I knew I was onto something.