You do know tabletop, right? Wil Wheaton? If you don’t, but are into board games, you need to start watching his show. Like, right now.
Back? Never left?
If you are like me, you’ve been watching this show which has also led to your wallet becoming suspiciously lighter as you start buying board game after board game. Not only does this show give you an idea if the game is any good, it makes you have a decent overview of the rules of the game, which helps if no one has played the game before.
Below, I’ll share a couple of shows that I enjoyed and my reactions to playing these games.
Last Night on Earth
Last Night on Earth is a fun game. Needing an even number of players, two players play as the soon to be victims of the zombies, and two play as the zombies. In the video, it seems like most people at the table are having a good time, except for Felicia Day, who appears to be very bored and ends up playing with a zombie in the corner.
We had a good time with it, and in some ways the humans played like a “Arkham Horror”-lite game. The zombies were fun, and it was great to get characters cornered by the zombies, with no way out.
My friend Michael owns this, and while I’m not buying it anytime soon, I’m not bummed when he brings it over for game night either.
The Resistance
God, I loved this episode. My friends and I used to play epic, massive games of mafia back in the day (think 20+ people), and I’ve wanted to play it again, but it’s tough to do unless you have a decent-sized group. This card game fixes that, for a very reasonable price.
Our game ended similarly to the episode, with one of the players making a massive blunder and approving a mission that caused my side to lose. I had a blast, other people weren’t so sure. I’d love to play it again, when I have a chance and see if it can improve for other people.
Takenoko
God, this is a beautiful game. Just a beautiful, beautiful game. It’s got pretty decent mechanics too. It’s a resource gathering game, in the vein of Lords of Waterdeep or Agricola, but the scoring is done on cards (which are like missions) and the game doesn’t have a defined end. Instead, it’s when a player completes a certain number of cards.
We never seemed to play this just right, as there are a number of small rules that can be easily forgotten, but every time we played it we had fun, and it’s not an incredibly long game, either.
My brother, myself and my friend Brad had a long discussion about this game after we had played it a couple times, and we really wonder if one of the colors are worth playing. There are three different colors of bamboo and tiles, and there are different amounts of each color. The most common color scores nearly 50% less than the least common color. I have a feeling, as we play the game more and get better at playing against each other, rather than just play for our own goals, the more common colors will become more valuable. The least common color will be hoarded, and protected to prevent others from scoring with them.
To be continued…
There have been other games I’ve gotten or played since watching a Tabletop episode, but those will have to wait for another day.
