Board games I miss playing, and would be playing right now if people suddenly showed up at my doorstep:
* Fief. Next time we play we’re adding the other expansions.
* Eclipse. There’s an expansion coming out SQUEE!
* Android (the original, not Netrunner)
* Fleet. Why do we not play Fleet any more? Oh right, because the expansion is great to play but terrible to integrate.
* Clash of Cultures. Whenever I think of 3 people sitting down to play something, it’s Clash. Dunno why.
* Historia, although it may only have another play or two left in it. It’s nice but a little disappointing. I feel like it needs more than just the one play, though.
I love all of those…
Well, I didn’t love Android, but I’d be willing to experience it again.
Ahh Fleet. I really like that one. My 9 year old is starting to request it too!
Man, I wanted to love Android so bad. So many things that were almost there, but the gestalt of it just didn’t click.
I’ve thought about making a game based on Android that tweaks a few of the things that didn’t quite click for me.
I may be alone in my love of Android.
Android has been collecting dust on my shelf for years, but I heard that there’s a set of house rules that tweaks the “mystery” to make it more of an issue for “player-characters” rather than “player-directors” which might alleviate some of my issues. I’d like to try those out.
Every time someone complains that Android isn’t Clue, a kitten is fed into a chipper.
For me, it wasn’t even the mystery part, which I think didn’t click with lots of people. I actually kind of liked that as you find evidence against people, they stand to become more guilty.
Mine was more of an issue with how all the interlocking pieces didn’t quite click together. It’s such an… ambitious game and setting, though. There isn’t much out there that’s so evocative.
I’ve got everything but the enormous fabric map, and I want it too. Someday I’ll paint up my Ship Pack One plastic. I love everything about Eclipse. Everything.
Phil Lewis I think my only Android hiccup took place whenever I forgot to pursue the conspiracy game. I like it! But it’s not really integrated into the rest of the fiction very well.
I think one of the detectives is optimized to win the conspiracy game, though, so maybe playing that one feels like it’s more tightly tied in.
I’m probably not bringing Android to NM. 🙂
Yeah, that was one of those ambitious elements that was tricky to juggle in. Dang it, now I’m going to start thinking about that game again! Tainted love.
I don’t care that it’s not Clue. I just find the bits don’t have enough of a feedback loop for my tastes. I want exposing the conspiracy to result in corporate goons beating up my character. I want digging into the mystery to result in my contacts suddenly “moving to the off-world colonies”. Basically I want it to be a scifi skin of Dirty Secrets (another non-pre-determined murder mystery game).
Edit: yeah, what Phil Lewis said.
One of my favorite bits was the little dance between how outcomes were tied tightly to location types (i.e. don’t bring your robot investigator to the bad part of town, he’ll get beat up), and how clues move onworld and offworld as they were investigated. Because of course if you know the robot needs that clue, you’re gonna stick it in the bad part of town so he gets beat up.
Now TELL me that isn’t genius design.
Same with the angry bipolar guy, the sad rich girl, etc. etc. Get all five characters in play — and yes it will take 10 hours, shut up — with everyone loaded with those fuck-you cards, and it’s glorious.
Paul Beakley Oh, yeah. Great sophistication, and a lot of wheels that move other wheels.
My disappointment was that the gloriousness only lasts the first couple hours when everyone is taking the time to read and savor the flavor text…and then game fatigue sets in and people start just going through the motions mechanically just to get to the end, and you lose sight of the interactive story you could be creating.
Ralph Mazza that’s true.
Those people are weak. But it’s also true.
The sham cards are also much harder to juggle when there’s all this other stuff going on. It’s not quite as bad in Descent or Mansions of Madness when it’s like your one job. I feel like the sham cards should have been folded even more into the locations – make them even more personalized for the characters.
Ralph Mazza Oh, that’s something else that would add a lot of punch to the game: cliffhangers. I’m not sure how you would make cliffhangers interesting in a boardgame, but if the game could build a bunch of tension and then pause it, giving everyone a chance to relax and get back into it, then start fresh on the big dramatic conclusion… that would be really exciting.
I suspect I want to drift the game so much that it just becomes a full-on RPG, though.
Android would make a really legit cyberpunk game setting, definitely. Did FFG ever actually do that?
There’s a series of novels based on the setting, yes.
Freefall is the only one I read and it was legit good.
Shockingly, no. Seems like they could use a variant of the house system they made for WFRPG3 and now Star Wars with lots of cards and bits and custom dice, so it’s surprising that they haven’t gone that way. Probably not nearly enough money in it to justify it.
I would totally play Android with you. You are not alone. I keep getting out the board to use for a map for Remember Tomorrow
How much are tickets to Paulcon 2016?
Haha! MadJay Brown will talk about that in a few weeks. 🙂
No joke, it’s happening.