RogerBW's Blog

Thirsty Meeples July 2016 05 August 2016

Back to the boardgame café again. With images; cc-by-sa on everything.

The first game of the evening was Automobiles, the latest game from David Short who also designed the uninspiring-to-me Planes. This is a deck-builder based on cubes of different colours: yes, it could be done with cards instead, but I rather like the tactile qualities of rummaging around in a bag. "Gears" are standard for every game, while the coloured cubes mean different things each time (being selected from a larger set of roles much as one does in Coup: Rebellion G54), and the more one does the more "wear" (useless brown) cubes go into the bag.

I had a great time, and not only because I won. Yeah, all right, the track is in shades of grey and it doesn't look anything like as sexy as the box art suggests (a problem in common with AEG's Planes and Trains). But it's the second deck-builder I don't dislike (after Star Realms), I think in part because it too is not multiplayer solitaire: you're constantly interacting with other cars on the track. Definitely one to buy when funds and space allow. (And I can already see the shape of the cube stand I'll build.)

Next up was Munchkin Panic (of which a copy is now mine thanks to a cheap offer at Amazon). It's just that little bit tougher than standard Castle Panic, and rather enjoyable. We did exhaust the bag before everything fell apart, though we didn't win.

Arboretum next, a rather odd game; I enjoyed it in an odd way, but I don't think I want to play again. It's just a bit too consciously different from other set-collecting games. Can a boardgame be trying too hard?

Finally a couple of rounds of Timeline: Music and Cinema, where we broke it again on the first round (all getting all our choices right) and only just managed not to on the second. Maybe we should stick to the General Interest version.

[Buy Automobiles at Amazon] [Buy Munchkin Panic at Amazon] [Buy Arboretum at Amazon] [Buy Timeline: Music and Cinema at Amazon] and help support the blog. ["As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases."]


  1. Posted by Michael Cule at 12:26pm on 05 August 2016

    I was the grumpy player who hated digging the fiddly little cubes out of the trays. Cards! Cards, I say!

  2. Posted by RogerBW at 12:30pm on 05 August 2016

    My answer is to make a better cube-tray than that easily-toppled plastic thing. Or just have piles of them, on a larger table.

Comments on this post are now closed. If you have particular grounds for adding a late comment, comment on a more recent post quoting the URL of this one.

Search
Archive
Tags 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 3d printing action advent of code aeronautics aikakirja anecdote animation anime army astronomy audio audio tech base commerce battletech beer boardgaming book of the week bookmonth chain of command children chris chronicle church of no redeeming virtues cold war comedy computing contemporary cornish smuggler cosmic encounter coup covid-19 crime crystal cthulhu eternal cycling dead of winter doctor who documentary drama driving drone ecchi economics en garde espionage essen 2015 essen 2016 essen 2017 essen 2018 essen 2019 essen 2022 essen 2023 existential risk falklands war fandom fanfic fantasy feminism film firefly first world war flash point flight simulation food garmin drive gazebo genesys geocaching geodata gin gkp gurps gurps 101 gus harpoon historical history horror hugo 2014 hugo 2015 hugo 2016 hugo 2017 hugo 2018 hugo 2019 hugo 2020 hugo 2021 hugo 2022 hugo 2023 hugo 2024 hugo-nebula reread in brief avoid instrumented life javascript julian simpson julie enfield kickstarter kotlin learn to play leaving earth linux liquor lovecraftiana lua mecha men with beards mpd museum music mystery naval noir non-fiction one for the brow opera parody paul temple perl perl weekly challenge photography podcast politics postscript powers prediction privacy project woolsack pyracantha python quantum rail raku ranting raspberry pi reading reading boardgames social real life restaurant reviews romance rpg a day rpgs ruby rust scala science fiction scythe second world war security shipwreck simutrans smartphone south atlantic war squaddies stationery steampunk stuarts suburbia superheroes suspense television the resistance the weekly challenge thirsty meeples thriller tin soldier torg toys trailers travel type 26 type 31 type 45 vietnam war war wargaming weather wives and sweethearts writing about writing x-wing young adult
Special All book reviews, All film reviews
Produced by aikakirja v0.1