RogerBW's Blog

Boardgames in Isolation: February (part 1) 20 February 2021

More boardgames played from home.

Top of the list is still Rallyman: GT, at which I'm still apparently pretty bad, but I'm having a good time with it.

Some more games of Downforce including some expansion tracks; turn-based on BGA it loses much of the fun that it had in the first (real-ish time) play, so while I may well buy a copy and play it face to face I probably won't do more of the turn-based play where most of my gaming happens at the moment.

Letter Tycoon has slowed down a bit; I'm now playing exclusively in Arena mode, which has standard settings, including the constraint that players have to challenge words they don't think are valid (rather than letting the server's dictionary do it). And if running play-by-forum games has taught me anything it's that each round trip between players and GM, or in this case server, slows down the game. So rather than a single player's turn being

  • play word
  • get an immediate rejection if it's not valid
  • choose patent to buy
  • choose letters to discard

it becomes

  • play word

then at some later point once everyone else has checked in

  • choose patent to buy
  • choose letters to discard

and then two rounds of

  • challenge, or not, someone else's word

Still enjoying the game, even if I can see where the luck comes in.

Some more Lemminge on BGA, where I won on the complicated track.

Small Islands, which I talk about more on the podcast, but in short: a fairly abstract tile-layer that I really enjoy.

(Oh, yeah, the podcast. I'm doing a boardgaming podcast!)

Automobiles on yucata; as with Rallyman GT, I don't play well, but I have a good time.

I've been running new play-by-forum games of Flamme Rouge – this time with software assistance, as I've written a suite of programs to do all the card-shuffling and calculations. (It's very suitable for play-by-forum, because the interactive bits are all deterministic: you send in your cards, you wait for everyone else to have sent in their cards, they all get processed, you find out the new situation and get a new hand, repeat.)

I've sorted out the licences of the various things I've used, and this has now been released – blog post to follow.

More VOLT on BGA. I'm happy to play multiple games of this in a way I've never been with Robo Rally.

Pandemic Legacy: Season 1, not rushing through it – I'm still not a huge fan of core Pandemic and I think I could burn out on this if I played too many games in quick succession. I do enjoy what it's doing with that basic design, though.

And Alhambra as part of a games evening. Turns out I'm really bad at this one…

[Buy Rallyman GT at Amazon] [Buy Letter Tycoon at Amazon] [Buy Automobiles at Amazon] [Buy Flamme Rouge at Amazon] [Buy VOLT at Amazon] [Buy Alhambra at Amazon] [Buy Pandemic Legacy Season 1 at Amazon] and help support the blog. ["As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases."]

See also:
Marlow Tabletop and Board Games 1 February 2021
Marlow Tabletop and Board Games 15 February 2021


  1. Posted by J Michael Cule at 12:30pm on 20 February 2021

    Did you tell me you were doing another podcast? Or did I forget?

    And why no boosting it on the other podcast?

  2. Posted by RogerBW at 12:49pm on 20 February 2021

    Oh, do you think that would be helpful? I suppose.

    More Games Than Time is a podcast about boardgames.

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