pandemic – Sundered Realm

Board Game Geek Top 100 Checklist, Part 2

Last week I started looking at the Board Game Geek (BGG) top 100 games. I looked to see if I had the game in my collection and talked a little bit about each one, if I could. At the end of the first ten games I only owned 3 of them, for a paltry 30% ownership rate. Today I will cover games ranked from 90 up to 81 and see if I can improve that ratio.

For all posts in this series check for the BGG Top 100 tag. Continue reading “Board Game Geek Top 100 Checklist, Part 2”

Zoom For Games

Covid sucks. I have barely been able to get out of the house. On the plus side, my car insurance company gave me a rebate, so there’s that…

But what do we do about social events like board games? How does that work? I have played games with my sister (remote in Colorado) as well as local friends (local meaning each in our own houses, they just happen to be our normal board game partner family). As we have played I have slowly figured out some things that help (or hurt) the board game experience, so I thought I would share. Continue reading “Zoom For Games”

First Impression: Defenders of the Realm

Our Liege is in desperate hour! From what grievous cause have these accursed races arisen? Orcs, Dragons, Demons and the Dead make haste towards Monarch City. The King and Countryside of Monarch City is in need of valiant Heroes!

Will you answer the King’s call?

Defenders of the Realm is a 1-4 player game that definitely feels like it was inspired by Pandemic. Cooperative game? Check. Collecting card sets of the same color? Check. Special / unique player abilities? Check. Escalating threat levels as the game progresses? Check. Multiple ways to lose, with only one way to win? Check.

Dragons? No, dragons are not in Pandemic, and of course they are super-way cool. 😎

Side note: I wanted to write this entire post using the Comic Sans font, but WordPress would not let me. Something about the ’90s called and took their font back… Continue reading “First Impression: Defenders of the Realm”

Father’s Day Fun

“A good friend will help you move, but a true friend will help you move a body.”
— Steven J. Daniels

Yesterday we helped some friends move. Today the same friends came over and we had a much less stressful afternoon for Father’s Day. We played several games of Welcome to the Dungeon along with a session of Love Letter. I had picked up a premium edition of “Love Letter” essentially by accident, but it sure is pretty. Normally with this group of friends we like to play Pandemic or Dead of Winter but after a long day moving boxes around it was nice to have something simple.

Good times. 😎

Oops!

As detailed previously, I picked up a game called Fury of Dracula essentially by accident. I bought the 3rd edition. A 4th edition was just released but by a new publisher. What the new publisher did really well (and frankly I was quite impressed) was they spent time reading and talking to folks on BoardGameGeek.com to review commonly debated issues and address them in the revised rule book. Fantastic idea!

The problems came about because the same level of attention was not given to the graphical elements of the board game. Oops. Continue reading “Oops!”