shogikappa

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Went to an anime con today but forgot to take a photo there so I took one back at home.

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Some current thoughts on our current board games list, Dec 2023

I've wanted to do a fun thing where people vote for their liking of board games, as a sort of popularity vote thing, but I've been pessimistic that it would hype up results considering the general lack of activity in my server and the small number of people who play board games with me, so instead, I thought of sharing my own thoughts on these games.

I'll try to keep this list relatively short so that hopefully you woiuldn't have already fallen asleep by the time you're done reading this sentence.

Cleopatra and the Society of Architects

I wanted to start by saying that Cleopatra got clearly dethroned despite having been a former mainstay of our groups. Couple with one of the players' lack of enthusiasm for the game and me having played this for over 10 years, I'm preferring games where I have more control and options now, similar to my sentiments on the game Ludo. Most of the game you seem to be waiting on getting cards that match and then just playing them when you do. The strict 10-card limit doesn't give you many options, just draw and play if you draw the right cards.

2. Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico has for the most part been a mainstay for our groups. But between my parents not playing competitively and my IRL friends seeming to be just "fine" with this style of game, this game has mostly been only played with my online groups where it seems to be a lot more enjoyed by comparison.

The inclusion of what are essentially slaves does make this game difficult to recommend to new players as I'd prefer to make sure that this would sit well with the players first. There is a new edition that replaces them with paid workers, but I already have multiple versions of this game, and the board game cafes also generally use the original edition, so it isn't too easy to play the sanitized version.

It seems that San Juan, a card game alternative, is also pretty well-liked among my friends and parents, perhaps due to its shorter time needed and simplicity. Its lack of direct reference to slavery also make it easier to recommend to new players.

3. Fellowships of Fate

One of the newer games I got as part of the East Asian board games buys, Fellowships of Fate seems to have good staying power. My internet friends seem to quite enjoy it, though it seems I've only managed to play this with one IRL friend and my parents. They didn't seem all that enthusiastic about it, especially my parents, though in part due to it having an RPG theme which my parents aren't fond of.

This is a light game and I think will be one with considerable staying power. I look forward to playing this some more.

4. Maid Knight Saga

This is an unfortunate one. Its high complexity in the rules and its lack of clear instructions on the cards seem to have been offputting to a friend in each of the groups, enough for one of them to suggest against playing this game even. I think that is a big shame though, as the strategic aspect of this game is I think really cool, though I generally stress about hosting this game for everyone and consequently never really get to strategize myself because it's easy to make mistakes, especially for those who are new to the game.

However, this game's lack of reliance on text makes it a decent candidate for playing with different groups who speak different languages, compared to another game with an anime-aesthetic that we have been doing, Kradia 2: Wild Hunt Festival, which is highly text-dependent, and makes it a hard recommend for players who can't read the hero skill effects.

5. Dominion/Heart of Crown

In general, whether our groups play Dominion or Heart of Crown comes down to accessibility. Dominion is more likely to be found in board game cafes, but if my friends are coming over or if we're having an online game via tabletop sim and have the time for it (it generally takes around 3 hours, even though the box says it only takes 40 mins), I do Heart of Crown with my weeb friends.

Perhaps not too surprisingly, these games seem to sit the most well with my groups who enjoy TCGs. My parents and one of the groups seem a little less enthusiastic about it, although one of the groups still isn't clear on the scoring system yet.

6. Citadels

Citadels has been my favourite board game for a while. In the lastyear, it's seen considerably fewer plays, most recently been overshadowed by the new games our groups are more obsessed over, namely the aforementioned Fellowships of Fate and Heart of Crown.

My recent game of Citadels at a board game club took unexpectedly long and I used a card to make the game end at 7 cards because I didn't want to discuss the shorter rules when the rest of them were following the 8-card endgame condition as shown in the instructions.

7. Scrabble

I've had recent resparked interest in Scrabble after seeing people play in ways that specifically prevent their opponent from being able to score the Triple Word scores. It was then that I found out that Scrabble is actually a deep strategy game, when at school they promoted it as a game where you simply make big words, as part of an English-learning game.

I do recommend rethinking about this game as a strategy game and not just as a "make big words game", which may give you quite a different perspective on it if you had also only played it like we had.

The main problem with this game is that it is language-dependent, which makes it ill-suited for groups whose English (or any language that uses the Roman alphabet) isn't too good. I was recommended Qwirkle as an alingual alternative, but even its board variant Qwirkle Connect cannot replicate the strategies you build around premium spaces in Scrabble. Qwirkle seems to be played in my groups as more of a necessity to avoid the use of English. If you want the full experience of strategizing around the spaces and tiles with different point values, we'll have to bust out the original Scrabble.

8. Goita

A traditional game from Noto, Goita is played using tiles with the instantly-recognizable shogi shape.

Shogi is a hard game to master. I have some friends who have shown interest in shogi, but cannot bring their defenses enough to prevent a simple static rook attack. I like to introduce them to Goita as something shogi-themed, but that is much easier to pick up.

Goita is played over multiple short rounds, and as such fit the requirements of filler/micro board games. I find that I enjoy playing Goita as a filler game, although it tends to take longer than smaller micro games such as Love Letter. The only problem is again, language dependency. Not even my some of my English-speaking weeb friends recognize the kanji on shogi pieces, so I recommend internationalized sets like the one I have devised specifically for Goita (shown below), or alternatively try the adaptation Kami, which is the same game (with small changes, especially regarding 2 and 3 player rules) but without using kanji. At least that would probably be less off-putting if you're trying to introduce this to a friend.

Above: My internationalized Goita set for those who have trouble with kanji.

9. Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes

Along with 100% Orange Juice, these make the digital board games portion of my board games list. I debated whether I wanted to add this game to our board game rotation, but I decided to focus less on whether it qualifies as a board game and more in its experience. Keep Talking sure has more in common with playing a board game with your friends than playing a multiplayer video game with your friends. In fact, the sentiment that this "is essentially a board game" has also been echoed in board game forums, but the fact that the computer needs to check for whether you have solved the randomly-generated puzzles makes this hard to be a physical board game.

This doesn't see a lot of plays, partially as it is mostly best with 2 players and requires your friends to not mind going through large amounts of texts (which some of them do), as well as either playing local co-op or through a voice call (I don't imagine it would be as easy to defuse them as fast if you're typing in the voice text channel, unless you're looking for a real challenge), but I thought it would be funny to talk about it making into our board games list.

Final words

I suppose I'll end the list here. I could say more, but I wanted not to make this list too long so that more of you may (hopefully) get to the end. If there are any games I have more thoughts on, I suppose I will write up a new post when the time comes.

Happy board gaming!

#board game #board games #tabletop games #tabletop gaming

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Got my Little Red Riding Hood costume

#Cosplay #little red riding hood #fairy tale

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Since it has been requested, here are printable images of my custom Scrabble reusable score cards.

Deviantart: https://www.deviantart.com/tangentg/art/Scrabble-score-cards-Players-A-B-printable-999348576 https://www.deviantart.com/tangentg/art/Scrabble-score-cards-Players-C-D-printable-999349041

#scrabble #board game #tabletop gaming

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Took some more

#Alice in Wonderland #Cosplay

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Got my Alice cosplay items finally

#alice in wonderland #cosplay #fairy tale #fairy tales

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Custom Scrabble score tracker cards

Back when I was in primary school, I had made these Scrabble score trackers with paper and paper clips so we didn't have to use paper and then throw them away. These 2 days I had been working on remaking these but with a cardboard and plastic wrap. Pretty happy with how they turned out.

Could also be used with other games, like Qwirkle.

#board games #tabletop gaming #board game #tabletop games #scrabble

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Different kinds of Dominion players

#tabletop games #tabletop gaming #board game #board games #dominion

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Made a linktree today. Always thought about putting my creations in one place but never got around to it until today

https://linktr.ee/tzetsienghwaang

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#I hope they feel like Italian today

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Ludo - probably the worst board game I've played

My first board games, if you wanted to count broadly, were chess, xiangqi, doushouqi, luzhanqi, Monopoly, Scrabble, Boggle, and Ludo variants. It wasn't until I reached middle school that I started playing various, what I would call then, "big board games", the likes of longer, multiplayer board games like the German-style Puerto Rico or American-style Monsters Menace America.

For a while I had this phase with Ludo variants. In a way I don't think I really liked the games per se, but I was interested in all the cross and circle game variants, including Airplane Chess, Parchisi, Trouble, and Sorry. After discovering Sorry, that would become my preferred cross and circle game, as that patches up a lot of the complaints I have with Ludo, but still a number of annoyances remain.

As a Hong Konger, Airplane chess is our local variant of cross and circle game. Comparing Ludo with it, Ludo already pales in comparison due to the lack of coloured spaces that let you move ahead, making the game even slower. Ludo by comparison is just completely bland, without anything interesting on the board. It also pales in comparison to other ancient race games, like Senet.

My main complaints with Ludo are the following:

A) You need to roll a 6 to enter one of your pawns

That is something I really hated. For the first couple rounds, all of you are going to sit there hoping to roll a 6. And then that one player who does will keep moving their pawn around the board while the rest of you just sit and watch.

This seems to be unnecessarily prolonging the game, requiring a 6 before you can really start to take part in the game. Sorry patches this with a lot of cards that let you enter your pawns.

B) If you get knocked out, you are sent all the way back to start and have to wait for another 6-roll again

No matter how much progress you've made, one KO and you have to hope for a 6 again to enter your pawn back. Chances are by this point you already have one or more other pawns in play, but still, having to start this whole "waiting for a 6" again is just tedious.

C) The player's presence doesn't make much difference

Sometimes I've heard players go like "I need to use the toilet. Please roll the die for me and move on my behalf". I then realize that my presence, or indeed any player's presence is not needed at the board. Anyone could stand in for me, and it wouldn't make a difference. I didn't need to be there. And after 10 years of big board games and indeed 20 years of all board games, I've come to prefer games where my presence does actually make a difference to the game. There are choices to be made and choices that I could make to make the outcome of the game different, ones that, if another player made the choices, things would have been different. Like a game of chess, your choices are yours, and anyone else "standing in" for you would not be the same as you playing the game.

D) It is too luck-based and you don't have many choices on what to do. The die dictates the fate of the game too much

This ties in with my previous point. The die dictates the fate of the game, therefore I'm not even needed at the board. After so many years, I've come to prefer games where I could at least make some choices. With games like Senet, despite them also involving a lot of luck, I feel the presence of the many choices and the few special squares, as well as the Egyptian vibe, keep the game somewhat interesting. In Ludo, you're choosing which of your pawns to move, so there is at least some degree of choice in the game, but it feels very minor compared to the heavy influence of the die. Most of the time you're probably just choosing between 2 pawns, so there isn't much room for options here.

Ludo and its variants are probably going to be forever put inside my shelf, with me only busting out Ludo if I wanted to prevent one of the dice cheaters from always rolling a 6 (one of my friends, yeah). I've played a lot of better games since then, and if I'm going to recommend a good race game today, I'd recommend the digital board game 100% Orange Juice, which adds cards, battle, different objectives (star or wins norma), and branching paths for the player to choose from, into the mix. Players also can stand back on their feet after being KO'd much more easily, getting progressively easier to re-enter the game with each turn. The cards from all players are also randomly shuffled together, so you won't get that TCG problem of the player who has gacha'd that powerful rare card always beating the player who only has the default cards. Compared to Ludo, 100% Orange Juice has just vastly patched all of my problems with it.

Ludo/Airplane chess may have been an early board game for me, but I'm thankful to have encountered a lot of better board games since then.

#board games #board game #tabletop games

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TCC 16 Nov 2023 update.

ds- is respelt as tz- to keep it in line with "traditional-looking" Romanizations (such as in "Yangtze River").

zh- may be considered a variant spelling with j-. The two initials may be conflated under j-.

<aa> is again an accepted substitute for <â>, especially when tone marks are added.

-io is still yu when followed by an initial.

For the rationale behind the n-/ṇ- (nr-) distinction, see the previous version.

Previous version

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A table comparing the names of the characters in Apothecary Diaries in different languages.

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[SynthV cover] Move It (feat. 弦巻マキ w/ Shadows guitar tone)

#synthv #synthesizer v

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my first cantonese synthv cover

#youtube #synthv #synthesizer v

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[SynthV cover] Let's Go to Hawaii (feat. 弦巻マキ)

#youtube #synthesizer v #synthv

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巨浪 All Back 頭 (強風オールバック/Kyoufuu All Back surf rock cover)

#youtube #vocaloid cover