Aggressive City Building!

Fenland Gamers, game night, online play

Last night saw 5 members of Fenland Gamers meet up virtually to play games.

The clubs discord server was used to host the evening, and made use of its text chat channel and an audio chat channel.

This side of the evening seemed to work really well, especially the audio chat side. Despite a dip in audio quality from time to time, I enjoyed our banter during the game.

Our first game of Carcassonne was just the base game, no expansions. Both games that we played used the following options:

I do like the dead and remaining tiles features. It’s so handy seeing what tiles are left. It offers hope that you might draw the tile you want, or snuff out that hope knowing you will never complete that town. Dead tiles I like as they act as a constant reminder you or your opponent will never complete that town or abbey.

I got screwed by Oli early on with him tying up two of my meeples for the whole of the game. I was playing at a big disadvantage then. So I was chuffed I drew last place. It was the best I could hope for.

Gavin on the other hand I think was a bit shell shocked with the aggressive play and the whole stealing towns off of players. And I can see how it may be seen a bit cutthroat. But that’s how I’ve always played the game, whether against others or an AI.

Jonathan was able to claw out a victory for the first game.

Our second and final game of the evening used the following expansions:

Naturally with the expansions being used the game took longer to play. But I do enjoy playing Carcassonne with them. It’s why I have them for the physical game as well. I didn’t include the Princess and Dragon expansion because I knew Jonathan wasn’t a fan of it. Although with this many players it would become so tactical, and yes add even more playing time.

There were some great battles going on in this game for control of towns and fields. One of those battles involved Jonathan, Oli, and Gavin for control of a field. It looked right up to the last two or three tiles that Jonathan had it. But Oli managed to steal it from him and the win.

We had a great time playing a classic board game using a really great digital version.

Now to organise the next virtual game night.

Return to Ravenloft this May

D&D, news, RPG

Tuesday WotC announced their next book release for D&D 5e, “Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft”.

This new tome is a campaign source book that will allow DM’s to craft horror themed campaigns for D&D in the expanded Domains of Dread (the first time in 5e).

Naturally there will be new stuff for players such as backgrounds, character lineages, and subclasses, themed for a horror setting. Plus dark gifts, trinkets, creatures and a brand new adventure.

I have to say that my initial impressions of the cover art were not favourable. It didn’t excite or grab me at all. Maybe the FLGS exclusive alt art cover (below right) will look better in the flesh.

With this release the recent on going theme for D&D of producing horror themed titles continues. It started with Rime of the Frostmaiden, and was followed up with the Curse of Strahd Revamped release. Ok Candlekeep Mysteries (out next on 16th March) does break from that, but hey who knows there might be a horror one shot in its pages!

I’m excited for this release (although I’d have been more excited about it being Dragonlance). Horror in D&D interests me. And I’m interested in what advice the folks at WotC will be sharing within the pages on running and creating horror campaigns.

“Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft” drops into your FLGS on 18th May.

You can read the full product description on the WotC D&D website HERE.

Some 3D printing currently in progress

D&D, Last Days, RPG

My friend Duncan is printing off a couple of Dwarven doors for me on his 3D printer. And I thought I’d share with you the latest progress photo he sent me.

This is looking pretty awesome. And will look amazing on the tabletop.

Duncan has also been printing other things for me too.

Despite having not played a game of it yet, Duncan is printing some new threats to use with Last Days, triffids.

Wait, Last Days is all about zombies you say.

And yes it is. However in issue 2 of Blaster, Ash Barker, the games creator, published rules called Last Days Evolution. These rule additions allow you to retheme Last Days. So instead of zombies you could have for example triffids, or xenomorphs.

Luckily there is a 3D modeller who did a set of triffid models for printing. Which I discovered by accident looking for 3D models for something else. When I saw them I instantly thought of the new rules. I could instead of playing The Walking Dead/Dawn of the Dead, now I can be playing Day of the Triffids.

I have fond memories of the BBC adaptation of the book from the 80’s. Which would account for why it’s sitting in my Amazon Prime library. Wasn’t too keen on the new version they did a few years back.

So I’m pretty excited about getting some triffids (which may or may not turn up as a threat in our D&D campaign) and using them in a game.

As I was writing this post the 3D modeller gave an update that they have updated their cylon models (see below).

They look pretty cool. I do prefer the classic 80’s tv show cylon to the reboot version. Although I do love the reboot.

And yes, Last Days and the Evolution rules could be used so that these fine cylons could be the threat.

The scenario would be the cylons have located Earth and launched an invasion, killing any humans they come across. Which would allow me to reuse the the stuff I have put together already to use with Last Days.

But it doesn’t stop there.

Galeforce 9 sell an Aliens board game called Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corp. Luckily there is no need to buy the game and it’s expansions to get the miniatures. GF9 kindly sell those separately. So along with using them for the Alien RPG (probably why they decided to do this), yep using the Last Days Evolution rules all of a sudden it gets an Aliens reskinning!

This two could use my current scatter terrain because in the classic Dark Horse Alien comic the xenomorphs did get to Earth.

However I need to start getting some reusable sci-fi terrain together for various RPGs which could be used with cylons and also aliens. But that project is for another day.

I love that Last Days is flexible enough now to cater for most people’s needs. It can be a 1v1 skirmish game, co-op, or even solo. It can be a campaign or one-off. It can be any theme you want now. Plus the Timelines rules from issue 1 of Blaster allow you to play in either modern or the Wild West! Although the article reads like there should be other time period examples as well, or that it was written as another rule book for the game.

I can’t wait to get this to the table.

My Recent Top 5 Boardgame App Plays

apps, iOS, nintendo, online play, switch

Below are the top 5 played app versions of board games for the last 3 weeks.


The first place will always be Star Realms. Having now played over 9700 games now, I’m still loving the game. Regular expansions help keep it fresh. And at any given time usually have 5 or 6 games on the go with friends.

Those that know me on other places other than this blog will not be surprised with Wingspan coming in second. I have been sharing the outcomes of games with Jonathan, and now our games include Jeff as well, on those platforms.

Speaking of Wingspan, last nights 4 player game (the fourth player being an AI) saw me win in style and just miss out on hitting the 100 point barrier.

Epic came in third because I’m currently only playing with one person, and those games are dark drafts. Which take longer to play taking into account the draft stage has to be done first before a game can start. Plus we are playing across time zones.

Naturally the last two positions are taken up by the two games we played last week during the virtual game night.

What are your top 5 played board game apps?

Planning an online RPG!!!!!

RPG

One thing that I have missed a lot in this year long pandemic is gaming with my friends. Particularly I have missed our D&D sessions. I can’t wait to get back to our campaign.

“But wait Darren, you can play D&D (or any other RPG) online using various online tools like roll20, discord, zoom etc.” I hear you all shout at the screen and me.

And you are totally one hundred percent correct. There are literally hundreds if not thousands of RPG games of one type or the other being played online. Let alone all those that also stream their games live on the internet.

However playing an RPG online doesn’t appeal to me. There is something about it that just doesn’t grab me with enthusiasm. I know my home setup isn’t geared to running the likes of roll20. Using owlbear.rodeo and discord (although I can’t drag and drop images into discord on iOS) is an option. But still I’m not inspired. RPGs are something a group of friends gather round a table for. I know I’m having a hard time articulating my objections to playing an RPG online.

Then the unexpected happens. I get tempted to run an RPG online! What changed?

I think it was Wednesday when I saw a tweet about someone playing a RPG online where no one is allowed to talk, they have to communicate via text messaging or a group chat of some kind. The person tweeting really enjoyed their experience. That RPG was called Alice is Missing.

So I googled the game. Saw that it was around £15 to buy online. Which takes it into worth taking a punt and trying it territory. Sadly it was out of stock everywhere. So I made a post on BGT&C.co.uk on Facebook asking if anyone had a copy they no longer wanted. One of the early replies pointed out I could get a digital copy of DriveThruRPG for £11. Result.

Basically you are buying a print and play version of the game. That is if you want to play it gathered in the same room. However the thing about this that attracted me to it is this is should be very suitable for playing remotely.

“What did we just hear you right there? You are thinking of playing a RPG online?”

Yes you heard correctly.

Alice is Missing has me planning to run a RPG online.

Luckily in the rules there are some tips/pointers to doing this. Plus on the website there are links to roll20 and to a discord template for setting up a discord server to play the game. Plus the publisher provides some resources to download to use to play the game online but not everything that is needed. And that is the annoying part. It’s like the publisher has done half a job. Why they couldn’t have put everything you need to run the game online into the DriveThruRPG files I don’t know. It would have made sense, plus they would have got money for them as well. Heck I wouldn’t have minded if they even added on a couple more pounds to do this.

So now before I even think of sounding out potential players from our gaming group (which will include giving a content warning as it can potentially include some subject matters that some may find upsetting) I need to extract digital copies of the files/cards that are not included in that handy download the publisher provided from the print and play side of the package bought from DriveThruRPG.

Now apparently I saw mention online that there is an official discord server for discussing the game, and they have bots to aid playing the game plus the “missing” files you can download. However when I press the link on the official publisher site for the game it just takes me to the discord server I setup using their template! I reached out to the publisher through twitter but have had no response to date.

So I am in a little holding pattern while I get over these little humps before I hopefully get to play this RPG online.

A virtual game night

apps, Fenland Gamers, game night, love letter, online play

Last night we had a virtual game night!

I know shocked me as well. It shouldn’t have but it did. Especially considering I’m the one that suggested it in the first place!

Last week I posted on our clubs discord server asking if anyone was up for a virtual gaming session, giving a day and time for when it would happen. But there was no response. So I assumed there was no interest.

Fortunately I happened to be on the clubs discord server at the right time last night as two others turned up to play!

After some brief chatting, exchanging lists of board game apps that each of us owned, and finding some games that we all had, we settled on our first game to play.

That first game was Tokaido. I like the game a lot. It’s a beautiful, peaceful, game. Somehow Jonathan won the first game, whilst Oli won the second game.

Our second game of the evening was Love Letter.

I wasn’t sure about this app. I love the game. But could this app capture the whole play experience?

I was pleasantly surprised. It wasn’t a bad attempt at capturing the game.

Mechanically the app is spot on. It’s Love Letter. The interface took a little getting used to. But that was a quick learning curve. I liked that when setting up an online game you can adjust the number of points needed to win. And you can switch on or off the stars that appear on a card telling you how many of that card you have seen.

I liked the banter it has where you can cause a speech bubble to appear that hurls an insult or praise. And we did that from time to time through out our game. But we were also exchanging banter via our discord chat channel. That helped a lot in the attempt to capture the tabletop experience. Maybe if we used voice it might have helped to get even closer to the tabletop experience.

For the record I had a comfortable victory.

After that win, we called it a day for the virtual games evening. It was a fun time. I’ll have to suggest doing another soon.

A couple of days ago playing Wingspan with Jonathan we hit a first for me in the game. We achieved something that I had not done in the few games I’ve played of Wingspan both physical or digital.

Firstly we drew for first place on all of the end of round objectives.

Secondly, same game, Jonathan and I drew on points after the end of game scoring had been completed.

The app gave Jonathan the win on a tie breaker which was who had the most resources left. He had 1, I had none. Robbed. It should have been left at a draw.

That contested win means Jonathan has the advantage with our current game score line being 3-4 to Jonathan.

From the vaults!

Blast from the past, D&D, Judge Dredd, miniatures, RPG

Chance is a funny ol’ thing.

It was by chance that I stumbled across some old miniatures in the bottom of a cardboard box, that I had totally forgotten I owned.

These miniatures are over 30 years old now! We are talking circa 1988-89. That was a period of my life that had more than its share of life changing events.

I really don’t know how I ended up with a painted set of Dark Judges. I must of had them for playing the Judge Dredd RPG. But I never did get round to playing it.

I most definitely can’t tell you for sure who painted them either. I remember my good friend Chris Thompson did some painting for me. I’m pretty sure he did the minotaur below. And most likely he did the others too. The one thing we can be sure of is I didn’t paint them.

But I’m not complaining. How ever these came into my possession back then they will be perfect to use with the Judge Dredd and Worlds of 2000 A.D. RPG now (assuming I can get people to play that is, or will it be like the original RPG for me?) At some point in the next couple of years EN Publishing will be making the Dark Judges supplement. I can’t wait for that to be released. These will be perfect.

The minotaur is for Bloodbowl, and that would be first edition Bloodbowl. Naturally I don’t play Bloodbowl now a days or since I first owned this miniature back in the day. However I think I’ve just got my Angrath miniature for my D&D campaign!

I have no idea what so ever why I ever got these two ninja miniatures. They do seem a tad on the big side. But I’m sure I’ll find a use for them.

Finally the two unpainted miniatures are Gandalf and Legolas from LoTR. If memory serves me right they were part of a set that made up the fellowship of the ring. Where the others are I have no idea. Unlike the ninjas these two figures seem on the small side!

I think these bits of my gaming history from when I was studying in Brighton bring back some fond memories from that time. Memories that often get over shadowed by the more life changing ones that were happening at the time.

Back then I played MERP on a Wednesday afternoon, as the hobbit Dram. It was the role playing society that taught me the secret to making alcoholic jelly, and introduced me to LARPing. Good times. Care free times. Maybe that’s why I’ve backed Free Leagues The One Ring 2nd edition. It’s a different system to MERP but maybe I’m hoping that it will recapture those good times once again.

A right mixture!

Animal Crossing New Horizons, apps, nintendo, online play, switch

I hope those of you who enjoy playing Animal Crossing New Horizons on the Switch have been keeping an eye on my daily Instagram posts about my progress in the game. I’m using Instagram so that I don’t spam here with it all.

I may write something more substantive about the game at a future date. But suffice to say that after 6 days playing it I love it.

I like the addition to the game of Nook miles. These are like loyalty points you can spend to get various items. You earn them by completing various tasks, like chopping trees, catching fish, etc. They are a bit like achievements.

Another addition I’m about to try for the first time is the push your luck turnip trading. I’ll share thoughts on that another time once I’ve tried the full experience. I’ve only been able to buy turnips for the first time today.

I’ve also got to experience the online play this morning by visiting another persons island, and then have them visit mine. That was pretty cool, especially seeing how a more advanced island looks.

The last couple of days Jonathan and I have been playing more Wingspan in its digital form.

Well we need to get our monies worth out of it. It helps that we both love the game.

The current game score is 2-2, and we started game 5 this morning. Below are the end of round scoring objectives for this new game.

I do love this view of them because as the game progresses this screen updates. So you get to see how you are doing in the current round plus all the other rounds as well. That’s so handy. Another nice touch is your current score.

But boy do the steam and Switch versions need some form of alert/notification implemented. Jonathan and I both missed new games because we weren’t aware an invite had been sent. I know it’s limitations of the platforms that Wingspan is currently on. And that the mobile versions when they appear will in all likely hood have notifications. But at current pricing I’m not likely to buy the mobile version when it’s released. It needs to be heavily discounted for that to happen. Let alone then wanting my games to follow me to whichever platform I’m playing on. But that is a possible problem for another day to discuss.

Gloomhaven has been sitting on my shelf of shame for over 2 years now. I don’t think I’ll ever get it to the table. So I was happy to find it a new home where it will be played and loved.

Acheron island paradise

coding, nintendo, online play, ranking, switch, Top 100

Just a quickie I’m still alive!

I thought I’d better post something if only to confirm the opening statement.

Decided to take a “break” from Bioshock for a day or two to play, well start Animal Crossing New Horizons.

I know I’m nearly a year late to the party. But I’m here now. I started my island adventures yesterday, and if you stalk me on Instagram or Twitter amongst chihuahua and coffee/food pictures (not much gaming to photograph at the mo) you will be able to follow my struggles with island life.

It won’t be more than a day or so more before I return to Rapture, and get into a daily routine of visiting Acheron between visits to that dystopian utopia!

If you wish to visit Acheron in a dream you can with the dream address below.

Also during this radio silence I’ve made a start rewriting my python game ranking program.

Once that’s complete I’ll repeat the exercise I did in 2017 of working out what my top 100 games of all time are.

Wingspan on the Switch

apps, nintendo, online play, switch

I don’t think it’s a secret (if it is I don’t hide it well) that I’m a big fan of more than one game from Stonemaier Games. Heck Scythe is still my favourite game of all time (I really must redo my code to allow me to run that exercise again).

Further in the interests of disclosure for this post I should point out I love Wingspan and it was my game of 2019 iirc.

So with that information firmly out there in the open you can make your decision about my initial flawed looked at the Nintendo Switch version of Wingspan.

Compared to other board games that have been turned into digital versions, at £17 Wingspan firmly sits on the expensive side. At that price I think more than a few potential players will be put off purchasing it.

One bug bear I have with Wingspan on the Switch is what seems an age for the app to load. Admittedly Wingspan is loading from a 256GB micro SD card. But from pressing my user id to having the main menu pop up I timed it at around 30 seconds.

Once you get to the main menu you can select the “Play” menu and play against AI/Friends, Automa or complete the tutorial.

Before I go on I should point out that I have not played Wingspan in any of those options. I’ve only played it against Jonathan the once. So make of that what you will. And once again feel free to dismiss what I am about to write.

You can also go online and play against other Wingspan owners, and here is the biggie those players can be on other platforms. Which currently means those that own the game on Steam, so basically PC.

I do like the tool tip help that can be switched off or on. As the two images below show.

Below I have highlighted a couple of touches on the online menu screen that I like. The first is the display of the timer showing how much time is left for the current player before they time out. The other is your id with your karma rating. I need to look into this whole karma thing, its a new thing for the app, and is used I think in online game matching.

Wingspan can be used using a mix of touch via the Switch’s touchscreen or the joycons. I like that I can using my finger drag a card from my hand on the reserve space I want to play it.

The game uses the art from the board game really well with some nice little animated bits. The music really compliments the art and game play. It’s so relaxing. Something you could just chill out to. I also liked that when you play a bird to your reserve this is a brief bit of audio that tells you about the bird.

Below is the final state of my game winning reserve. I got lucky and had the raven early on in the first round, and then got two cards that complimented it really nicely. After the gull joined it, I didn’t need to go to either of the other two areas of my reserve. I could take eggs, draw cards and get food at the same time. It was a pretty powerful combo. If my memory isn’t failing me the first time I have had the raven in a game.

A nice touch (sadly not captured) is the end of round objectives screen during the game. It shows you and the other players current positions when it comes to scoring the objective, plus your current total number of points.

The end of game scoring is nice and I like that you can view the scoring with or without points annotation.

At the end of a game you can save the end of game state which then can be viewed from the main menu via the preserve archive. Always handy for showing Jonathan how much you beat him by.

While I am talking the main menu again below are the two setup screens that the app gives you to change the settings for audio and for the game.

The bottom image below shows the birds menu option, which basically lets you see the cards you have seen during game play. It’s almost Pokemon like in you will want to collect them all.

The image above the birds screen are the options when you setup a custom online game. Which allows you to enter a players name (cross platform option) or select a friend from your Nintendo friend list.

One thing I do miss and this is also missing from the Steam version as well (I checked this with Jonathan), are alerts for when it is my turn. I would expect that these will be present when the mobile versions are finally released. However this is a limitation of the platforms that Wingspan is currently on.

During our game at the end of round 2 there seemed to be a glitch. I don’t want to call it a bug as the behaviour we saw may well have been correct. But the app skipped through from the end of round 2 to the start of round 3 without showing the end of round scoring, and the bit that threw off John’s plans tucked a card that he wanted to play!

I did find when I first started playing the game the screens to be a bit confusing. But that’s because I jumped right in. What I should have done is the tutorial first. But after a very short period I got used to the controls.

Like Jonathan I prefer the view of the complete reserve, as it shows everything on the screen, food, the food dice, etc. Although the individual reserve screen does look really amazing.

Overall my initial impressions are I like the app. It’s a nice implementation of the board game. But the price does seem excessive.