Metatalktail Hour: Games! Boardgames, phone games, and more February 22, 2020 9:05 AM   Subscribe

Happy weekend, Mefites! This weekend, jacquilynne wondered what games people are enjoying on Android phones lately. I'm also wondering what other kinds of games you've all been into -- boardgames, cardgames, rpg's, console or pc games. Even physical games you play with your actual body, if that's how you roll.

As always this is a conversation starter not limiter, so feel free to tell us what's on your mind these days -- the only rule is no politics please.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) to MetaFilter-Related at 9:05 AM (102 comments total) 13 users marked this as a favorite

In my house we recently got Skulk Hollow, which is a boardgame of lightweight combat between a ragtag team of cartoon foxes and one giant boss monster. It was described somewhere as "Shadow of the Colossus, but for kids" which is... not inaccurate. It's good - very cute, plays fast, rules are straightforward.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 9:14 AM on February 22, 2020 [3 favorites]


We play Scrabble.

Otherwise, moose stew in the fall. Or moose-burgers. Mmmm.
posted by Namlit at 9:19 AM on February 22, 2020 [1 favorite]


Cribbage.
posted by Oyéah at 9:22 AM on February 22, 2020 [7 favorites]


I picked up Ticket to Ride: Europe on sale a couple months ago but it took us too long to get around to playing it. Once we did, my wife noticed I had a route going from west to east and she started trying to block my path to Moscow. I was actually trying to get to Petrograd so I encouraged her by saying, "are you trying to 'Three Sisters' me?" I won that game, and I also scored with a winning Chekhov reference. (I did, also, complete a secondary route to Moscow after all).

Other than that we really like Azul and Kingdomino from the modern list, and Backgammon and Spite and Malice from the classics.
posted by fedward at 9:26 AM on February 22, 2020 [3 favorites]


We've been playing "Think of three food items that you like individually, but you would not want to eat any two of them together". For example: Anchovies, custard and mints!
posted by quacks like a duck at 9:37 AM on February 22, 2020 [11 favorites]


I finally got a Switch back in November and got Zelda BOTW about a month ago, and now it's pretty much all I want to do. Although I also joined a DnD group recently and am really enjoying that, too - it's something I've always wanted to try so I feel lucky to be working with people who are into it too. Just turned 45 and my mom got me dice for my birthday, which just tickled me.

Ooh, this winter I've also been taking an improv class at the local community college, which is another thing I've been wanting to try forever. It's been a hoot and I'm already thinking of signing up again for spring term!
posted by DingoMutt at 9:51 AM on February 22, 2020 [6 favorites]


Just about to finish the first DnD campaign I've ever DM'd, and quite excited to try some other rpg systems.

Other than that, I need to get and download Kentucky Route Zero for the switch. And make time for Outer Wilds on xbox. I love it so much but just cannot carve out the space for it right now. Parenthood!
posted by ominous_paws at 10:10 AM on February 22, 2020 [4 favorites]


I am also interested in your stupid dog games. Here’s one of mine: I make a very low humming noise, and my dog comes racing from wherever he is, does a flip turn off of me, then races back to where he was. Repeat until one of us gets bored. That’s it. How did this even get started? I have no idea.
posted by HotToddy at 10:48 AM on February 22, 2020 [28 favorites]


Cribbage - I feel like I could play 5 games of cribbage every day and not get sick of it. My son (13) wants to learn and I'm so pumped to teach him.

Growing up, we played Canasta as a family which I always enjoyed.

The game I keep going back to is Stardew Valley - perfect for a 20 minute break.
posted by Twicketface at 10:51 AM on February 22, 2020 [5 favorites]


Someone I know has well trained Social Media Dogs. They jump spontaneously onto good-looking geographical features or street furniture that they see and strike matching poses. Not exactly a game but very entertaining!
posted by quacks like a duck at 11:11 AM on February 22, 2020 [7 favorites]


As part of equipping myself for encroaching middle age, I recently learned gin rummy. Surprisingly fun.

Lately I've been revisiting Cultist Simulator (not having played in a while reduces the familiarity), though the RNG's been brutal to me on this run. I've only made the Peacock Door and I've lost like four cultists already. I won't even mention how many high-powered summoned creatures have died on expeditions.

Finally, I'm the last to the party on this one, but board games have gotten fancy. Last time I went to visit some friends, I took Mansions of Madness, not really knowing what to expect. Freaky!
posted by praemunire at 11:31 AM on February 22, 2020 [3 favorites]


We also play Scrabble. Like once every fourteen years. Mainly because there was that one incident with my brother-in-law. But I'm totally over it. Really. I understand the rules of the game, and technicalities are totally valid. Totally.
posted by valkane at 12:27 PM on February 22, 2020 [3 favorites]


Vaguely related to my previous comment, if anyone wants to hmu here or on memail with Powered By The Apocalypse tips, anecdotes, resources, I'd be grateful, and could... I don't know. Favourite all your posts for a month? Send bad English snacks?
posted by ominous_paws at 12:32 PM on February 22, 2020


I've been in a very base-builder kind of mode, so No Man's Sky has been scratching that itch. I started up a new save and lucked out, a blue sky and green planetoid in the first system I landed on. My base/home overlooks a nice river with some space cattle.

And I'm always playing Binding of Isaac, that is my forever game and never stops for me. Always some new accomplishment to tick off and/or a new synergy to discover.
posted by Fizz at 12:43 PM on February 22, 2020 [2 favorites]


I'm still playing Wizards Unite! I really like the other people who play it, though the game itself is a bit of a grind. It's basically Pokemon Go but with Harry Potter.

I used to play Gin Rummy in my afterschool program! I remember liking it and being quite good at it, but now I can't remember how to play it at all. I also played Spit, which...I also can't remember how to play.
posted by batter_my_heart at 12:47 PM on February 22, 2020 [2 favorites]


I've been playing "I Love Hue" on Android which is a totally chill game of sorting colour tiles in between other colour tiles (certain tiles are fixed in position, and you have to sort the other tiles so it interpolates smoothly). Calm UI, no adrenaline, just absorption.
posted by Wrinkled Stumpskin at 12:51 PM on February 22, 2020 [4 favorites]


I was just thinking today about the Masterpiece board game I had as a kid - you traded and bought and sold paintings, which sometimes turned out to be worth a lot, and sometimes were forgeries and worth nothing. The great thing was that all the paintings (included as postcards in the game) were from the Art Institute of Chicago; growing up in a Chicago suburb, I got to go to the Art Institute once a year or so on field trips, and it was SO COOL seeing these paintings I knew from my game, like running into old friends.

I have bought exactly two things on eBay: a set of random Tinker Toys, and a copy of the Art Institute of Chicago Masterpiece game, so I could have all those postcards again.
posted by kristi at 1:09 PM on February 22, 2020 [9 favorites]


I love love love Guess My Word (https://hryanjones.com/guess-my-word/#). And I found it here!
posted by Neely O'Hara at 1:12 PM on February 22, 2020 [8 favorites]


OMG, I loved playing Masterpiece!

So everyone must play Age of Wonders: Planetfall. That's all.
posted by Splunge at 1:15 PM on February 22, 2020 [3 favorites]


I LOVED playing Masterpiece! And also Landslide. I think I got them both for Christmas one year. Haven’t thought about those games in ages!
posted by bookmammal at 1:32 PM on February 22, 2020 [2 favorites]


Cribbage is my favorite game and I don't get to play it enough. If you're in/passing through Portland and want to get a few hands in, let me know! Always happy to meet up at a coffee or tea spot, or a cozy bar somewhere, and play some crib.

Still futzing with Haque a bit, which is an amazing low-fi artsy absurd roguelike. Also recently ran through Dungeon of the Endless a lot, after a space of a few years. Evergarden is a delightful puzzle game that filled a month of morning coffee.

Logged a bunch of hours into Monster Hunter: World on PC the last couple of weeks. I stopped playing the series a few years ago when I was in a pretty heavy no-violence cycle, but I also forgot how bullshit sexist a lot of the female avatar armor is (which seems to have gotten generally worse in the new game, not better!), so I won't spend any more money on it past the base game.

Going to play some Dungeon World in about 30 minutes!
posted by curious nu at 1:43 PM on February 22, 2020 [4 favorites]


In board / party games, I recently had a chance to play Codenames, that was a lot of fun. I also enjoyed Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective, recommended if you've got a small group of mystery fans.

In PC games, Satisfactory has been taking up a lot of my time, it scratches that Factorio itch, but lately I find myself playing it more out of habit / compulsion than enjoyment. It's possible this is more about where my head is at these days than anything else. Fizz, BoI was my forever / daily game for years but these days it's Slay the Spire, the daily challenges always seem to be really satisfying. I also keep coming back to Rimworld and will probably continue to do so at least until the Steam release of Dwarf Fortress. (Used to play DF years ago but these days I don't seem to have the patience for the original interface, hoping the Steam update helps.)
posted by Two unicycles and some duct tape at 1:48 PM on February 22, 2020 [4 favorites]


Phone games: Sumikko gurashi, a cute match 4 game I've been playing for almost 2 years because they keep releasing new bits that mean I never get totally stuck. Dots & Co, which I like where I haven't liked Two Dots because it has a feeling of progression, and I like the companions (though I wish you could choose which one you had on a level). I also still play the daily challenge on Blendoku 2.

Tablet: mostly Merge Dragons which I am aware is a time suck but goes well with listening to pods and quieting my over-active brain. Sometimes Polytopia because I love it.

I have a friend with whom I regularly hang out and play games. We go out for lunch and I bring a set of two card decks which we use to play Spite and Malice while waiting for food. Then we go back to my place and play stuff on computers over the LAN. We've lately returned to Civ V, our mainstay, after finishing both Divinities and failing to find something else that scratches that same itch of story, character, exploring, quests, and killing monsters. Hanging out for Baldur's Gate 3, also by Larian. Mind you, we got into Divinity due to a rec on my AskMe looking for something akin to NeverWinter Nights, so if anyone has any others I'd love to hear them.
posted by Athanassiel at 1:55 PM on February 22, 2020 [2 favorites]


I was just mentioning to misterussell that board game groups are always suggested as meetups for people looking for new friends. Yet, I cannot imagine going to one because new games seem so complicated! I’d have to have the directions explained and then someone would have to continually correct me and yeesh. Codenames is great, though.

My go to phone game is the NYT crossword app, which is a yearly subscription but I use it every single day. My completion time is really improving.

I honestly miss World of Warcraft (I don’t have the time at night anymore to raid even casually) and would love a game to scratch that itch.
posted by kimberussell at 2:03 PM on February 22, 2020 [2 favorites]


Ooh, I keep hearing good things about Divinity, will have to bump that up my list.

And speaking of co-op, long as we're all here, I'd also love to hear any other recommendations on good PC co-op, in particular asymmetric co-op but really anything beyond the usual we-both-have-guns-lets-kill-everything style of co-op.

Athanassiel my co-op partner and I tend toward more pick-up-and-go games than deep RPGs like Divinity, but if you're interested in exploring other stuff: we've been through We Were Here / Too / Together (all highly recommended), Tick Tock, most of Clandestine, a lot of Conan Exiles (which has its problems but the base building was really satisfying to me), and some Sniper Elite 4 when we're actually in shooty moods. Also we fell hard for Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes for a while.
posted by Two unicycles and some duct tape at 2:12 PM on February 22, 2020 [1 favorite]


Even physical games you play with your actual body

What about the mental games I subject myself to inside my own head?
posted by Greg_Ace at 2:26 PM on February 22, 2020 [5 favorites]


Yeah, those fall under the category of Boredgames. We will allow them on phonetic grounds for now, but the rules might change for the next round.
posted by Dumsnill at 3:33 PM on February 22, 2020 [4 favorites]


Phone-wise, I'm still playing Pokémon Go, and occasionally play Alto's Odyssey, and have recently started playing Mini Metro and SpellTower again. There was a big holiday sale on PS4s here in Japan, but I dithered, and the stock ran out before the stated end of the sale. I've got a lot more time to kill these days, and I was thinking I'd get one during the sale and start playing games again. When that fell through, I went back to my old PS3, but my controllers had died, so I had to get a third party controller, and have been playing X-Com: Enemy Unknown.

Board game, but also phone-wise, Mrs. Ghidorah and I will frequently play Carcassone on long train rides. Playing on a table with the tiles is fun and all, but the app tallies the score for you, which is lazily just so much easier.
posted by Ghidorah at 4:31 PM on February 22, 2020 [2 favorites]


My game of choice will always be Set. There is an Android version which is not just the best Android game I've ever played, but simply the best app I've ever used. It's free, it has no ads, it's dead simple, and it plays perfectly. It also keeps track of stats, and it's been gratifying to watch my average time improve.

Also, after learning about the people who speedrun Ring Fit Adventure, I was inspired to pick it up myself, and I've been playing it a few times a week.
posted by J.K. Seazer at 4:56 PM on February 22, 2020 [6 favorites]


Telephone Pictionary.

We introduced Little eirias to an oulipo kind of game the other day, but out loud. She got it right away. Ahhh, I thought, this is family.
posted by eirias at 5:20 PM on February 22, 2020 [3 favorites]


I've been going through a strategy game phase, or something, complicated by the fact that few computer games of that genre are very accessible for me as someone totally blind. My latest thing is buying old games off Steam or GoG and trying to play, seeing how far I get before I have to refund or give up.

I've been enjoying DIstant WOrlds quite a bit lately, though it's on the surface not very accessible at all.
posted by Alensin at 5:22 PM on February 22, 2020 [4 favorites]


Husband and I have had issues in the past with finding games that are genuinely fun for only two people. We got Quirkle for Christmas and it has been great for the two of us. The card game Five Kings is also really fun for two.

Other games we've enjoyed together include Yahtzee, Piñata, You Don't Know Jack and Carcassone.
posted by Serene Empress Dork at 5:25 PM on February 22, 2020 [4 favorites]


Currently looking at the 3M bookshelf collection. 'Acquire' is cool but it feels like your a New York real estate mogul.
posted by clavdivs at 5:35 PM on February 22, 2020 [1 favorite]


Not a board game but I gotta say a big THANK YOU to a recommendation posted here on mefi by I totally forget whom:

I've been playing Magic: The Gathering Arena online for the past year almost entirely FTP and having a blast doing it. Whomever mentioned it here: Thank you! Hundreds of hours for like $40 investment to get started, parlayed it to mastery pass via ranked draft, free ever since. love love love it. I say this as someone who started playing magic in coffee shops as a teenager with Revised Edition, I played some other MTG game (battle of the planeswalkers or something) on steam about 10 years ago and sank something crazy like 2600 hours into it and it was NO where near as good or complete as MTGA and the price was around the same I think.
posted by some loser at 5:42 PM on February 22, 2020 [3 favorites]


The first box of whacky packs, bought from pinball winnings.
Lotta bad gum.

Did work on 'Kuroths Tomb' the other night. It's the magical architectural traps; almost done after 10 years.

Neighbor wants to take me to Detroit for casino time. I don't wager and his weed makes me sleepy.

Walked out on my deck two nites ago, pointed up, said: Are you Sirius? got the telescope out anyway, Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse...Playing the first Call of Duty for PC, a good 10 minutes shooting Nazis takes mind of things.

I'm a Khajiit.
posted by clavdivs at 6:18 PM on February 22, 2020 [2 favorites]


Childhood: Scrabble, gin rummy, hearts and poker for Skittles or M&Ms.

Now: I have a cabal of goths who come round for game nights. One is into historic card games like those in The Compleat Gamester, so he leads games of Inn and Inn, Chase the Ace, Losing Loadum, 99 and his version of Primero. I've collected beer bottle tops in a large glass jar for us to use as stakes.

Other games we like include Fluxx by Looney Labs, Dominion, Port Royal, Carcassonne and Castles Of Mad King Ludwig.

A few of us (including me) would like to play storytelling games like Baron Munchausen, Nanofictionary and For The Queen, but one of our group really doesn't get them or like them, unfortunately. Still hoping to find a way to work around that without causing offence.
posted by Pallas Athena at 6:22 PM on February 22, 2020 [1 favorite]


I haven't been able to get out to do games properly lately. Today I did get over to my mom's house (to use her washing machine because ours is broken and the landlord hasn't fixed it all week) and between foldings we got in two-player rounds of Barenpark, Onitama, Azul, and Mancala before I had to bail. So that was nice.

I have a brand new copy of Root *and* the Underworld expansion burning a hole in my tote bags right now. Hopefully will get that on the table soon. I'm also expecting a copy of the Jaws boardgame at some point, which looks to be an absolute blast of a hidden-movement asymmetrical.
posted by Scattercat at 6:59 PM on February 22, 2020 [1 favorite]


Pallas Athena, not to increase the burden, but have you tried A Quiet Year? I friggin' *love* that one. It might be structured enough to suit?
posted by Scattercat at 7:01 PM on February 22, 2020 [2 favorites]


...
...
*sigh*
Yeah still Skyrim. Looking forward to switching to the new Animal Crossing in a month- Just inject that calming stuff right into my veins!

Been a while since I've done a good garden dump- buckle up.
At the start of the month we had some crazy-ass wind storms. Gusts up to 45 MPH and the like. This did not cause as much damage as past wind storms did, though my poor tea plant got blown straight out of it's little pot. Luckily for me as the lemon verbena had vacated it's pot- I had a new home for the baby Camellia sinensis By now in the Bay Area it's fairly obvious that spring is here whether (weather) we want it to be or not. This means a lot of my annual Brassicas are bolting- and my amazing perfect wonderful tree collard no longer likes full sun. I worked overtime to save it- but the results were good. Then I had a slight break with reality and purchased a February tomato. Look- the nursery's have made them available and it's nutso but if Home Depot has them we have to have them so yee-haw it's tomato time. In order to minimize the madness I got a Petaluma Hill Purple and I'm taking it in at night. Just a few days ago I had an Aloe Adventure Getting my new medicinal buddy home from the Marina district. (Pro-tip, large potted succulents are difficult to get home on Muni.) And finally we have a late February Captain's Log. Oh and I have an update to that post already- I showed the picture of the weed to my boss and he agrees it's most likely an escaped cranes-bill geranium.

So that's nice.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 7:04 PM on February 22, 2020 [5 favorites]


Serene Empress Dork, have you guys tried Patchwork? That’s Mr. eirias’ and my favorite two player game.
posted by eirias at 7:46 PM on February 22, 2020 [1 favorite]


I play in a regular (monthly) poker game. My ex and now my GF think I am too competitive to play board or card games with. How dare I enforce the rules of scrabble!? How dare I accuse them of cheating!? So, I play solitaire.
posted by AugustWest at 10:32 PM on February 22, 2020


Seconding I love Hue and Guess my word

Guess my word is fun and simple, I also like that you can only play two words a day (a normal word and a hard word) so you don't end up playing for an hour.

There's also a daily winner board where you can see some Mefi handles.

On another note, I used to play "2048" which is very simple but challenging. You are moving numbered tiles on a board to make pairs of identical tiles merge, adding their values. The goal is to reach 2048 before you run out of space. Easy on a large board, difficult with a small one. Addictive but I'm glad I've discovered it.

Oh, and two more puzzle apps:
Faraway jungle escape and Yellow
posted by M. at 10:46 PM on February 22, 2020 [1 favorite]


Oh, and the super quirky but short and fun Where is Cat? written by a dad for (and with) his kids. Short puzzle game with three levels, we play it over and over just to see Cat!
posted by M. at 10:49 PM on February 22, 2020 [2 favorites]


Telephone Pictionary is one of those games that can be endlessly reinvented. I just taught some kids Telephone Dance Craze. Almost everyone starts outside the room; the small group remaining in the room picks a piece of music and chooses a name for a hypothetical dance move. Two people enter. One is shown the name of the dance move and has to make it up on the spot while the music plays. The other person then decides what the dance move they just witnessed is called (not knowing the original name). Two more people come in, etc. Continue until everyone is in the room, then recap -- it can turn into a dance party with everyone doing their own version. (Needless to say, as with all improv, this isn't everyone's cup of tea!)

Balderdash/Dictionary is another mother of a thousand games (including the board games Wise and Otherwise and Dixit). You can play with any "dictionary" -- Acronym Finder, Urban Dictionary, whatever. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. I ran a student club once that played a different kind of Balderdash every week: given the punchline (from a website with random terrible jokes), write the joke; given the synopsis of a B-movie, make up the title, or vice versa; given the title of a random Wikipedia article, write a one-sentence excerpt...
posted by aws17576 at 11:07 PM on February 22, 2020 [3 favorites]


eirias, Patchwork is one we have not tried. I just watched a couple of reviews and it seems like it could be fun for us. I put it on my Amazon wishlist for future purchase. Thanks for the recommendation!
posted by Serene Empress Dork at 2:41 AM on February 23, 2020 [1 favorite]


I'm still playing Pixel Dungeon on the phone, and I am hesitant to check but I think it has been at least seven years now. I still play vanilla even though most people disliked the item degradation update and moved on. I like the challenge of the broken items and while I have a couple variations installed on my phone I don't play them as often.

I would like to play board games but my kids are just a little too small yet. We play Halli Galli and Uno with mixed results and sometimes topple and tumbling monkeys. I can't wait to graduate up to more involved games, but I think laying the groundwork now will make them like games more later.
posted by Literaryhero at 4:20 AM on February 23, 2020


I am currently playing final fantasy ffxiv, like I have time. But it's been really fun to do. I'm not sure what to do with that, nobody else I know plays, and some of the stuff do after you finish the game (I've only played through the first main quest at this point and got to lvl 50) seems fiddly to me. But I've really really enjoyed the world and the story even if some of its been a bit of a slog.

Not related to games I am kind of feeling a bit all over the place at the moment. I've got feelings that have feelings and really it's not about anything going on i think it's just giving my brain some thing to do. I've been just not taking advantage of the people and relationships and things right in front of me... And i need to do that. Instead of having a inner world and keeping it to myself or sharing tiny bits and pieces instead of what i actually want. Like oh yeah i have a genunine self i can choose to share and I do think there are people in my life to want to hear that self, but I've been super insercure about me lately and just haven't. So, I'm trying to take steps to change that.
posted by AlexiaSky at 5:37 AM on February 23, 2020


I play this Carrom game a few times every day. One game is the perfect length to fit into a ten-minute gap between things. Pretty similar to pool (but a much older game of course), and requires similar skill.
posted by pipeski at 6:12 AM on February 23, 2020 [1 favorite]


Age of Wonders: Planetfall

Oh wow I had no idea AoW was still a going concern! I edited the user manual and the strategy guide that went with (the company I worked for produced many of Gathering of Developers manuals and guides). That game’s “Dire Penguins” still make me chuckle.

The only game I manage to play these days is EA NHL hockey (Be a Pro mode).
posted by notyou at 8:13 AM on February 23, 2020


I ran a student club once that played a different kind of Balderdash every week: given the punchline (from a website with random terrible jokes), write the joke; given the synopsis of a B-movie, make up the title, or vice versa; given the title of a random Wikipedia article, write a one-sentence excerpt...

The most recent release of Balderdash does this sort of thing canconically: define the word, what do these initials signify, give a plot summary of the movie based on this title, weird laws (i.e. "It is illegal on Cincinnati on Sundays to __________" and one more I forget.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:48 AM on February 23, 2020


With Hurricane season around the corner, and the always real possibility of losing power, I'm thinking of buying a deck of cards and learning Solitaire.
posted by Beholder at 9:14 AM on February 23, 2020 [2 favorites]


SCRABBLE! not_on_display and I usually play a few times a week but we've put it on hold because I entered a really long losing streak (which is fine, it happens) but also it is February and I just can't right now. We've been playing since 2010 and our point total is 308,218 to 308,587. I am slightly ahead. It's eerie how close we are. I play SET on my phone before turning off my phone and it's good because it makes an awful noise so I always remember to turn my sound off. I like Guess my Word.

I have friends who really enjoy board games and sometimes we get together for a game night but they're all serious stoners (and I am not) and so it's challenging as the night gets later and later and if we try to start a new game explaining the rules becomes impossible (and at least one friend gets kinda pout-y if she can't understand the rules, which I both get but also "hey you decided to get really, really high and then play a game with rules...?"). I can't play Scrabble with them because, since I play so frequently, I'm at a different level. They're kinda competitive, so that doesn't work well. We play Boggle sometimes. I have one friend who was on Jeopardy but for some reason can't play Boggle and it's fascinating trying to figure out how his mind works. One game that we mostly all like is Guillotine. Not too complicated but mostly fun. Am always looking for good games to play with my motley assortment of friends.
posted by jessamyn (temp) at 9:33 AM on February 23, 2020 [3 favorites]


The only phone game I'm still playing is Alphabear. (I realized my older games were more stressful than fun and quit playing them.) I would play Neko Atsume or Spoonpets again if there was new animals. I probably load them every few months to see.
I needed something to fill the space left by those old games and Animal Crossing isn't out until March, so I got Stardew Valley on the Switch. Which is also a bit stressful, but so fun that I'm working on calming down about the time while I play, so I can play more with fewer headaches. (My spouse has ceded the Switch to me-- he says it was just a month sooner than he expected to. And a year or two later than we had originally thought, what with all the Animal Crossing delays.)
As a family, we play Bananagrams, Slash 2 (I find making up stories tiring, but my daughter loves it more than anything and I like hearing the stories), Boggle, and Hogwart's Battle -- when we have three hours to spend gaming.
posted by Margalo Epps at 10:04 AM on February 23, 2020


I have not allowed myself to buy a dedicated gaming system because I know if I have one I will use it all the time.

I do still play Pokémon Go because it can be played while I’m doing what I would be doing anyway (walking around town running errands).

Every Tuesday night I play in a Powered by the Apocalypse Masks game and every Thursday for the past three years I have run Vampire: The Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition for a group of friends mostly made up of people with whom I played it in high school twenty-plus years ago. I also have a weekly tabletop miniatures painting night with a friend on Monday nights, although the painting is mostly a pretense for spending time with him while he works through some difficult life issues.

I would love to get another game going but I don’t know that I can justify dedicating any more time to it.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 10:16 AM on February 23, 2020 [1 favorite]


Sorry, I neglected to close my parentheses there after "It is illegal on Cincinnati on Sundays to __________" -- please add ).

Me, I am all about the board games: Terraforming Mars sees a lot of play at our table the last year or so, but its predecessor as our main game was Firefly -- this one came off the shelf again a couple of days ago and I had a blast with it, maybe because after a vacation of a year or so from it made it a bit fresher.

My circle of gamers comprises maybe a half-dozen regulars and as many more in a wider orbit who we might see once every fifth or eighth time. Of course, people's tastes vary -- Laura doesn't care for co-op games, Jeff finds zombie games not to his taste, Ben is a big Axis and Allies fan but is rarely available, I would run a mile in tight shoes to play Advanced Civilization -- so the games vary by who is available and attending. And of course, often we will have three of us arrive at the appointed time and have to wait ninety minutes for the last two arrivals so we will pay a short game of something. Codewords is a good 'un. Steve Tassie's series of B-Movie card games (Grave Robbers from Outer Space and all of its sequels and offshoots) are a lot of fun. I dig Chrononauts once in a while. Spyfall, Splendor, and The Resistance are nice as well, and for elegant simplicity of mechanics I am always up for a round or two of Azul or Tsuro.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 10:39 AM on February 23, 2020 [1 favorite]


I've been playing lots of Sequence and Uno because I keep both of them in my car in case we end up at a brewery, because apparently I need to play board games while drinking!

I just started doing LearnedLeague, too. That's been fun!
posted by mollywas at 11:36 AM on February 23, 2020 [2 favorites]


I'm teaching my partner to play Go, and he is teaching me backgammon. In my friend group, we love playing Mau at our dinner parties.

I've spent many more hours than I'd like to admit playing the Shark Game. But mostly I'm not super into video / phone games. I tried Alto's Adventure though, and it was pretty fun.
posted by ananci at 11:44 AM on February 23, 2020


> HotToddy: "I am also interested in your stupid dog games. Here’s one of mine: I make a very low humming noise, and my dog comes racing from wherever he is, does a flip turn off of me, then races back to where he was. Repeat until one of us gets bored. That’s it. How did this even get started? I have no idea."
Video, plz. pretty sure I speak for all of MeFi here.
posted by theora55 at 11:48 AM on February 23, 2020 [5 favorites]


> kristi: "I was just thinking today about the Masterpiece board game "
I have fond memories of my brother's aggressive gameplay. Kept the game when Mom sold the house, partly because of the postcards.
posted by theora55 at 12:44 PM on February 23, 2020


I posted a comment earlier about two social media savvy dogs, which was subsequently favorited by a DingoMutt and an ominous_paws.

I hadn't realised the dogs were quite THAT internet savvy!

Someone called spamandkimchi also favorited my comment about foods you wouldn't eat together.
Apparently it's Nominative Determinism Day, or maybe Deterministic Nominism...
posted by quacks like a duck at 1:21 PM on February 23, 2020 [7 favorites]


Played two games for the first time tonight:
- Human Punishment, which is like a Matrix-set Bang except your role is defined by the majority of three secret cards, and these can be swapped around during the game, so your loyalties might change at random! That person you just aimed a rocket launcher at? Now they might be your last remaining ally...
- Magic Maze, a co-op game where you have to guide four adventurers around a shopping mall (don't ask) to steal new equipment - but each of you can only move the adventurers in one cardinal direction. And you can't talk. All you have is a 'do something' peg and a table to bang it on in front of the dopey aihal who hasn't figured out you desperately need him to move the dwarf North, damnit

also I redownloaded FTL so will be over here swearing at the comically evil random number generator until the heat death of the universe
posted by aihal at 2:02 PM on February 23, 2020


I'm staying with my oldest friends at the moment, and I made sure to grab a pack of cards on the way for the inevitable games of Euchre and Oh Hell. Euchre, in particular, was a big deal at our high school. On a good day you could play several games of cutthroat waiting for classes to start.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 2:46 PM on February 23, 2020 [1 favorite]


I am that person who doesn't play games if at all possible. I don't have an ability to be competitive and cannot bear to be take an opportunity/wining chance away from someone else. It's such an odd hangup that I can't describe it properly.

Games and strategizing about winning cause me internal discomfort. I understand that the games are all in fun and people enjoy them but I only play games when pressured into it... so I'm not a party pooper; but I secretly hate every moment.
posted by mightshould at 3:21 PM on February 23, 2020 [2 favorites]


Mefi has had a positive impact on my recent boardgaming activities! I got The Game after seeing fedward's recommendation in an Ask thread, and my household has really been enjoying it. (Non-household members have called it "stressful" but gave it a valiant shot.) We also ordered and liked On the Underground, recommended by Lobster Mitten. Last week we played it with another Mefite!

Hanabi is also a house favorite. We've been enjoying the silent variant. I would like to pay it at Burp Castle sometime--meetup, anyone?
posted by ferret branca at 3:53 PM on February 23, 2020 [4 favorites]


Magic Maze

Oh man, I played this last year and it stressed me right the hell out. Somehow everybody else was able to stay on top of what the overall plan was but here's me just yelling WHAT while everybody else bangs the peg and glares at me. Someone suggested we play it again last month and I noped right out. I get how it *could* and *should* be fun and I think the idea is great but somehow I just could not get my head around it.
posted by Two unicycles and some duct tape at 4:14 PM on February 23, 2020


I still miss Sailor Moon Drops.
posted by betweenthebars at 4:40 PM on February 23, 2020


I discovered Ace Attorney last year and have burned through most of the series (the first trilogy on consoles, AA4-6 and AAI on Android, AAI2 via an emulator). I'm just missing the Professor Layton crossover and the two DGS games - the Layton game needs a 3DS (finding an emulator copy is tricky) and while translations for DGS exist, they either work best on a 3DS or require some kind of tricky finagling with the Japanese Google Play store. And I can't quite afford even the 3DS itself just yet waaaaah

I have an Xbox One, which I mainly got coz it was the cheapest console on Boxing Day and it would play DVDs easily, and I wish there were more games! My best friend raves about Persona 5, though I'm not sure I want to get one just so I can find out what the big deal is, and Switches are sooooo expensive here, bah.
posted by divabat at 6:11 PM on February 23, 2020 [1 favorite]


I played the reissued Dune board game recently and it was great fun. Each player gets randomly assigned one of the six great factions (House Harkonnen, House Atreides, the Emperor, the Spacing Guild, the Fremen, and the Bene Gesserit) and try to take over Dune.

There were only four of us - I can only imagine how wild this would've been with six players. I was playing House Harkonnen and managed to win the game by aligning with the Emperor and stomping the Fremen and the Spacing Guild. That was a lot of fun, especially since I never win board games when play with these friends. Highly recommended.
posted by mogget at 6:18 PM on February 23, 2020 [2 favorites]


I got The Game after seeing fedward's recommendation in an Ask thread, and my household has really been enjoying it. (Non-household members have called it "stressful" but gave it a valiant shot.)

OMG it is absolutely stressful. That seems to be the point. My wife is a little obsessed.

One of our Christmas presents this year was "Parks," which includes a solo mode. Unfortunately that solo mode is so stressful that it's not actually fun to play. It's otherwise a beautiful game, but the solo mode is not fun. It's one of those games where the inevitable expansion might actually make the game better all around.
posted by fedward at 7:55 PM on February 23, 2020 [2 favorites]


Board game wise, we’ve been playing a lot of the Ticket to Ride variations with friends. 10 year old is into D&D right now-my husband bravely DMed a couple days with a group of 4 10 year old boys (you’ll be surprised to know that most of their attacks consisted of targeting their opponent’s nuts or shooting people on their buttholes) and on Friday, one of the 10 year olds tried to DM a game himself. That went as well as you’d expect but they all had fun.

Video game wise, we got Witcher 3 from the library yesterday so there’s been some obsessive play-very Skyrim-esque. I still miss WOW but our desktop is t working. And on my phone I’m currently obsessed with Design Home-though it’s only been a five day obsession so far.
posted by purenitrous at 9:04 PM on February 23, 2020 [1 favorite]


There were 3 games we played in university that are very much games a handful of friends play in a haze filled dorm room. I think most of us grown ups play a variation of these games day-to-day, but they were really fun/interesting at the time.

Game the First: The Purity Test
Look at a newer 1000 question Purity Test for the better wording of the instructions, but then go and find an old 100 question version with bad wording because nobody has time for a 1000 question test.

Somebody asks the questions. Have you ever kissed a member of the opposite sex? Have you had sex? In a place of worship? In a graveyard? In public? etc. Everybody just keeps a tally mark of Yes/No and at the end sums them up and everybody shows their score.

This is a game of self-reported getting to know you. And figuring out who you want to hook up with and get to know better.

Game the Second: Psychologist
You can only play this once without changing the rules somehow. Pick someone who hasn't played Psychologist and send them out into the hall or something while you explain the rules.

Everybody sits in a circle with Psychologist (It) in the middle.
1. Everybody answers any question from P as truthfully as possible in accordance to rule #2. Make an educated guess if you have to.
2. You answer the question as-if you're answering for the person sitting to your left.
3. If the person on your left, or anybody else... knows that you are wrong... they yell "PSYCHOLOGIST" and everybody in the circle gets up and shuffles around into new positions.

Then you go out into the hall and tell the Psychologist that they sit in the center and can ask *anything* they want and everybody will always answer truthfully... according to rules #2 and #3. And it's your job to figure out what rules #2 and #3 actually are. If you do figure it out, have fun with it.

This is a game of finding out who knows what about whom and is more for the players in the circle than the actual Psychologist.

Game the Third: Mindfuck!
This is for already good friends only. It is harsh. It takes a warning. Kick everybody who's just hanging around out.

Warning: We're all good friends and anthing that's said isn't going to change that, go home now if you don't want to play.

Everybody sits around in a circle and someone is chosen to start.

A picks out B and says some deep dark opinion about B.
B cannot respond directly to A.
Now it's B's turn and they pick C and do the same.
You keep going round and round making pointed statements until you get bored.

This is a game of group shared knowledge and everybody knowing what everybody thinks about everybody. It's brutal.

"You have a massive crush on her but she's never going to."
"You're such a beauty but you're a total coke head."
"You should have never cut your hair."
"Your boyfriend is a total assholw."
"You might have better luck if you weren't such a slob."
...

Brutal. But then a couple of hours later... everybody is still sitting around like always, and none of it was any real big secret or anything, and things go on a little bit better because there are no big secrets left.
posted by zengargoyle at 10:13 PM on February 23, 2020 [3 favorites]


My RPG group was missing a critical player, so we took a break from Masks, a teen superhero game of fighting villains and figuring out who you are, to play Psy*Run, a quick start game of amnesiac psychics fleeing mysterious pursuers. It was good light fun.

I planned to play some solo Arkham Horror: the Card Game, but decided to take a nap instead. I also took a couple of long walks.
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:03 AM on February 24, 2020


I play Bejeweled Stars on my phone, it is very calming. I like board games and will always play if offered but living alone it's not that often. And my family refuses to play Scrabble with me anymore, they've given up.

I cuddled a really, seriously cute 10-week-old kitten on Saturday night. I made a lot of squee noises.
posted by wellred at 5:58 AM on February 24, 2020 [1 favorite]


Patchwork is great! Nice and quick game, and really portable if you're travelling. Azul is another great two-player game.

The real standout for me has been Wavelength. I backed it on Kickstarter a while back and it finally arrived last month. It's basically a party guessing game, not a million miles from Codenames, but way funnier and easier to play. We must've played it a dozen separate times during our company Team Week and it never got boring. Highly recommended!
posted by adrianhon at 6:35 AM on February 24, 2020


My family plays a lot of board games. Lately we've been playing mostly Pandemic because we must win and have not yet. My sisters-in-law claim they win all the time but I don't think they're using the same rules we are because it's very fun but we're far from winning. We play Ticket to Ride a decent amount and for Valentine's Day I got the family the short, dice-based version of Pandemic and Ticket to Ride New York. We also like Scrabble, Trivial Pursuit, and other classics as long as there is more skill than luck involved. On the phones we really like Heads Up. Jeopardy on Amazon Echo is fun because it's pretty quick and it only lets you play games from that week so we can't get sucked in.

When it's just me I like to play Phase 10 and Drop 7 on my phone. They're fairly clutter-free apps and you can stop wherever you are and come back to the same game in progress later. I like that they mostly don't try to sell me upgrades or achievements and just let me beat my own high score. They tread that line between mindless clicking and deep thinking/planning. Phase 10 isn't available anymore because of licensing issues but it still works if you got it before it was pulled from the store.

Yesterday we went to an escape room. My youngest had been to one before but it was the first time for the rest of us. It was more of a 'solve the puzzle before the clock runs out' game than an actual escape and it was really fun. I want to do more of them but it was expensive so I think they'll just be for birthdays and such. The guy there said "are you sure you've never done these before?" because he didn't have to give us hints and we got 11th place of all time on the solution. The real magic was that my teenagers worked together and had fun for almost an hour without fighting.
posted by Clinging to the Wreckage at 6:36 AM on February 24, 2020 [2 favorites]


THERE ARE TOO MANY GAMES YA'LL!!!?
posted by Fizz at 7:08 AM on February 24, 2020 [4 favorites]


Count me among the "I've wanted to play D&D for a long time and the stars have finally aligned" crowd. I also recently played Ex Libris (essentially Balderdash for the first/last lines of books) with an English grad/librarian-heavy group and we had a lot of fun. It's great in that you can play it by opting for brilliant pastiche if you know the author/work well, or for outright buffoonery if that strikes you as funnier at the time (or you don't know the author well enough for brilliant pastiche).
posted by terretu at 7:20 AM on February 24, 2020 [1 favorite]


I'm really into this fairly silly Bejeweled-alike called Matchington Mansion. It's the usual match 3 play, but with the added layer that as you complete levels, you get to decorate a huge mansion. The design phase is rudimentary, but for some reason, it has provided an ideal hook to get me locked into this game for months now. You pick one of three possible couches, refrigerators, sculptures, etc, though as you visit "friends" mansions, you can copy options they have that you don't to use in your house. It is chock-full of annoying IAP, but you can feel free to ignore it all and still advance. I'm at Level 1799 and I don't think I've spent a cent. Anyway, join Team Smashington and help me get some new and exciting flooring for my observatory, tia
posted by Rock Steady at 7:35 AM on February 24, 2020 [2 favorites]


I loooove Parks. It's so pretty! And I obsess over one day going to all of the parks. And it's nice that you don't buy anything. My mom and I play it together and drool over all the parks and regularly remind each other that no, you did not buy the park, you visited the park!

Guess My Word: obsessed. I am worried about Daily Alice. Daily Alice was at the top of the "For All Time" completion board for normal words for ages, but sometime last week has stopped playing every day. I am really hoping that that's because Daily Alice is AFK because Daily Alice is IRL visiting a park.

I think the fewest guess badge limit should be higher than two. If you get something in two guesses, that's just luck, same as one guess.
posted by Don Pepino at 8:39 AM on February 24, 2020


Old/oldish PC games still in rotation: Planetbase and Kingdoms & Castles. Both procrastination extenders, if we're being honest. My computer refuses to play Kind Words (suggested here, very low graphic requirements geez), but hoping a couple upgrades I am doing soon will fix that.
posted by Glinn at 8:52 AM on February 24, 2020


Games I've been playing.

I've been playing a lot of Red Dead Redemption 2. Even though the game feels like 70% riding a horse and 25% guns and 5% delivering messages, it's still super enjoyable. It's so relaxing to just wander around and be in that world, that for me is the best part of the game. Whenever I have a super stressful work day, it's how I heal my mental health.

I've also finally dug into the second half of Fire Emblem: Three Houses. I just made it past the time-jump and everyone has new stylish hairdos and fancy outfits. I love watching my students wage war on the Kingdom.
posted by Fizz at 9:27 AM on February 24, 2020 [2 favorites]


My D&D group just finished up our latest adventure (the 7 of us, at 14th level, sent Tiamat back to the nine levels of hell). Our DM is taking a break (she's due to give birth in three weeks), and her husband is gonna take over and run us through a homebrew world for a bit. I'm also thinking of trying my hand at DMing a little.

Picked up Terraforming Mars from a Woot sale on Valentine's Day, but haven't had a chance to play it yet. And I just took delivery of my Kickstarter rewards for backing Steve Jackson Games' reprintings of their old Pocket Box games, so I have a GIANT box of Car Wars and Ogre and Illuminati and other games to play - I have to find another old-timer like me to do it with, I guess.

I think I mentioned a bit ago that I finally hooked up an HTC VIVE system that'd been gathering dust, and the girlfriend and I are having an absolute blast with Beat Saber. I'm also loving Space Pirate Trainer, Superhot VR, and a couple of archery-themed games.

Phone/tablet-wise, I've been digging I Love Hue, Archero, and Time Locker. Also been going back to some older games recently: Orbital, Atomas, and KAMI.

I'm back to playing Horizon Zero Dawn, and I started new playthroughs of Fallout: New Vegas and Fallout 4.

I really need to start getting back out to my LARP game and get some more physical activity in.
posted by hanov3r at 9:34 AM on February 24, 2020 [1 favorite]


I think the fewest guess badge limit should be higher than two. If you get something in two guesses, that's just luck, same as one guess.

It was four, at least for awhile. Not sure if that's changed back to two?

I introduced Guess my Word to the LSG forums on Ravelry, and for awhile, we were a significant minority of the players (I suspect Mefites were the other significant minority), and many of us signed our high scores with LSG, which caused other players to sign their high scores wondering what the heck LSG was. It greatly amused me.

I have just finished Egg, Inc and I'm growing pretty bored with Adventure Communist, so as LM noted in the subject line, I am looking for recs for new Android games, especially now that I have a new Android phone that doesn't crap out half the time when it tries to load a game. Not necessarily another Idle game, though if someone has one they really love, I could probably get sucked into it.

I like games that are more puzzle-ey than action-ey -- I have Simon Tatham's puzzle collection, and I like Threes, as well. I liked Slidey for awhile, but found that it tends to get really boring in the mid-levels that you have to grind through. Would prefer to avoid yet another Match 3 game. I've started playing Tiny Bubbles, which I like, but I tend to get frustrated with levels I can't figure out at all how I might pass them, so I can't play it for long at a time. I don't love games that have the 'you must finish this level to play that level' progress path -- I prefer games that are more 'every iteration of the game you play is its own thing' like Threes or Slidey.
posted by jacquilynne at 9:40 AM on February 24, 2020


I'm really into this fairly silly Bejeweled-alike called Matchington Mansion.

After cortex mentioned it in the Fanfare Games thread, I decided to figure out what the heck Matchington Mansion was, and disappeared down a wormhole of closely argued analyses of Match & Blast marketplace strategy.

Matchington Mansion - You Won't Believe the Truth
posted by zamboni at 10:37 AM on February 24, 2020 [1 favorite]


I picked up Photosynthesis as an impulse buy yesterday and it’s really impressive. Simple but intriguing mechanics and gorgeous art. Now I just need to get my family to sit still long enough to finish a game (it’s not long, but life is hectic.)
posted by nickmark at 10:38 AM on February 24, 2020


Been playing a lot of Dominion recently; I put in on my Christmas wish list many years ago, when the kids were young, because I was told it was a fantastic game for 2 players. I thought it would be something my wife and I could play...lo and behold, nobody noticed it on my wishlist until this year, and now the whole family plays.

Computer wise, I'm back into trying to finish Darkest Dungeon; currently bogged down in an awkward middle state of the game.

Tabletop RPG wise, the campaign I started a couple of years ago has lead to a table of 6 of us playing regularly, with 3 of us taking turns to DM 3 different campaigns.
posted by nubs at 10:56 AM on February 24, 2020 [1 favorite]


Guess My Word: obsessed. I am worried about Daily Alice. Daily Alice was at the top of the "For All Time" completion board for normal words for ages, but sometime last week has stopped playing every day. I am really hoping that that's because Daily Alice is AFK because Daily Alice is IRL visiting a park.

Oh. Well. I never knew there was a "For All Time" completion board. I can't believe I've missed out on this opportunity to bask in my superiority. I don't know how they tabulate it, I usually come out somewhere in the middle of the list for number of guesses, but close to the top for fastest time. A couple of times in the past week or so (including today) I've had to give up on the words - just not thinking of it - and I give up if I have to think about it for more than a couple of minutes or else I just get frustrated. But I'm still here!

When not playing Guess My Word, I play a lot of Scrabble on my phone. I also play Lily's Garden, which is a matching puzzle game combined with designing a big garden and a cute little romantic story.
posted by Daily Alice at 11:37 AM on February 24, 2020 [3 favorites]


My wife is always saying that we should play board games so last year for Mother's Day (or some other occasion) I was going to get her Wingspan but it wasn't available anywhere so I got her Dominion instead. It is still sitting in its shrinkwrapped box. Then in the fall I noticed that Wingspan was available so I picked it up. We kind of played it once but didn't get very far and haven't had a chance since. She's really busy with classes so maybe once they are over we'll have more chances to play board games.

Last month I got Ring Fit Adventure and I've been playing it pretty regularly. My son is obsessed with it though and wants to play it all the time, which is nice but it can cut into my time playing, and while he might want to play, I need to play.

I still play Pokemon Go on my phone. It has gotten better over the years and I wonder what its user base would have been like if it was as developed as it is now when it first launched.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 11:53 AM on February 24, 2020


After cortex mentioned it in the Fanfare Games thread, I decided to figure out what the heck Matchington Mansion was, and disappeared down a wormhole of closely argued analyses of Match & Blast marketplace strategy.

He said something about it on Twitter as well, and I desperately hoped we would become Matchington buddies, but alas.

That's actually a fascinating analysis. One thing that wasn't mentioned in the article is that the "buying" extra furniture options is easily achievable with the easy-to-earn in-game currency. It's not uncommon to pick up 20 or 30 coins per level, and a new piece of furniture goes for 150 coins or less. Now, you are better served saving those coins up to buy an occasional power-up or extra moves, but if you really love that chair you saw at your friend's place, it is not something you need to lay out real money for.
posted by Rock Steady at 12:04 PM on February 24, 2020


I've been in a monthly table-top RPG for a few years, as Bronze-age merchant/explorers in a homegrown Middle Earth-ish setting. After all this time mapping the unknown continent and setting up a trading empire, the GM has tugged on all the plot threads he's been weaving in and suddenly we have a save-the-world quest.

My character is still resisting the idea that he could possibly contribute to world-saving, he's totally non-combat and really not up for battling an evil queen with a magic ring. Also he just got married and would rather stay home with his bride. The 'chosen one' in our party is trying to convince him to go mostly because the player knows my character has the best INT score and they are likely to die of stupid without him.
posted by buildmyworld at 1:54 PM on February 24, 2020 [1 favorite]


I reawoke a monster. My mom went out after our session on Saturday and bought both one of the other Azuls (there are three, I think, in the series so far, and I'm planning on buying Summer Pavilion so she doesn't need to get that one) and a new game from the people who made Above and Below called Roam, and she's demanding to come over tomorrow to try them out. XD
posted by Scattercat at 5:09 PM on February 24, 2020


I help run a regular board game night most Thursdays in San Francisco at a friend's house (which if any mefi user is interested in attending, freel free to mefi mail me about). Last week we played Roll for the Galaxy, Illuminati (the card game) and Century: Spice Road.

Past gaming sessions have included Camel's Up, Azul (the first one, so Scattercat I'm interested in how the others are), Codewords, The Captain is Dead, Sentinels of the Multiverse, Ascension, Catan, Power Grid, Photosynthesis, Mysterium, Dixit all of which I recommend. We have a pretty good collection.

On my own I've been playing a lot of Slay the Spire on my laptop, and the occasional bit of cultist simulator, mini metro and plants vs zombies on my phone. And I play in a couple of networked Vampire the Masquerade Live action games. And tonight I'm going to a kickstarter fulfillment company and doing play tests, so that should be fun.
posted by gryftir at 5:27 PM on February 24, 2020 [1 favorite]


I guess this is sort of a game? Often before I click the “Recent Favorites” link on metafilter, I think of a randomish number, generally under 30. Then I add up the total number of favorites on each post / comment, from the top down. If the total ever adds up to my number, I win! But usually the total will skip over my number, and I lose.
posted by moonmilk at 6:07 PM on February 24, 2020 [2 favorites]


I am that person who doesn't play games if at all possible. I don't have an ability to be competitive and cannot bear to be take an opportunity/wining chance away from someone else. It's such an odd hangup that I can't describe it properly.

Sounds like you'd enjoy the tremendous variety of cooperative games and solo games.

In cooperative games, you're all working together, and you all win together, or you all lose together. Good games to start with are Forbidden Island, Pandemic, Castle Panic, Horrified, and Burgle Bros.

Solo games usually pit you against some sort of (usually unforgiving) board game AI, or just present a world and let you interact with it. My favourites at the moment are Nemo's War, Darkest Night, Robinson Crusoe and Mage Knight (those last two are prob best once you have some other games under your belt). There are also plenty of free solo games you can print and play with just a couple of bits of paper and a few dice. My faves are Utopia Engine, Pencilvillage, Crashland, Deep Space D6, Maquis, 1572: The Lost Expedition and Magic Realm Light 30.
posted by some little punk in a rocket at 8:17 PM on February 24, 2020


I am that person who doesn't play games if at all possible. I don't have an ability to be competitive and cannot bear to be take an opportunity/wining chance away from someone else. It's such an odd hangup that I can't describe it properly.

Games and strategizing about winning cause me internal discomfort. I understand that the games are all in fun and people enjoy them but I only play games when pressured into it... so I'm not a party pooper; but I secretly hate every moment.

Do consider a video game like Animal Crossing -- there's no winning, losing, or competition. Just exploring, growing trees, collections cute furniture if that's your thing, chatting with rather odd animals. (And I asked a question at some point about games to play if you don't want to be competitive or lose, even cooperatively against the game; there were some good ideas. Do you like jigsaw puzzles?)
posted by Margalo Epps at 8:36 PM on February 24, 2020


Clinging to the Wreckage, like your sisters-in-law, we realized we were not playing Pandemic right because we were always winning, and we knew we shouldn't be. Now we're not winning.

We play a shit-ton of board games at my house. Right now we're playing Pandemic (see above), Splendor, Lost Cities, and Spaceteam. Also in rotation, though not lately, is Five Minute Dungeon and King of Tokyo. Sometimes Munchkin.

The tweens at my library were getting into D&D so I bought the Players Handbook for them. Wild arguments ensued about who would be able to check it out, so I made it a reference book. They've moved on to something else as tweens will do, but I still see them reading the book, which makes my heart pretty happy.
posted by lyssabee at 9:21 AM on February 25, 2020


I love games, but have ad to focus on 2-player stuff mostly due to my location and lack of hard-core enthusiasm from pals. That said, Mrs. ikahime went from "I don't really like games," to playing some really involved stuff. Last winter we really enjoyed Pandemic Legacy: Season 1 and were sad when we finished it. We'll likely get Season 2 for next winter. Terraforming Mars is a frequent star, but we've recently been playing shorter 2-P games like 7 Wonders Duel and Odin's Ravens. Photosynthesis is super and while simple, can be won with a host of different strategies. I've got my eye on Wingspan and Scythe, as well. We are lucky enough to have a newish groovy board game store that has a robust rental section, so you can try stuff out before plunking down $50-100.

Are any of y'all on Board Game Geek? Maybe we should start a guild? I see there is an NYC specific MeFi group, but...
posted by ikahime at 9:48 AM on February 25, 2020 [1 favorite]


I've really been enjoying Red Dead Online, so much so that I haven't even finished the story mode. It's just so relaxing running around on my horse in that gorgeous open world and hunting, while I wait for my moonshine to finish cooking. It's the best "listen to podcasts to unwind" grinding game I've ever played. Highly recommended if you want something to unwind with at the end of the day.
posted by longdaysjourney at 2:14 PM on February 25, 2020


as LM noted in the subject line, I am looking for recs for new Android games ... I like games that are more puzzle-ey than action-ey

jacquilynne, it sounds like we have very similar phone game preferences. Simon tathum is my all time favourite app, I look forward to guess my word every day, I've had some serious three and bejeweled phases.

May I then recommend my new favourite game: Numbers Game - Numberama. It's a simple interface, simple mechanism and simple rules. But there's not a lot of explanation so you have to puzzle it out yourself. It reminds me of when I got into Net, where you have to experiment, think logically and gradually figure out your strategy and build and build until you actually win it. There's no time limit, no pressure, no levels, no ads, no in app purchases. I can chip away at a puzzle for 10 minutes here and there at a time or play for 2 hours straight. Highly recommended.
posted by mosessis at 4:50 PM on February 25, 2020


Now that this thread is approaching the end of its lifespan, and because I am starting to see fan art along with more coverage, I have a deep psychological need to share this, my most controversial gaming opinion (possibly my most controversial opinion, period), somewhere that is not Twitter, and my wife does not know enough about the games in question to care.

Final Fantasy 7 is a big heap of trash compared to Final Fantasies 4and 6, and also Chrono Trigger. As soon as SquareSoft gained the ability to make pretty pictures it's like they forgot how to write stories and compelling characters. I don't begrudge anyone who likes Final Fantasy 7 and are excited for the remake or whatever, it's a fine enough game. (Though I don't know why anyone would be excited to do more companion programming rather than just playing a turn-based JRPG; Persona's been doing great, guys, maybe a return to your roots is in order.) But if you want to tell me that Final Fantasy 7 has a good story, I will ask for a plot summary. Good fucking luck with that.

I don't think I've ever met anyone who actually played FF6 and liked FF7 better, though I confess I don't interrogate most people on their Final Fantasy opinions. If FF7 is an FF game you really love, but you've never played FF6 or Chrono Trigger, you are wasting your life.
posted by Caduceus at 8:48 AM on February 27, 2020


If FF7 is an FF game you really love, but you've never played FF6 or Chrono Trigger, you are wasting your life.

FF6 > FF7 has been an uncontroversial opinion in gamer circles for years--at this point that opinion is old enough to have finished university and started deferring its student loans. I've played FF6 and Chrono Trigger, but FF7 is the one I love. Do you really want a plot summary? Because that will take a long time, like waiting for the Knights of the Round summon. Next year is going to be all about scavenging greens for ungrateful chocobos, unless the remake doesn't include it, in which case next year will be all about complaining about how Square Enix took away the greens and the ungrateful chocobos.
posted by betweenthebars at 5:42 PM on February 27, 2020 [1 favorite]


MetaTalk: scavenging greens for ungrateful chocobos
posted by GenjiandProust at 2:24 AM on February 28, 2020 [3 favorites]


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