Having a hard time with a good game...
I've had Sands of Shurax set up on my table for a week now, and I've hardly made any progress with it. I'm not sure why. It seems like a pretty amazing game. And there is A LOT OF IT. Like holy crow, guys. This thing is massive.
And maybe that's it.
Now I never played Volume 1 of Hexplore-It, and as most of you know I've grown to love Volume 2. Volume 1 seems like a pretty simple game, and, from what I've gathered, I think they added some wrinkles to the game with Volume 2. Maybe they added just enough!
With Volume 3 they've added a TON of wrinkles. Maybe they've added too much!
The big one for me is that the game now has 4 distinct win conditions, depending on which city-state you align with. With 4 totally different goals, it's really hard to know what to do, and when. It's kind of paralyzing for me. There are also a lot of moving parts to this game! It's not deep and complex, and wide and varied. And I like that. There's nothing that I don't understand, there are just a whole hell of a lot of little things to remember.
For instance, there are a number of different ways to gather the vast number of different currencies in the game - food, gold, crystals and platinum. However, there is no central place that describes all of the different ways to get your hands on those things. So you have to constantly be looking in a number of different places to remember how to get them. This game would greatly benefit from a couple of cheat sheets.
I haven't even touched the expansion content, which adds whole other dungeon crawling mini game!
I'm looking forward to finally diving in, but it's just taking me some time to get there. Work has been insanely busy now, so that could be something to do with it. I'm hoping to have finally played a full game by this coming weekend so I can give you guys a video on it.
Have a very Merry Christmas to those who celebrate, and a happy holiday season to everyone!
- daniel
Comments (9)
I will get back to SoS hopefully next week for another round. But it is tough and a little bit brainburing to play.But Dungeon Crusade will probably arrive next week and I have the new Aliens board game here
If you play this game 2+ does each player control a character and do whatever like a co-op Xia? Or do all players play a single piece on the board?
You play as a single party. Although one certain character can venture forth on their own.
While I do not have this one (tried!, but was a few days too late), I have definitely had the experience where I should love a game but at some point (often after several fits and starts) realize I am just not having any fun. It's really disheartening!
I felt similarly overwhelmed with the 2nd installment but when I went back read my BGG play reports I seemed to always have fun with it. I think I was just wandering around without focusing on defeating the various bosses and it was taking ages to make progress. For some reason, I'm struggling to give it another chance for some reason.
I watched a review by a german youtuber, who basically came to a similiar conclusion. Too rules heavy, fiddly, lots and lots of small rules made the game kind of a chore. But what if you are not a reviewer, playing lots of games. And this is the game where you put your next weeks or months into it. Maybe then it works. There are so many games out today. Think of it, 1 new game every 3-4 months. You would certainly look different on a game.
I feel that way about a lot of games.
I have the same impression that this volume ramps up quite a bit in things to do in Shurax world. But it looks that I won't receive Shurax for this holiday, UK shut down the borders and road shipments don't happen from this week. :(
I just heard that you guys shut boarders for deliveries. Wild, but probably the right thing to do for now.