Board Game Night with Dire Wolf & Friends
www.humblebundle.com
Get some of the best board games of recent years in digital form! Dune: Imperium, Wingspan, Terraforming Mars & more! Your purchase helps the World Wildlife Fund.

Get the following for $7

  • Root
  • Sagrada
  • Scythe
  • Coupon for 50% off Root: The Riverfolk Expansion DLC

Get the following and above for $10

  • Wingspan
  • Munchkin Digital
  • Coupon for 30% off Munchkin Digital: The Unnatural Axe DLC

Get the following and above for $15

  • Terraforming Mars
  • Terraforming Mars: Prelude DLC
  • Terraforming Mars: Hellas & Elysium DLC
  • Everdell

Get the following and above for $18

  • Dune: Imperium
  • Quilts and Cats of Calico
  • EvilBit@lemmy.worldEnglish
    7·
    3 months ago

    My take:

    Bottom line: if you like board games at all, this is well worth the $18 for the whole set.

    I’ll give mini-reviews of the ones I know, with a weight rating (complexity, on a scale of 1=“I always bring Apples to Apples to parties” to 5=“I have strong opinions about deckbuilders and area control mechanics”) and an overall rating.

    Root: interesting, hugely asymmetrical game where it’s basically like learning to play a new board game for each faction. As such, a bit unwieldy, but interesting at least.

    Weight: 4/5

    Overall: 3/5

    Scythe: complex, deep, and satisfying strategic military industrial war game that can be won without a single battle but may take 2-3 games to really grasp how to succeed. Great steampunk alternate history style, excellent adaptation with asynchronous netplay (play your turn whenever you want and get a notification when it’s your turn again).

    Weight: 4.5/5

    Overall: 4.5/5

    Wingspan: relaxing, fun, and pretty. A great gateway board game if you have a modicum of patience to play until the mechanics “click” for you.

    Weight: 3/5

    Overall: 4/5

    Terraforming Mars: a classic that’s less complicated than it looks and every game is different. Beautiful implementation but the netplay has been buggy forever and I don’t know if they’ve fixed it. You can play asynchronously but back 2020/2021 I had several games go into a broken state that lost our progress.

    Weight: 3.5/5

    Overall: 4/5 (would be a 5 if the netplay was rock solid)

    Everdell: a charming worker placement game that also takes about half a game or so before it clicks. Quite fun once it does, and a great art style.

    Weight: 3.5/5

    Overall: 4/5

    Dune Imperium: brutally complex game that blends deckbuilding and worker placement in an impressively thematic structure with a fantastic digital implementation and async netplay. The game is almost a little TOO intricate though, and it can be easy to lose because you overlooked one of several facets of the strategy. Could be worth playing with a group that are all unfamiliar with it so you can all be terrible together.

    Weight: 5/5

    Overall: 3.5/5

    EDIT: a useful note, I think all of the above games have mobile apps that are cross-compatible, so you can play on the go. Combined with async netplay and a couple friends, this is a great way to get a trickle feed of board gaming in your life.

    • clothes@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      3 months ago

      Thanks for this! Do you know if many of these are viable as single player experiences?

      • EvilBit@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        3 months ago

        I think most or all of them have AI, so in general, yes, at least a few are. The only ones I can vouch for having played solo are Terraforming Mars (it has a race-the-turn-clock mode I think, along with AI players) and Dune Imperium, if you like getting your ass kicked by robots.

        I think the social aspect is one of the best parts of board gaming, so playing solo can feel kind of lonely to me, but it’s definitely a common feature. Async is my favorite though, because you can wrangle a group of friends to play a game over the course of a few days during everyone’s free time. Sometimes everyone ends up online at the same time and you’ll knock out half a dozen turns, other times you’ll do a turn or two in a day.

        • clothes@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          3 months ago

          Thanks! I wasn’t aware of the async option, but it sounds useful. I’m a weirdo who likes playing boardgames against AI, so maybe I’ll read some reviews.

          • EvilBit@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            3 months ago

            Playing the AI in Dune Imperium was humbling but by the time I got a game going with friends after a few rounds against the computer, I crushed them.