Straight From The Gamer's Mouth

by Ben Goulding

Three gamers sit over a recently finished game of Roll for the Galaxy.

Ben: Okay so Colony, what did you think of Colony?

Joe: I liked it. Even though I don't like Dominion so much, I think I preferred Colony because it was dice rather than just cards. You know with Dominion when you play it and the cards are in your hand, you can't see everything but then on in Colony, it's all right in front of you, isn't it? It seems much more bit like Roll for the Galaxy.

Toby: For me, Dominion and Roll for the Galaxy two of my favourites and Colony is like a weird hybrid between both and it works.

B: Yeah, you've got the variable setup in the middle and then the dice/tile/card tableau infront of you.

T: However, I would still choose either Roll or Dominion over Colony.

B: Okay, so with it being a hybrid makes you like it less?

T: Yes but only slightly.

J: It fills a different niche though doesn't it? Roll for the Galaxy only takes 20 minutes.

B: Especially if you rush like you did!

T: I will admit the pacing of Colony is probably a bit better than Dominion.

B: Yeah, because you're invested on every turn, because you get the dice from the other player's rolls. All the attack cards and the defence cards seemed quite powerful, they're like big attack with big defence.

T: As long as you have the defence to counter the offence.

B: Yes, if your attack got through it was really powerful but then if it didn't the defence is really powerful.

J: It made me think of Quantum as well, like the mechanics I actually liked in Quantum which was the dice manipulation. All the changing a five to a one and so on. I like that mechanic.

B: Play again?

J: Yeah, I'd play Colony again.

T: Definitely.

B: Black Orchestra then.

T: I really enjoyed Black Orchestra. I'd happily play that again, because it's very challenging but again it's a decent pace and you're never just sat around waiting. It's a bit like Pandemic, the collaboration means that you're always involved.

J: That's what I was gonna say. It's like Pandemic, but different. A more enjoyable theme, at least for people who play games like we do.

B: Yeah, I mean, how many times did we try and kill Hitler? Six? With six different plots and we failed every one. We even attempted on the very last turn of the game.

J: Well, I think we had three plots on the go at once. Everyone's last turn, we all had a go at Hitler.

B: What was it, we had Coup, Bomb and Poison Gas or something? We just didn't get the crosshair results did we.

J: Did we even get any? I think we only got three at most didn't we.

B: We rolled poorly.

J: That was the thing wasn't it? We had all the stuff, we had all the plots, but it is just chance-based at the end of the day.

B: And we were getting quite excited early on. "Oh, we've got everything we need! Oh, no, we're not motivated enough. Oh, Hitler's just moved."

J: I think we if we had played with different characters, I think we would have been worse off as well, because the one I had [General Beck] seemed to be pretty necessary. I can see how the ones where you can get quicker motivation can help because then obviously, you have a go earlier. But even then, that's when the military is really strong, isn't it? Unless you can kill him in Nuremberg I can't see how you'd do it early.

B: Pop him off at the Peace Rally?

T: I do like the how all the different events have implications, like they reduce the amount of eagles for your plots.

B: Yeah, and sometimes you can spin them to your advantage as well. Like it puts Hitler exactly where you need him or, you know, it reveals an item and it's exactly what you need for a plot.

T: Yeah, I agree.

J: I wouldn't want to play it a lot, but I think it's a nice showpiece game.

B: It's quite intense to play a lot, isn't it? It's quite an exhausting game. I think all the different bits that you have to mesh together for hard to parse and keep track of.

J: Especially towards the end, when it does become very desperate.

B: I really enjoyed it as well, especially because we all have some familiarity with the history.

J: I prefer I think I'd rather play that over Pandemic. That might just be because we played so much Pandemic and this is something a bit new and a bit more complicated. I didn't mind losing at this.

B: What did you think about the interrogation cards? Having to decide on your own, because you got a lot of those Joe.

T: I really liked the way they worked.

J: I like the fact they were all different as well. All the ones I saw were different.

B: Because every time you picked one up you grimaced.

J: A lot of them were discard items, we shouldn't really be discarding that many items because there's a limited number? That was one of our issues towards the end.

B: Terraforming Mars. I mean, what's left to say and what haven't we said? Like I was saying yesterday, I'm quite happy to not play it again until Terraforming Mars: Turmoil comes out.

T: My ultimate opinion of Terraforming Mars is just the pace of the game is much better, much more enjoyable, when there's just two people. Three and four, the more people you've got in the game, it feels like it drags on a lot longer. And it's not like a little bit longer for the extra person, it's a significant amount of time per turn extra.

B: There can be a lot of downtime especially when certain people, Joe, had lots of card drawing cards and it's just "I draw a card, I draw a card, I draw card."

J: Blue cards are the way to victory! But yeah, I'm see what you mean about slowing down, but it depends who you play. If I play with Ben then it's a quick game because Ben doesn't do blue cards.

B: Not always! Depends, if I need the tags I'll do blue cards. The Manhattan Project then?

J: I'd quite like to play that again, to be honest.

T: I wasn't that fussed by it. I'd quite happily play it once or twice again but I don't think it'll become a particular favourite.

J: I didn't like that I couldn't use my stuff!

B: Because you were being spied upon? I see Rachel smiling...

J: Yeah, I wasn't overly fussed by that because I essentially couldn't do anything for the last three turns because I knew what would happen. I don't think you should be able to go to two different players' stuff when you're doing espionage, I'm surprised that's allowed in the mechanics.

T: I think it would be better balanced if it was more costly to do espionage, and if it didn't completely lockout the buildings they spy on. Maybe a choice instead? You could either use use the resource from the card or you could disable it through espionage, the disabling would prevent the owner using the building, but your spies using the building would allow the owner to also use it. Thematically if you own a factory and somebody goes in and steals or spies on you, it doesn't necessarily stop you from still producing the goods.

J: There could maybe be an action where you pay to flush all the spies out of your own board, then you're not just sat there with a paralysed engine waiting for the other person to retrieve their spies.

B: Yeah, I'd like to play it a bit more, the theme made me want to get it really? There's the mini-expansion that we didn't play with which is Nations, each player has a nation which gives them a little gimmick.

J: The fighters and the bombers seemed pretty pointless as well.

B: Yeah, we didn't really bother with that did we? But we're never too aggressive in any games we play anyway. Maybe they're just there to accommodate groups who like to attack each other. So, Obsession?

J: I always like Obsession. I don't like the short board though.

B: It was half past ten when we started!

J: Yeah, I know. We couldn't have played the full one. But the short one is just a totally different game as you always feel that you're rushing through, there's only 12 actions in the game basically.

T: This is going to sound weird, actually, but I won at Manhattan Project and Obsession and they were probably my least favourite games.

B: You came second at Obsession.

J: I won Obsession!

T: Oh, sorry. I was a close second!

B: But they were your least favourites?

T: Yeah, but that might be partly because of the lateness of the hour.

J: We were quite late playing it to be fair. But going back to the short game, I know when you play the long one you end up with a massive hand of Prestige guests whereas in that game I only had two.

B: I only had one and could only play him on the National Holiday.

Rachel (eavesdropping from her comfy sofa in the lounge): Its the prestige guests that allow you to buy more.

B: They've got more reputation, more money, and you get to use the abilities of the daughters and Elizabeth Fairchild to get that extra reputation as well. I do prefer the longer game but given the time...

J: I do really enjoy it. I think it's a good game. I like ones where there's a point salad and you can score from everything.

B: Yeah, lots of different categories of scoring.

T: For me, I don't think I'd be disappointed if I never played it again. I'd play Manhattan a couple more times. But yeah, Obsession, I personally wouldn't pick it.

B: So what was your favourite game of the weekend then?

T: I think actually, I really liked Escape the Dark Castle.

J: I wasn't fussed by it.

T: I think we should have played it more.

B: I know you're not a fan of the storytelling kind of roleplay games Joe.

J: It was too hard.

B: You just gotta roll better!