Three collaborative games we’ve been playing

Good Morning.

ESCAPE

A frantic dice-rolling game that uses the mechanic “Roll dice quickly until you get the required dice, then use them to do something, and then continue rolling.” It takes a few games to realize it really works like that, but then you understand it. In this game, you’re rolling dice to explore new rooms (tiles), move into those rooms, collect gems, find the exit, and leave. While you’re doing this, the soundtrack is timing you, and forcing you to return to the start every three minutes or so. We have the Big Box, and Milo keeps pulling out new expansions I’ve never heard of. Today we tried “timer rooms”. With all these options, it’s an art to create combinations that are at the sweet spot of not impossible but not too easy. Keep in mind, this is a pretty stressful game and not for everyone.

And now the picture is after the description.

SLAY THE SPIRE BOARD GAME

This is a $10 video game, and you should own it if you at all play solitaire video games. But the video game plays like a board game anyway. It’s a roguelike deck builder. You collect cards that usually attack or defend, and then you face enemies and try to defeat them while maintaining enough health and collecting enough goodies to defeat the final boss. Board game is the same, except the health and damage numbers are essentially divided by 10. It’s a fun collaborative game where each player faces their own enemies, but it’s often smarter to single-target to burn one down sooner. (You know what I mean if you’ve played anything like it before.) there are four classes, a couple viable builds for each class, and an Ascension mode to increase difficulty if you want. We decided we saw it all after maybe 10 plays.

STARDEW VALLEY

It’s another board game implementation of a video game. The video game is famously “relaxing”. The board game maintains this vibe, but boy there’s a lot of setup and there are a lot of options. In short, it’s a farming and mining and fishing and foraging adventure in a new town, where you can meet villagers and improve the community center. In this game you need to complete 10 different quests which usually involve using your action to gain little tiles and then turn them in. It’s just “fun” to roll the dice and see what you get from the mines, or walk along the path and see what type of vegetable pops out of the ground. We haven’t lost yet, and though I bet we can increase the difficulty, that’s not really the point. It’s just a nice time being immersed in this world for an hour or so.

I can’t give any of these my full vouch. They’re activities and a fun way to spend time with friends. Just, you’re not saving the world like in Pandemic or Daybreak.