Backstories: Alone & Star Realms 35

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A choose your own adventure type game. Moderately interesting. The idea is to find one's lost brother who has disappeared on Mont Blanc while looking for lost Nazi treasure. Sort of a stereotypical storyline, but it works well enough here. Apparently this is a series of 3 games so far. I may get one of the others in the series to better learn the mechanics.

Seems like a good mechanism for perhaps a tunnel rats game.

Star Realms 35

This game went on for a long time! I taught a first time player who managed to acquire a couple of really high value ships early on, and we both ended up with a lot of Federation cards to rebuild authority. Probably went more than twice as long as my usual games. I ended up finally winning this one, but I definitely had to work at it.

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What to play next?

Deciding what to play next is always a tough call when faced with a closet full of games, all of which were purchased with intent to play. Here's one I'm dealing with the decision.

  • Something New: this means both something new to me and a game which has been published recently, within the last two or three years.
  • Something Classic: I've acquired a number of games properly considered "classic" which haven't yet been played. The current example would be PanzerGruppe Guderian.
  • Something Again: mastery requires constant practice, which means playing games many, many times to allow nuance to appear.
  • Something Vietnam: as I'm on a Vietnam binge. I don't have all the Vietnam games ever published, but I can say that I have a lot of them, and probably more than most people.
  • Something Obscure: as it's fun to poke around in the dustier corners of game design.
  • Something Different: break away from the same old publishers and try a game from one of the new kids on the block. Or, conversely, dip into legacy with a classic tried and true.
  • Something Light: once in a while it's nice to actually finish a game all the way through in one sitting, in an hour or two.
  • Something Heavy: if possible, it's nice to set up something big and complicated which can be left out for days or weeks or even months, for a leisurely stroll through a very large or long game.

There are surely many more ways to choose, but the above method keeps me busy enough, helps me get both breadth and depth into my play, and provides me with a sense of progress.

The odd man out

When there is an odd man out:

  • Have a solo game ready to play.
  • Keep score or advise on a game in progress.
  • Referee a game in progress.