Posts authored by Rachel

Wanna play?!

Wanna play?! published on No Comments on Wanna play?!

I think this has happened multiple times in the last few years. 😉

 

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Last week, we received another package of our Secret Santa! It was Dinosaur Tea Party! Yeaaaah… I mean: “Oh jolly, I was anticipating on adding that fabulous looking game to our collection ever since I first laid eyes on it!” The game itself basically is a fancy version of Who is it?, only this is way more fun in my opinion. The game works best if everybody at the table wants to go along with the theme and speak with an accent and behave like posh dinosaurs. If you just want to play the game for what it is and don’t want to play along “in character”, the game might be a bit dull. But for most of our playing groups, this will work just fine as a nice opening or closure game on game nights.

So this year’s BGG Secret Santa was another success! Now we just have to give our target a good experience as well. Looking forward to that!

Last week we played fewer games than the week before, also due to a busy weekend. We played Ruthless, Cerberus and Dinosaur Tea Party. And that’s it! Hopefully, we’ll have a bit more time this coming week.

We also did a test run of the kids RPG system we’ve been working on since this Summer, it’s not finished yet, but if you’re interested, we’ve posted a small report on Twitter – click here to read it.

ICYMI, these are the extra comics that we published, sponsored by CoolStuffInc.com:

Extra comic #005 – Werewolves
Extra comic #006 – Rainy Day

 

Are you participating in a board game Secret Santa this year?

Expanding Stash

Expanding Stash published on 5 Comments on Expanding Stash

This week’s comic features one of our Patrons: DiceSpire! 😀 He won an appearance in a comic in our Autumn Raffle on Patreon. You can also win an appearance in one of our comics in our upcoming Winter raffle on December 21st. Interested? https://www.patreon.com/semicoop

 

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So last week we were already surprised by our Secret Santa! That was way earlier than we expected! We received a package with Dragon Castle in it! After playing it at Spiel this year, this game ended up high on our list, so we’re super happy with the gift. Thank you so so much! And our Santa even hinted that this is not the only package. We feel spoiled to bits. <3 This week, we’ll get busy with taunting our target and hopefully, we manage to give him or her an awesome BGG Secret Santa experience this year. 🙂

We also continued our Gloomhaven campaign and we were doing ok in a rather difficult scenario until we triggered something. We didn’t see that coming and deemed it impossible and we were already discussing what we would do differently in our second try. Just for fun and to prove that this really was an impossible situation, we did continue playing the scenario. And no way, but yes, we actually did it. We won the scenario we had already given up on. That was simply amazing and we will have more faith in our own characters next time. 😉

And underestimating ourselves might have been a theme. We participated in a team bouldering competition on Saturday with four friends and we were able to do way more boulders than we had anticipated. Ok ok, lesson learned, we can do way more than we sometimes think.

Yesterday we’ve played… Dungeons & Dragons! It’s been over six or seven years since we last played a session, so that was really exciting! All the players had either played DnD a few times a looonggg time ago, or had never played it before. Luckily, our DM did a fantastic job. It was supposed to be a one-shot, but everybody was eager for more in the end. So who knows, maybe that giant stash of dice in our house might one day be used for roleplaying games.

In case you missed them, these are the extra comics that we published, sponsored by CoolStuffInc.com:

Extra comic #003 – Tempting
Extra comic #004 – Third Time’s a Charm

Oh, and it’s Heinze’s birthday today – hurray! 😀

What do you do with your expansion boxes?

Not a doctor

Not a doctor published on 3 Comments on Not a doctor

We demoed Holding On by HubGames on the UK Games Expo this year and we were impressed and really liked it. We bought a copy at Spiel and it’s now waiting on our shelf to be played and we’re looking forward to discovering more about the life of Billy Kerr! We’re enthusiastic about games trying different things and also engage original topics, like in Holding On. In this game, players play co-operatively as a nursing staff tending to Billy Kerr, a terminal ill patient. During the campaign, you have to find a balance between taking care of Billy and trying to gain his trust to learn more about his troubled life.

Since last week, we also publish two extra comics on our social media which are sponsored by CoolStuffInc! You can either subscribe to the CoolStuffInc newsletter to read them first or follow us on either Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter. If newsletters or social media is not your thing and you would like to read them, here they are:

Extra comic #1 – Board gaming annoyances

Extra comic #2 – Black Friday

Last week we managed to stripe off some new games from our “to-play”-list! We’ve played The Rajas of the Ganges, Heinze played Crisis and The Cousin’s War with a friend while I was away (so it’s not really off the list, because I want to play those games as well) and we played Spoils of War! And also Century Golem and Root, but those weren’t on the list. 😉

It’s almost December and that also means it’s time for the BoardGameGeek Secret Santa! We already received our first message from our Secret Santa and now that we know who our target is, we have to think up a game plan. Exciting stuff!

Do you know any other games with such serious themes?

Twilight Imperium Struggle

Twilight Imperium Struggle published on 2 Comments on Twilight Imperium Struggle

Last week we announced on our social media channels that we’ve teamed up with CoolStuffInc! That means that you can be the first to read our newest comic when you subscribe to the CoolStuffInc newsletter or if you check out their website. They have commissioned us to create comics for all the newsletters, so that means there will be a more Semi Co-op content! Besides our weekly comic, we’re also making ‘sketchy’ comics, these are more analog drawn looking comics that are a bit shorter/simpler. But we still guarantee that they’ll be about board games and we think they are funny. 😉 These will first be published exclusively in the newsletter of CoolStuffInc and we’ll also share them on our social media channels two days later.
And since it’s the Holiday season, that means there will be three Semi Co-op comics for you every week until Christmas! After that, there will be our weekly comic and one sketchy comic. We’ve also written a post about this collaboration on our Patreon page if you’d like to know more!

 

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We’re really excited about this collaboration since it means we can make more content and our comics are being shared with a larger audience. A win-win situation for all parties! 🙂

So what have we been playing last week?! We played The Quacks of Quedlinburg and that game was way lighter than we both expected, purely based on the cover. The box of the game has a eurogame feel to it, but looks are deceiving. Inside there is a fast-paced ‘bag’ building game. Instead of building up a deck of cards, you’re filling up your pouch with tokens with which you’ll brew your potion. We really enjoyed the game and since the box offers a lot of game variants, we’re curious to play it more.

We also played our first game of Clans of Caledonia! In this case, looks are not deceiving and this is a real euro game! It took us three hours with four players (with the two of us never have played the game), but we all had a great time! The game has a nice theme, great components and is all about producing goods AND selling/buying goods with a stock market system. The latter was a very interesting addition to the game that I personally had not seen before.

We also played our first game of KeyForge! We had fun playing it, but we both feel we might need to play it a few more times with maybe also other decks to see if it’s a game that sticks in the long run. It didn’t give me that WOW-feeling that I did have with Netrunner, but like I said: I’ll definitely give it a few more tries.

And we also played a game of Rising 5 and Root. In Root, we finally managed to defeat the Mechanical Marquise in co-op mode! Yeah!

Are there (popular) games that you really don’t feel like playing?

Promises promises

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It was a great joy to dive into the visual world of Root for this comic! Kyle Ferrin is an amazing artist and did such a fantastic job on Root. I had a ton of fun analyzing his art style and making this tribute. Heinze came up with the awesome slogans for the different factions and this was my first time designing propaganda posters and I think they turned out really cool. 😀

In Root, players play as different factions that are trying to become the ruler of the Woodland. All the factions have their own ruleset, making this is a so-called asymmetrical game. Playing as the birds, the Eyrie Dynasties, Root will be like a programming game. You lay down cards and you NEED to be able to do the actions or else there will be turmoil and your leader. If you ‘promise’ to battle in a certain clearing, but there is nothing to battle: that’s a faulty promise and that will cause turmoil.

Root is not an easy game, certainly not to explain to new players, but we really enjoy it. 🙂

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Last Saturday, we were invited by 999 Games to visit Spellenspektakel here in The Netherlands for the first time. We had a great time and it’s great to see how many people visit such an event within our own borders. Understandably, there is a great overlap with Spiel, looking at the games, so the event was a little less interesting for us looking at the games. What we liked the most about the event was seeing friends from the industry again. And Portal Games offered us a table to organize a meet & greet! We don’t have that many readers in The Netherlands but ended up having a good time at the Portal booth nonetheless. Thanks so much for having us guys!

We also finally bought ourselves a copy of the game Ruthless! We have demoed it this year at the UKGE and really liked it. So we played it again in the open gaming area of the hotel across the street Saturday night together with Dave from TheHappyLuza, ruthlessly commentated by Roland from Roland’s Revenge, the designer and artist of the game. That was a great experience. 😉

Behind the Semi Co-op scenes, things are brewing and cool stuff we’re really excited about will be announced later this week. Keep an eye on our social media this week to stay up to date!

What’s your favorite faction in Root?

Board game injuries

Board game injuries published on 5 Comments on Board game injuries

 

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Board games can be vicious for the human body! They make your brains melt while you’re trying to figure out what the best strategy is, they hurt our fingers with funky flicking games and then… there’s Yogi. The game that challenges players to contort their bodies in unusual ways. Roughly put, it can be considered as Twister at the table. If your gaming group is up to games like this, Yogi is a perfect, nice short and silly party game made by Bez.

It’s only been one week since Spiel and I can’t even imagine that we were walking around in the giant gaming halls only eight days ago. It feels like it’s been weeks! There’s this big pile of games laying around in our house that we took home with us from Spiel. We had hoped to tackle quite some games this weekend, but Heinze and I both fell ill (nooooo!). So, I’m afraid they’ll have to wait a little while longer.
Disclaimer: Most of the games were gifted to us by publishers and we’re really grateful for that. <3 This way, we also get to try games that we otherwise might not have played.

Speaking about gaming events, we’ll be visiting Spellenspektakel in Eindhoven here in The Netherlands for the first time! As far as I know (correct me if I’m wrong) it’s the biggest gaming convention in our country. If you’re going to be there and you see us walking around on Saturday: don’t hesitate and say hi – we’d love to meet you and maybe play a game! 🙂 We’ll be taking stickers and bookmarks with us to hand out.

What other board game injuries can you think of?

The Unplayed

The Unplayed published on 7 Comments on The Unplayed

(We discovered that our comic plugin also supports GIFs. Gleeeee!)

 

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We’re back from a fantastic week at Spiel in Essen! This year has been slightly surreal, there have been so many readers saying hello to us and we’ve met so many interesting new people. And of course, we met up with friends we only meet once or twice a year. Thank you boardgaming community for being so awesome! <3

This year of Spiel might not have been so much about the board games, it was mostly about the people for us. We did play some games, but not that many and… we’re totally fine with that! Some of the games that we’ve played are Men at Work, Railroad Ink, Valparaíso, Realm of Sand, Faceless, Ceylon, Arraial, Dragon Castle, Untamed and Downforce.

Although Dragon Castle isn’t a new title, we did finally get a chance to play it and we loved it. Solid game! We had a great time playing Men at Work and we were very impressed by Valparaíso and Downforce. I’m not going to review all the games, because that’s not what we do. If you’re interested, you can check out our Instagram account. We often write our opinions about a game when posting a picture of it. 🙂

Heinze and I are both back to work today! Hopefully, we get to play some of the games that we took home with us in the evenings these coming weeks. I wish there was a booth on Spiel that sold time, that would have made this all a lot easier. 😉

How many unplayed games do you have?

Preparing for Spiel

Preparing for Spiel published on 3 Comments on Preparing for Spiel

This week it’s time for Spiel and I don’t feel like I’m ready at all, to be honest! This is the second time we’re going to Spiel and the first time that we’ll be there every day. Even on the press day on Wednesday, that’s going to be interesting. 😀 We only have a few appointments, so we can freely roam the halls most of the time. We have a list of games we’d love to try if we get the chance!

From the top of my head:

  • Nyctophobia
  • Blue Lagoon
  • Princess Jing
  • Robin Hood and the Merry Men
  • Shadows: Amsterdam
  • Treasure Island
  • Dinosaur Tea Party
  • Cryptid

(There are probably a few more that I forgot) Those are some of the titles we would love to demo, see in action and maybe buy. Mostly we’re just going to wander around and be on the lookout for things we haven’t heard of before.

But Spiel isn’t just about games, it’s also about meeting new people and seeing friends again. We’re really looking forward to that. So you are at Spiel and by any chance see us walk by, don’t hesitate to say hi! We’d love to meet your and we’ll be carrying around some cool stickers and bookmarks that we’re giving away for free. If you don’t want to leave it to chance to meet us, we’ll be at the Instagram meetup at Fritz Patrick’s at 5 PM and we’ll also be at the GamingRules meetup in that same venue at 7 PM. We’ll be taking our ‘Share the Love’-packs with stickers and bookmarks with us to those meetings as well!

How do you prepare for board game conventions?

#WarGames are for everybody!

#WarGames are for everybody! published on 2 Comments on #WarGames are for everybody!

 

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This week’s comic is dedicated to Katie from Katie’s Game Corner! Katie has a blog that is mostly about wargames. But what we think makes Katie special is that she really tries to shed another light on wargames, to give this game genre a lower threshold and she works hard to make the board and war gaming community an inclusive place for everyone without judgment or discrimination. These are things we full heartedly support and this lead to this week’s comic.

Katie commissioned us to draw her an avatar a while back and she liked it so much, that she’s having a contest on Twitter where you can win a commissioned avatar! Check that out if you’d like your own Semi Co-op styled avatar, the giveaway ends on October 31.

Good friends of ours got us a meeple cookie cutter and we’re loving it. From now on we can serve meeple cookies at gaming nights, yeah! Now we just need to find an amazing cookie recipe. And yes, one of our cats was cool enough to photobomb the picture. 😉

It’s almost time for Spiel! Exciting times! And a little less time for playing games in preparation before heading to Essen. Last week we only played Steampunk Rally, Bargain Quest and Star Realms. This week we might play another game of Root and hopefully, we can crack our brains at the second case of Detective. On the other hand: we’ll probably play more than enough games at Spiel, so maybe it’s a sensible thing to play a little less games right now. 😀

Do you play wargames and do you have any favorites?

Behind the Filter

Behind the Filter published on 2 Comments on Behind the Filter

 

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We don’t actually have a board gaming room and often just play games at our kitchen table, but this is often how it goes, right? And not only in board gaming, people make a pretty picture and you have no clue what kind of mess is going behind the camera. And for fanatic board gamers, there’s the ‘issue’ of newly acquired games that’ll need a place on a shelve since they can’t stay in an evergrowing stack somewhere in a corner. Luxury problems, really – but probably recognizable for some readers of this comic. 😉

In other news: we’ve got a new design up in our merchandise store! We’ve already received a sample of the tote bag and we’re loving it. As we speak, we’re having a little contest on Instagram in which you can win a $10 voucher for our store with no minimum and it lasts until October 31. You just have to follow us on Instagram, like the post and tag a friend in the comments below the Instagram picture. We’ll pick a winner tonight at 8PM CEST. We’re also having a (pre)-Essen Sale right now that lasts until October 31, so if you’re looking for fun board game themed tote bags or shirts, you might want to take a look.

And there’s another contest going on that is related to our comic! On Twitter, KatiesGamesCorner has a giveaway going on in which you can win your own personalized avatar drawn in Semi Co-op style, by me! Click here to check out how you can join in the contest, which ends on October 31. If anybody is interested, you can always send an email to info[at]semicoop[dot]com if you wish to commission an avatar drawn by me.

Semi Co-op – Share the Love (promotion pack)!
We’re looking for people that are coming to Spiel in Essen and would like to drop off some of our bookmarks and stickers at their favorite local gaming spot. This could be on the counter of your local gaming store or at your board gaming cafe (with permission of course). We always leave a stack of bookmarks and stickers at our FLGS and we have to restock them every month and we thought it would be fun if we could spread them around the world! Every pack contains 50 stickers and bookmarks. If you’re interested and are coming to Spiel: please leave a comment down below so we can estimate how many we should order before Spiel.

If you like our comics and would like to support the work we do, we’re now on Patreon! Being a monthly patron gives you automatic entry in the seasonal raffles we hold on Patreon, in which you can win fun prizes like things from our merchandise store, sketches and more!

Do you have a dedicated board gaming room?
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