Hip Hip, hurray! It’s Semi Co-op’s anniversary this week (tomorrow to be precise!).  It’s been such a fun ride and we can only hope to be celebrating this event for many more years to come. To actually give ourselves time to celebrate a little, we’re going to keep this blog post short. We still need to get some pie to celebrate and the shops are closing soon. 😉

We’ve also been working on something special and are happy that we can finally launch it: our brand-new Semi Co-op pop-up store! The biggest and for us probably the for us scariest new addition is that we now offer prints of our comics and you can FINALLY order a print of our “Know Your Cubes”-poster that we’ve designed for a comic back in 2021. The reason it took us this long is that we just couldn’t find a printing service that got the colors of the cubes right. We then decided to do it ourselves! For now, this is a temporary pop-up store and we will keep it online until Summer. We will be adding cool new products during the coming months but we’ll keep you posted about that.

And yes, we do have this week’s comic as a wallpaper for your computer or phone!

Technology is amazing nowadays! The fact that we can change the atmosphere in a room with a single tap on our phone and that it’s possible to 3D print anything we like is just a crazy thing! I don’t think we would have believed you ten years ago that we would be able to print high-quality miniatures in our own home. A resin printer is a little bit of a hassle because we want to use it safely and take the necessary precautions, but the results are amazing. Fancy RGB lights are less effort luckily! They’re cool for the general atmosphere and nice for storytelling games, as long as you’re not playing actual board games because in that case: the clearer and brighter the light, the better! Especially when playing with colorblind people. 🙂 Now ChatGPT… I guess it could be handy to get some inspiration from it when thinking of a backstory for your character? It might give you angles and ideas you otherwise would never have thought about!

Last week we played another interesting variety of games! We started off the week with a game of Mice and Mystics. We’ve started playing the campaign with friends but we’re also discovering that the playing time of 90 minutes that the box says… might be a little optimistic? Or maybe the first scenario is just very long? We weren’t able to finish it and will have to finish it next time.
On Thursday we played another game of Galactic Renaissance and we still really enjoy the game! Absolutely a recommendation if you like sci-fi-themed games with some deckbuilding, area control, and creative scoring. The game’s currently still on Kickstarter if you’d like to learn more. We ended the night with a little brain teaser puzzle with Turing Machine. On Friday we finally continued our travels and adventures in Artisans of Splendent Vale. We’ve got to say that it’s not a perfect game and it has its flaws, but we are having a lot of fun with it and like discovering what the game(world) has to offer.

This weekend, Heinze played his third game of War Room! …And alas, like previous plays, they were not able to actually finish the game in ten hours – not even after some strategic preparations. My mind is just blown by the scale of this game and I feel very little need to ever play it. 😉 Games that take longer than five hours in one sitting are really a no-go for me, my head will get foggy and I lose my focus.

Oh and in case you missed it, we posted two extra comics last week. We finished our series about Let’s Go! To Japan and we published another SheGames comic! 

There’s a cross-over between storytelling games and RPGs, but the word “game” can probably be confusing. We’ve played many board games with a storytelling element to them but we haven’t played many storytelling games. One has clear rules and possible outcomes are set in stone, while storytelling games offer you some rules but there’s no outcome that’s based on points or a score. It’s not quantified.

A friend of ours got himself a copy of Fall of Magic, which we absolutely recommend checking out if you love crafty productions. It’s a screen-printed fabric scroll that has a journey depicted on it and players collaboratively tell a story based on it. We’re going to play it this week and we’re really curious how it will be. To be honest, I’m not really creative with words when put on the spot and have very little roleplaying experience, so I’m slightly anxious about it. But hey, it’s always good to try new things and step out of your comfort zone!

Another storytelling game that caught our interest last week was Till the Last Gasp. This one leans a little more to the game side than to an RPG. It’s a two-player dueling storytelling game that gives players different settings and characters to duel with. The game has a smart action points system combined with objectives and drama cards to give players some guidance in their story. The action points give it more of a game feel, while you’re still telling a story together. We played our first game and noticed that our storytelling skills are a little rusty, but we did have fun with it and it’s something I’d love to get better at. We both enjoy the great number of creative storytelling games out there that don’t require endless sessions like traditional RPGs but it’s also something we need to become more comfortable with and we notice there’s not necessarily an overlap between board gamers and such games. 😀

Besides Till the Last Gasp, we didn’t play a lot of games last week just a game of Fish & Katz, a game of Chai and Akropolis. 

Oh and in case you missed it, we published the second comic in our Let’s Go! To Japan series last Thursday!

We’re always very laidback if it comes to beverages and board games and that’s also because we don’t remember any spilling accidents happening at our table. Until last week while playing 7 Wonders, haha. Luckily there was no major damage and we only lost some coin tokens. All good, all good, we were lucky, and as a bonus: that led to this comic! We’re not changing our behavior and we want to believe that this was a singular occurrence. 😉

Last week, we’ve played a lot of lighter games! As mentioned, we played 7 Wonders with the new Edifice expansion. To prevent this blog post from becoming too long, you can find our first impression on our Instagram account. Sticking to the same theme, we also played a game of Akropolis and are still amazed by the tight and solid gameplay of the game. It’s impressive! And we played Splendor Duel, which we still think is an excellent two-player game.

We also received the Star Wars: The Deckbuilding Game from Asmodee and we were really curious since it reminded us a lot of Star Realms. Was this just going to be a Star Wars-themed copy of Star Realms and Ascension? Actually, yes and no! At its core, it’s a lot like Star Realms, but there are some important differences that we think have been neatly integrated with the theme. One player represents the Rebels and the other the Empire. In the market row, there are Rebel, Empire, and neutral cards. The Rebel and Empire player can buy neutral cards but they cannot buy each other faction’s cards. They can, however, attack the other faction’s cards that are in the Market row for resources and other powers. We also like the slightly cheesy Force mechanic in the game that enables special abilities of some cards if “the Force is with you”. There’s a Force track and the Force gets pulled between the Rebels and the Empire during the game by playing or attacking cards. The first player to destroy four bases (three when playing a short game) of the other player, wins. All in all, the game isn’t super original but we did really enjoy playing it and even played it four times last week.

Lastly, yesterday we were visited by our younger nephews who wanted to play some board games! After quite some debate, we ended up playing MegaCity: Oceania, Sweet & Spicy, and Mysterium. All games were a hit but Mysterium really struck the right chord and we even got to play another game of Mysterium after dinner.

Shout-out to r-n-w.net, the great font we used in the flowchart is made by Rose who creates adventures, makes cute tabletop accessories and produces handy game master tools.

To buy or not to buy, that’s sometimes the question. Especially if somebody you know already has their eyes on a certain game! :’D Having as many games as we do, we tend to question ourselves: how often would we actually play this game if we owned a copy? And wouldn’t that most likely be with the person that wants to buy a copy themselves?

Heat: Pedal to the Metal is one of those games that we’re both really interested in. A friend mentioned this weekend that they are thinking about adding Heat to their collection, raising the question of this week’s comic. We already own Flamme Rouge and love the game, would we play Heat enough to justify the expense? We’re still on the fence about that. It might also just happen that we impulse buy Heat the next time we’re at our FLGS because you know… supporting local businesses is important. 😉

A game we love but we’re OK with not owning ourselves is Xia: Legends of a Drift System! We’ve played it twice this weekend, with five players on Saturday and since the game was left at our home, we couldn’t resist playing another game with just the two of us on Sunday. We also quickly concluded that the game even takes a long time with just two players and we’re fine with playing it just a few times a year. We’ve written a little about our five-player game on Instagram if you’re interested.

Sticking to the space genre, we also played a two-player game of Galactic Renaissance and we were really surprised that the game works just as well with two players. Chapeau! On Thursday we played one of the scenarios of the Destinies scenario Myth & Folklore and we really enjoyed the creativity that has been put into the game experience of that expansion so far. All in all, we haven’t played a lot of games, but they sure were epic.

And in case you missed it, we published an extra comic last Thursday about Deal with the Devil!

More Lion and Gazelle? You can read the previous comics here: #1, #2, #3, #4, #5 and #6 here!
Mammal deception! It’s been about two months, so we thought it was time for another Lion and Gazelle comic!

Take backsies can be a pretty controversial topic. We’re quite laid-back, especially if other players and we play a game for the first or second time or if a mistake breaks the game for a player or really frustrates them. Some players we know are really stern and even have the rule that if you place something on the board, it’s stuck there and you’ve made your move. I guess it’s a way to speed up the game time but it can also take the fun out of it, especially if you’re not very familiar with a game.

Speaking of games we were not very familiar with… we’ve played a lot of new games this past week! First of all, there was a pre-production copy of Galactic Renaissance which we were and now are very excited about. It’s a game with a lot of different mechanics but they all fit snugly together. A fun one is that players have no discard pile and cards go directly to the bottom of your deck and you’re not allowed to shuffle your deck (unless instructed of course). We know Aeon’s End also does this, but this is the first time we’ve encountered a game that does this. The fact that you somewhat know what cards are going to be unreachable for a while makes for interesting tactical choices and makes discarding a card a more difficult choice. The game also has deck-building, exploration, area control, and a fun portal system that connects different planets together. We hope to play it again soon to see how it plays now we know how to avoid some easily made mistakes.

We played Mantis Falls, quite an unknown title. Like Dead of Winter, it’s a ‘sometimes cooperative’ game with hidden roles for two to three players. This game is hard! And not that it’s very complex but it’s hard to beat. The fact that you never really know if the other player will betray you during the game adds to the tension. Players travel over the road that will offer challenges that need to be overcome or they’ll be wounded. It’s an interesting game but we really need to play it again now we know what to expect and now we know how hard it is to reach the end…

Our copy of Birds of a Feather came in the mail and that game is a (little) stunner! I think the art of the cards is just gorgeous, the artists really did a great job. The game itself is nice and simple and not something I’ve played before. You play a card from your hand and you check if the habitat of that bird card is the same as any other cards that are already on the table (lingering birds) and the ones that are being played by other players that round. At the end of the round, the played bird cards replace the lingering birds and in the next round, you play a new card! You have a checklist on which you cross off all the different birds you spotted and you try to spot as many different birds as possible during the game to score the most points. It’s not a complex game but it’s nice and entertaining and there are some drafting rules to make the game a little bit more tactical. 🙂

Heinze also played Millennium Blades this weekend! Since I didn’t, I can’t say too much about it, but I do know that he was impressed by the level of detail that has gone into the game but also that he was really happy that he never bought a copy himself because it would be way too hard to get to the table. If you’ve never heard of it, Millennium Blades is a collectible card game simulator. During the game, players play multiple games and compete for tournament prizes, build and upgrade their decks, trade cards with other players, and even ‘crack open’ random boosters. It’s quite spectacular.

We also played our second game of Artisans of Splendent Vale (still so much fun!), we cracked another case of Suspects and we played a game of Sniper Elite. It was quite a lovely spread this week! And in case you missed it, we posted an extra comic last Thursday about Blueprints of Mad King Ludwig!

We say Semi Co-op is a webcomic about board games, but it’s also about card games and sometimes RPGs. Calling it just a webcomic about ‘games’ would also include digital games… which we don’t cover. We also could say it’s about tabletop games but that’s often referred to when talking about RPGs and miniature wargames which is not our main focus. So we settled on board games but the line between games is very fuzzy.

The fact that there are a lot of cross-overs also shows that board/card games have gotten creative! For instance, take a game like Seasons. Is that a board game or a card game? I guess it’s a card game with some added boards but a game like Clank! feels like a board game, while an important part of the game is deck-building. It doesn’t really matter of course, but I can imagine it can be tricky to market a product if it covers a lot of “genres” and you want to capture the attention of your target audience in an instance. 🙂

We didn’t have time to play as many games as we’re used to this past week so we had time to think about these things, haha. :’) We only played a game of Treasure Island! It had been a long time and I have only ever played as Long John Silver and this was my chance to finally be one of the players that got to search the island, yarrr! Without luck though… me and my fellow-pirate were very focused on the south side of the island while Long John Silver had buried the treasure in the North. Somehow we both missed that and Heinze played the hints very nicely to his favor. Better luck next time!

Luckily this week is going to be a more interesting week of gaming though. We’ve got some new games that we’re really keen on trying! Mantis Falls, Shamans, and a preproduction Galactic Renaissance. I believe all of these are lesser-known titles so we’re in for a surprise ourselves.

And in case you missed it, we published an extra comic last week about the game Triqueta!

Time. Probably the second-most valuable thing of them all! And miniatures games and RPGs require a lot of time, while board games often take way less time to play (not taking campaign games into consideration). We struggle with this quite often, we mostly play board games but are also interested in RPGs and miniature games. Our best solution so far has been to plan a gameday months in advance and invite different people from different gaming “groups”. Mixing and matching our contacts has turned out to be a lot of fun actually!

RPGs have proven the hardest to get to the ‘table’. It requires a lot of work and time from the person who’s the gamemaster and multiple sessions. Luckily there are different RPG developers who are actively working on making RPGs very accessible like Adventure Presents and Atma: A Roleplaying Cardgame and many more.

This weekend, we had one of those game days that we had planned way in advance, it was time for Gaslands! Personally, I think the game could benefit from some streamlining and that’s why I’m really looking forward to Rebellion Unplugged’s Joyride! Ironically, it makes Gaslands more of a board game, haha. But mostly, the demo we played at SPIEL this year provided us with the fun that I would love to have while playing Gaslands. Less downtime, fewer fiddly rules and the best part is that it’s made to fit Hotwheel cars so all those cool (modded) cars, you use with Gaslands, can be used in Joyride! The Kickstarter should launch in a few months, so that’s something to keep an eye on if you’re interested.

The rest of the week, we’ve actually played nice games! Our week started off with a real classic: Carcassonne! A friend of ours had bought a Big Box and actually, Heinze and I have played really little Carcassonne in our lives. I believe I had only played one or two games before last Monday. It was a lot of fun, so I think that might change in 2023. A little late to the party but hey… better late than never. He also got the new co-op version “Mists over Carcassonne”. We haven’t played that yet but I’m really curious how they made it into a co-op game.

We also played some games of Akropolis, which just is a very elegant quick game of smartly stacking city tiles to gain higher points when scoring multipliers at the end of the game. We actually think the game is a more fun version of NMBR 9 (although that one works excellently with bigger groups). We also played Mechs vs. Minions again and this weekend we played a relaxing game of Queensland and a more intense game of Vengeance: Roll & Fight!

In case you missed it, we published another #SheGames comic last week!

A slightly different comic this week – it’s an ode to two things! First of all, Battlestar Galactica, of course, and the art style of this comic is a wink to Three Panel Soul. I’ve always enjoyed their bold high-contrast-styled comics and thought it would be fitting with this comic idea that we had.

Although we only played three different games last week, they certainly were interesting ones! First of all was Mind MGMT: The Psychic Espionage “Game”. We didn’t get the opportunity to demo the game at SPIEL the year it came out and last week a friend of ours apparently bought a copy of the game! Not just the normal edition, but the fancy Kickstarter edition and we were amazed by the detail in and on the box. We love all the little scribbles and secret messages that seem to be everywhere and since the game is based on a comic, they’ve really added a layer of storytelling. If you’d like to learn more about Mind MGMT, you can read more about it on our Instagram account.

On Friday, we started our Artisans of Splendent Vale campaign! We had been staring in awe at the contents of the box and in particular the four chunky storybooks. Every playable character has their own book and the biggest parts of the text in the books overlap between the players but regularly a certain character has something specific to tell about a subject and adds to the story. We loved the dynamic that created! Another detail we liked was that every character book has descriptions of the other characters, but everybody knows something else about the other players. This immediately sparked an interest in all the characters and made sure we talked about these characters. The combat in the game was light but challenging enough to be interesting and we made it through the first “scenario” unscathed. There’s a lot in this box and the world already feels so rich that we cannot wait to be exploring it all in the coming months… probably year(s). 😀

In the weekend, we played Alchemists with The King’s Golem expansion! We had played Alchemists before, but that was many years ago. I kinda forgot how difficult it was to get the deduction puzzle to click in my head. And when I thought I had it figured out, I didn’t come to the correct conclusions as the other players. As it turned out, I somehow mixed up a red plus with a green plus… making most of my assumptions wrong by default. Ai ai ai ai. That was a shame since I only just discovered it in one of the last rounds, so there was nothing I could do to correct my mistake. Ah well! That’s life! I think the expansion is a fun addition when you’ve played the game multiple times and are familiar with the puzzle of the base game. If you’re new to the game, we’d recommend not adding that extra layer of difficulty.