Posts authored by Rachel

The Weird West

The Weird West published on 13 Comments on The Weird West

At our FLGS (friendly local gaming store) we met somebody who is a big fan of Doomtown and has very balanced decks of all the Doomtown outfits (factions). He invited to us to come play Doomtown one day and so we did. I’ll be honest: the first time it reminded me of trying to understand all the different terms in Netrunner. Only instead of runs, stimhacks, ice breakers and agendas I had to get a grip on dudes, posses, deeds, upkeep, booting, shootouts and many more terms. But what a game! We played the game with four players and it was a lot of fun. I love the poker element in the game, it just makes it completely different than other games and it’s smoothly integrated into the game play.

Since we don’t own Doomtown ourselves and we’re pretty deeply invested in Netrunner, this is a game we like to play at a more casual basis. To be exact: we’ve played it only two times now, but I’m already looking forward to grabbing a my leather boots, long coat and cowboy hat to go out and play Doomtown again.  Yeeehaa!

And for the folks in the USA: the base game is less than $20 on Amazon, lucky you!

What collectable living trading card game do you play at a more casual basis?

Om nom nom.

Om nom nom. published on 11 Comments on Om nom nom.

Introducing Mariecke and Willem in the comic! You might see them more often in the future.

As the comic already implies: we like to dress up the game days we organise a little. We don’t see all of our friends as often as we used to, so we like to make it a little more special when we do. The last time we had a High Tea while playing Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective, and that was excellent. And apparently it also makes us better detectives! We scored 75 points and answered all the questions correctly in the fifth case.

A photo posted by Semi Co-op (@semicoop) on

What themed food + games day should we plan next? 😉

Sweet Dreams?

Sweet Dreams? published on 4 Comments on Sweet Dreams?

I really like Urbion and I’m quite disappionted that the game is no longer available. I believe we picked up the last copy at our friendly local gaming store a few years ago and since then, I wanted to gift it to at least four people – but alas: it was nowhere to be found!

Urbion is a nice little card game in which you have to establish balance in city districts by making sure that there are as many positive dreams as negative dreams next to a so-called City card. There are also Chaos cards in the game which will try to throw of the balance, to give you a little challenge. It’s a simple game, but it’s one of those tiny (solo) games I grab while I have to wait a bit during cooking. And although the artwork of the game probably doesn’t work for everybody, I love it! It’s different. It’s colorful and it nothing like other games (except the other games from the Oniverse series of course). And I had a lot of fun making this ‘comic’ in the style of Urbion. 😉

If you’re interested, there are are two games that are set in the Oniverse that are available:
– Onirim, gameplay wise, this game is closest to Urbion.
– Sylvion, which is a tower defense like game.

What games do you know with a very ‘alternative’ artstyle? 

Dead of Wi-… Trust

Dead of Wi-… Trust published on 5 Comments on Dead of Wi-… Trust

Ahhh… Dead of Winter. This game has been the cause of quite some distrust at the kitchen table. Dead of Winter is the pure definition of semi co-op gameplay. I love it.

What I think is genius about the game is that, besides a possible traitor, every player has his/her own personal secret objective in the game. Even if the group survives and finishes the main objective of the game, the player that didn’t meet their personal objective still loses the game. These personal objectives can be quite tricky to achieve without looking like a traitor. They vary from things like hording important goods like food and medicine to having a large following of survivors. These personal objectives make it possible for the actual traitor in the group to go about their treacherous behaviour without being noticed immediately.

The last time we played the game I was the actual traitor and prevented the group of winning the game in the last round. I was called a dirty traitor and other less kind things. So if you’re okay with possibly upsetting your friends and distrusting each other, you should definitely give the game a go. 😀

Do you know any other cool semi co-op games?

What about Wiggins?

What about Wiggins? published on 3 Comments on What about Wiggins?

A photo posted by Semi Co-op (@semicoop) on

The latest addition to our game collection is Mr Jack Pocket. Basically a very smart two player cat and mouse game in which Jack the Ripper tries to stay out of sight of Sherlock and his team or tries to outsmart them while being seen. It’s a quick portable game that takes about 15 minutes and worth checking out if you’ve never heard of it and are looking for a smaller game with a smaller price tag for two players.

Now, about that team of Sherlock… my first reaction was: What about Wiggins?! We’ve played a few cases of Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective and in that game the team clearly exists of Sherlock, Watson and Wiggins!

I tried to draw the comic a little in the style of the artwork of the game, but I somehow ended up channeling the art style of Tiny Wooden Pieces a bit as well. Check out their great comics about board games if you haven’t already. 🙂

What’s your favorite Sherlock Holmes themed game?

Le voyage dans la lune

Le voyage dans la lune published on 4 Comments on Le voyage dans la lune

The first time we played Eldritch Horror with friends, we came across the card with this text and we were all like: “What the?”. And that’s what I personally love about Eldritch Horror. The game is loaded with unexpected story elements and your investigators go through the weirdest and most terrible of things. That’s if they manage to stay alive, of course. We probably lost the game more often than we defeated the Ancient One.

It’s not a game we play too often, it’s one of games we want to plan a day around. To take our time and read aloud all the cards and use (silly) voices and use heavy accents to set an atmosphere. You just want to end up with that character that has taken on a dark pact, has hallucinations and has been lost in space and time and in a ‘friggin forest on the moon. It’s just good story. Until you flip over that Dark Pact card of course, because that means something terrible will probably happen to you.

Hah, now I feel like playing the game again!

What’s your favorite story game?

Board gaming jargon

Board gaming jargon published on 5 Comments on Board gaming jargon

The board gaming world has, like most things, its own jargon. It can be slightly confusing if you’re new to board games. First there’s the easiest: games categorized by their game mechanics. That’s something you’ll learn and reconize quickly. Then there are the acronyms, which you’ll mostly find online, but I often find myself puzzled not knowing which game they’re talking about. The games mentioned in the comic:

ONUW: One Night Ultimate Werewolf
A:NR: Android: Netrunner
KONY: King of New York
TTR: Ticket To Ride

And then there’s this series of abstract games (which can be combined?!)… with rather interesting names: Gipf, Zèrtz, Dvonn, Yinsh, Pünct and Tzaar. These names always remind me of Ikea furniture, so well, just imagine them naming the games in combination with Ikea furniture. 😉

Oh, and for the Shut Up & Sit Down fans – yes, those are the ‘abstract games’ versions of Paul and Quinns, from their video review of Tash-Kalar.

On Instagram we challenged people to build the hightest and/or most impressive tower made out of dice – if you feel like stacking some dice: feel free to join in! It’ll be lovely to see other people their creations.

What acronyms do you know and/or use for certain tabletop games?

#boardgames

#boardgames published on 4 Comments on #boardgames

I think Qin is a really charming game by Reiner Knizia. It’s simple, elegant and just looks impressive. The playing board is huge, the game components are of very good quality and it’s not very expensive. And even though there’s a lot going on on the board, with all the loose tiles and the colored pagodes standing around, it’s somehow not too busy and you can easily keep track of everything that’s happening.

It’s one of those games I often play with people who are not too experienced in playing board games. It takes about 20-30 minutes to play and you can explain it in 3 minutes. And come on, it just looks impressive, look at it:

So we often browse through #boardgames  and other board game related hashtags on Instagram, I think that’s actually the way how we discovered Qin in the first place! Besides the usual suspects, you sometimes stumble upon very interesting, a little less known, pretty looking games.

You can follow Semi Co-op on Instagram as well: https://instagram.com/semicoop/

What is the most photogenic game according to you?

Players of Ticket To Ride

Players of Ticket To Ride published on 10 Comments on Players of Ticket To Ride

Ticket To Ride is one of those games that regularly ends up on our table, it’s just an excellent game. Whenever we want to introduce somebody to the world of board gaming, Ticket To Ride is certainly one of the games we’d recommend. We own the original Ticket To Ride (America) with the big cities expansion and the maps of India and Swiss. We’re still thinking about getting the Netherlands expansion, simply because that’s where we live and our hometown is on the map!

For those who are fortunate enough to not have encountered a Ticket To Ride App Addict, this is the tune that will start working on your nerves: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBZochITFMs It sounds nice and relaxing in the beginning… but that will change after a few hours. 😉

What type of Ticket To Ride player are you and do you know other types?

Sundresses in the snow

Sundresses in the snow published on 3 Comments on Sundresses in the snow

K2 is one of those games that’s always fun to play. Although when it’s 30 degrees outside, it’s a little harder to fully immerse in the theme of the game. 😉

At first we thought it was more of a racing game to the top of the mountains. But it ISN’T! Yes, you score more points if you manage to get higher on the slippery slopes, but you’re also more likely to turn in a human icicle because of exhaustion. It’s quite a puzzle to figure out when it’s the right moment to advance and when it would be best to stay put and wait for the bad weather to pass.

If you’re interested in K2, you can check out the review by Shut Up & Sit Down: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsXG72SWAzk

—

So last week was GenCon, one of the biggest board games event around the globe. For all the board game enthousiasts who were unable to go there, there was GenCant! GenCant is intended to basically be something a bit fun for everyone who can’t attend Gen Con. A lot of digital chatter about games and sharing funny and goofy pictures and there were a lot of prizes to win!

Semi Co-op released some GenCant related comics on Facebook and Twitter. Follow/ like our pages to check them out. 🙂

© 2015–2024 Semi Co-op