Wingspan

Really enjoyed the tightness in this engine builder. The linear scaling seemed like a problem with my play group though. The end game didn't feel as good as other games where you're really going ham.

I'm a bit disappointed with the lay egg action, but I appreciate that it exists because it really helps to keep game balance.  Most of the final rounds was basically just lay eggs three or four times and maybe play one more bird depending on the situation.

There are quite a few nasty early game birds that can really rock the boat, but unless you have 2 or 3 of them at the same time, it ends up balancing out because of their cost or lack of egg capacity/points.

The game is very point salad-y, and after having fun with the theme after a few plays I started just doing a lot of math on each turn (my fault of course) and it reduced the experience.  Given that most of the engines in the game top out quickly, the math is fudge-able and not vital as long as you have a decent grasp on how many turns you have left and what other things you want to accomplish.

The bonus cards that are not achievable hurt my soul a little bit, and if this game hits the table again, I'm going to increase it to 3 cards per player and choose 1. For now, I'm going to put it up against Feast For Odin to see if people want a longer ramp.

Sandwiches and Fun

A while back a friend of mine asked me if a hotdog was a sandwich.  And my answer was yes, and that to me, "anything is a sandwich as long as I don't have to eat it with a fork or knife because then it's a stir fry".

I think this really gets into the mystery of mechanics for me.  It doesn't really matter what a mechanic is as long as the thing that I'm doing results in fun. But, you could take the hotdog statement both ways, and really that is what is so fascinating about it.  How do you organize the way you have fun?

As a kid, (and later of course) I remember walking back and forth in Final Fantasy (or any number of RPGs) for HOURS and HOURS and somehow I just had a blast.  Now with a 4 year old, I was trying to explain Terraforming Mars and I was floored at what I considered super satisfying and fun. Moving cubes around.

In general, I really enjoy manipulating things (area control, player interaction), building/constructing things (engines, puzzles), making good or effective decisions (deck builders, worker placement) and taking risks (dice rolling, auctioning, card draw).  As long as an action isn't really bulky and annoying (Settlers of Catan trading, hording cards in Ticket to Ride, etc), it doesn't matter as long as those boxes get checked.

Especially with this flood of board games, I feel like having a better understanding of what is core to our concept of fun is more important than just the categorization of mechanisms.

Pathway - review-ish

Some quick thoughts about Pathway by Robotality.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/546430/Pathway/

http://pathway-game.com/

I'm all about these types of games: renowned explorers:international society, faster than light, the curious expedition, slay the spire etc. The format is solid and we know what to expect as soon as we see the interface.

Pathway is fascinating because the progression is so linear.  Other games (that I've played) of this type usually rely on some kind of combo building to make it interesting.  Pathway doesn't really have that at all.  It's very similar to renowned explorers but lacks the bosses and semi-static events (maybe i just havent played enough) for high-score runs and team customization.

For me, the play has basically come down to find party members, find fuel/ammo and then outwit the AI during combat because the behaviors are very consistent.  It's almost like playing gloomhaven. Plenty of potential here, but I feel like it falls flat on the rogue-like stuff.  Things that I would like solved.

• Static inventory makes it too "easy" and allows the player to play the same every time
• More use for AoE.  Maps are too small to consistently bunch enemies up.
• Somewhat consistent events to boost different stats so that I'm ecouraged to play differently
• Stores that matter for something besides fuel/ammo. All the good loot falls off of quest completion. (or just dont let me keep items between games)
• More enemies and mixed enemies (why not combine nazis/undead?) so that I have to think differently
• Allow knife throw/pickup
• Multi-point movement to avoid those pesky overwatch snipers.
• Dogs/cultists are just armor/health taxes.  I think I'd just appreciate it if the event made me lose health/armor before the round starts. It's just frustrating.

But as general input, it feels like a bean counting game with 3 metrics (fuel, health, ammo) and when either category is flush (4 extra pairs of armor in inventory, 4 large boxes of ammo at the store, max fuel from consecutive stores, amazing sniper rifle etc), it definitely starts to feel like a chore.

Event decks, variation and player will

In the pursuit of meaningful randomness, I've decided to do some thinking and writing about events in board games.  It's definitely vary interesting what lines people draw when it comes to adding unpredictability into board games. Too much and it's considered "ameritrash" and too little and you get that traditional tight euro/chess kinda feeling.

In general, I'm a HUGE fan of variability.  I don't think winning is that important, but it is important as a gauge to determine everyone's performance. Now if a game has so much variation that it doesn't seem like anything you do will change the course of the game then it's probably too random, and of course, that threshold varies per player.

BUT..  I don't want a game full of scripted responses and memorization. (tic-tac-toe anyone?) What I really really want is to assert my will against or with players who are doing the same and the phrase that I want to use is from fighting games. I want to play board game footsies. 

A little bit about footsies (fighting games). At its foundation, it basically comes down to game theory (economic). If you're unfamiliar with either of those concepts, I'm sorry. I highly doubt I can explain either of those concepts well without embarrassing both of us.

But my interest essentially boils down to this question "do you know, that I know, that you know etc?" and the decisions that we make from there.  For instance, if someone in Catan starts laying roads down aggressively, other players have to guess if the road-guy is rushing to a location or is trying to control area. The only problem in that game is that you either 1. can't do anything about it or 2. it doesn't really matter. HOWEVER.. in that rare case where you can do something, it's interesting to watch players either challenge the road, run away or feign a challenge.  Most area control games have this in some shape or form but a lot of the times it's very clunky or the encounters are random or something.

The concept that I want to explore is whether or not player agency can drive events instead of semi-artificial randomness.  Next,  the choose your adventure mechanic for multiple players in either cooperative or competitive format.

Genres

Man oh man.. when did we become so stuck up about genre labels for games?  I've been hearing/reading more "thats not an x, its more like a y because z is what a x should be like."  Give it a break people, genre descriptions are an indicator of what the game is like, not a 100% description of the elements and gameplay involved.  I'd rather we use the "z"-clone but with ''xy" formula to describe games at this point.  It's probably the more common method of introducing games to your friends anyways.

And an RPG.. a role-playing game?  When in the world did that term become so limiting to people?  Role playing is strictly that.. being/playing someone else.  If it just so happens that a game is doing the traditional level based character progression.. or one is a sandbox and another isn't.. that's all good.

Let's establish some more descriptors to the genre tag so that we can keep people from saying things like "that's not an mmorpg, that's not like WoW".  It hurts my brain.