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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   929 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for February 2, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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One of my New Year's Resolutions was to pick up playing board games. The primary goal here was to stare at screens less and engage more face-to-face with friends. This is working great, and I recommend it to anyone else with the same general goal! I picked up Wingspan and one of its expansions and my wife and I have been having a great time playing it even when we don't have anyone else to play with. Throw on a Spotify playlist with some bird-centric theming, pour a birb-on, draw some cards, and you have a pleasant evening.

What are you playing these days? What should be my next purchase to add to a very thin game library? My current inclination is towards Ark Nova, which BoardGameGeek users score highly and recommend specifically for two players.

Wingspan was an absolutely fantastic first choice of game, you really knocked it out of the park from the outset. The wife and I just got Ark Nova as a Christmas present, we haven't played it yet as the back of the box conveys a staggering amount of complexity. We're not tabletop newbies by any means, but we're a bit intimidated.

For my money, it would not be possible to make a better addition to your thin game library than Everdell. The gameplay, presentation, theming, art direction, and mechanics are at the top end of anything we've ever seen achieved in a board game. It also has very little "screwing over your opponent"-type gameplay, which I think makes it a very pleasant 2-player experience compared to many other games. I would highly suggest grabbing the Collector's Edition of the base game, if you can swing it. That should provide many evenings of entertainment on its own, and then any time the game starts feeling a little stale you can pick up an Expansion (there are ~5, each of which adds enough to make the game feel VERY fresh all over again). I would not recommend picking up all the expansions right away, there's no really need to binge them and you may become overwhelmed with the complexity. My wife and I have steadily explored the expansions over a series of years and it's been a magnificent experience. We're maybe 3 years into Everdell being the default board game at our regular Board Game Nights with friends, and I don't see that changing anytime soon. I give it the strongest possible recommendation.

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