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Douglas Branden (7 KP) rated Betrayal at House on the Hill in Tabletop Games
Mar 7, 2019
50 different scenarios (more if you get the expansion) (2 more)
Board layout is different everytime.
Fun theme and aesthetic
Character molds are some of the ugliest I have seen (1 more)
Some scenarios are highly favored towards the traitor or heroes
Great but has flaws
Betrayal at House on the Hill starts you off exploring a haunted house. It is up to you and other explorers to discover rooms and encounter the events that happen inside these rooms. At the beginning everyone works together but in the second half of the game one of you become the traitor and it's up to the rest of you to survive.
I have played this game quite a bit now and have a pretty good feel for this game. It comes with some glaring flaws such as the quality of the game pieces and sometimes overwhelming odds stacked in favor of the betrayer or hero. However, it is undeniable this game is fun for the constant exploration and not knowing what is going to come next.
The bad: Betrayal has some of the worst game pieces I have seen. The character molds are extremely ugly and the character cards are already starting to tear apart after multiple uses. The game play can also be dragged out a little too long especially for people not used to playing these games. I have noticed it is very hard for new players to understand how to play if they happen to become the traitor. You can't help out the traitor understand either as this can reveal the traitors gameplan and ruin the game play.
The Good: I love working as a team and exploring this house together. The events are often interesting and the items you get are usually useful. The scenarios are always interesting and remind me of low budget horror movie plots. You never know what is going to happen everytime you start a new game. I have seen this game also get people to come out of their shells if they are shy because you often have to consult with each other on strategy to defeat whatever comes up when the traitor is revealed.
Overall this is a fun game that should be in anyone's board game collection. Best when you have at least four people. Great for introducing to beginner board game players to board games outside of the popular board games that have been around for ages.
I have played this game quite a bit now and have a pretty good feel for this game. It comes with some glaring flaws such as the quality of the game pieces and sometimes overwhelming odds stacked in favor of the betrayer or hero. However, it is undeniable this game is fun for the constant exploration and not knowing what is going to come next.
The bad: Betrayal has some of the worst game pieces I have seen. The character molds are extremely ugly and the character cards are already starting to tear apart after multiple uses. The game play can also be dragged out a little too long especially for people not used to playing these games. I have noticed it is very hard for new players to understand how to play if they happen to become the traitor. You can't help out the traitor understand either as this can reveal the traitors gameplan and ruin the game play.
The Good: I love working as a team and exploring this house together. The events are often interesting and the items you get are usually useful. The scenarios are always interesting and remind me of low budget horror movie plots. You never know what is going to happen everytime you start a new game. I have seen this game also get people to come out of their shells if they are shy because you often have to consult with each other on strategy to defeat whatever comes up when the traitor is revealed.
Overall this is a fun game that should be in anyone's board game collection. Best when you have at least four people. Great for introducing to beginner board game players to board games outside of the popular board games that have been around for ages.
Purple Phoenix Games (2266 KP) rated Bohnanza in Tabletop Games
Jun 12, 2019
Bean farmin’. Don’t get better’n that. Unless you’re corn farmin’. An’ we should know. We are from the Quad Cities, the booger of the man made by Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, and Louisiana. Look here. Yes, we are surrounded by corn fields, but our home is not within a corn field. Actually, we live in a somewhat-midsize metropolitan area that boasts a population near 475,000. I’m off track again, aren’t I? Right. Bean farming. Lame theme, but Bohnanza shines in gameplay that just can’t be beat. Right, Bryan?
Okay, so bean farming isn’t for everyone. It’s not for me, it’s probably not for you. And honestly, the theme in Bohnanza doesn’t really come through all that strongly. But that’s only part of the reason we game. It’s also about the experience of gaming and the memories you make while playing. This game certainly delivers on those points. So many hilarious moments have been brought to us by Bohnanza. Bohnanza, the zany little card game about planting and trading beans.
I remember one time, when playing with family, there was a VERY heated back-and-forth bargaining that involved the lowly Chili Bean. Screaming. Throwing hands in the air. It was glorious. And the Chili Bean shall thenceforth be known as nothing other than the Chilla Bean.
So I’m not going to bore you with the rules explanation, but I will tell you that some of the mechanics found in this little game can be found elsewhere in other games, but the combination of the mechanics coupled with the ridiculous theme elevates this game for many. It has set collection, hand management (NO shuffling your hand or even sorting – you keep those cards in the same order you received them, youngster!), trading, bluffing, take that. It has so much packed into this small box. So much ridiculousness. But it’s wonderful.
I have taught this to brand new gamers and those who are very inexperienced with modern board games. It’s a smash with nearly everyone. I will be keeping my copy, even though my brother suggests pretty much ANY other game when we pull it out (as evidenced by his rating of 2 out of 6). We at Purple Phoenix Games give Bohnanza a 17 / 24.
https://purplephoenixgames.wordpress.com/2018/12/19/bohnanza-review/
Okay, so bean farming isn’t for everyone. It’s not for me, it’s probably not for you. And honestly, the theme in Bohnanza doesn’t really come through all that strongly. But that’s only part of the reason we game. It’s also about the experience of gaming and the memories you make while playing. This game certainly delivers on those points. So many hilarious moments have been brought to us by Bohnanza. Bohnanza, the zany little card game about planting and trading beans.
I remember one time, when playing with family, there was a VERY heated back-and-forth bargaining that involved the lowly Chili Bean. Screaming. Throwing hands in the air. It was glorious. And the Chili Bean shall thenceforth be known as nothing other than the Chilla Bean.
So I’m not going to bore you with the rules explanation, but I will tell you that some of the mechanics found in this little game can be found elsewhere in other games, but the combination of the mechanics coupled with the ridiculous theme elevates this game for many. It has set collection, hand management (NO shuffling your hand or even sorting – you keep those cards in the same order you received them, youngster!), trading, bluffing, take that. It has so much packed into this small box. So much ridiculousness. But it’s wonderful.
I have taught this to brand new gamers and those who are very inexperienced with modern board games. It’s a smash with nearly everyone. I will be keeping my copy, even though my brother suggests pretty much ANY other game when we pull it out (as evidenced by his rating of 2 out of 6). We at Purple Phoenix Games give Bohnanza a 17 / 24.
https://purplephoenixgames.wordpress.com/2018/12/19/bohnanza-review/
Phil Leader (619 KP) rated Hiding in Books
Nov 14, 2019
Keller Baye is the son of a murderer, a man he is about to watch die for his crime. A man who only wants one thing from his son: revenge.
Rebecca Brown is an orphan who has been brought up by relatives in a remote Scottish house and who's thirst for knowledge about her parents and the car crash in which they died only grows keener the less those around her are prepared to talk about it.
Despite the miles between these two people they are connected by a single thread, and that thread is set to bring them together and reveal the truth.
Roughly the first part of the book tells the backgrounds of the two main characters, gradually revealing one event at a time exactly who Baye and Brown are, what drives them and how the loss of their parents has had an indelible effect on both their lives. The second half relates the events that unfold once fate has driven them together.
Both characters feel very real, especially because of the care that has clearly gone into each of their back stories. Baye in particular could have just been a mere cipher of a child who went off the rails after his father went to prison. But that one event alone conspires with many others to shape Baye into the urgent tool of his father's revenge that he decides to be.
The stories of the character's very different childhoods is engrossing, effectively told a series of anecdotes. Baye delivering justice for his cat. Brown burning the playing cards. All these seem very real because they could really happen.
When the tension starts to build in the second half of the book it's not like a spring winding up; it is more like a boiler that is getting hotter and hotter and the pressure is rising all the time. It's not clear when something is going to break but it's clear that something will go very wrong at some point.
This is a superb thriller with an excellent plot, some very good twists and written at a perfect pace, fast enough to keep the momentum up but slow enough to ratchet the tension up at the end of each chapter. An easy 5 stars and a new J Morton Potts fan.
Rating: Scenes of sadistic violence and some others of a sexual nature
Rebecca Brown is an orphan who has been brought up by relatives in a remote Scottish house and who's thirst for knowledge about her parents and the car crash in which they died only grows keener the less those around her are prepared to talk about it.
Despite the miles between these two people they are connected by a single thread, and that thread is set to bring them together and reveal the truth.
Roughly the first part of the book tells the backgrounds of the two main characters, gradually revealing one event at a time exactly who Baye and Brown are, what drives them and how the loss of their parents has had an indelible effect on both their lives. The second half relates the events that unfold once fate has driven them together.
Both characters feel very real, especially because of the care that has clearly gone into each of their back stories. Baye in particular could have just been a mere cipher of a child who went off the rails after his father went to prison. But that one event alone conspires with many others to shape Baye into the urgent tool of his father's revenge that he decides to be.
The stories of the character's very different childhoods is engrossing, effectively told a series of anecdotes. Baye delivering justice for his cat. Brown burning the playing cards. All these seem very real because they could really happen.
When the tension starts to build in the second half of the book it's not like a spring winding up; it is more like a boiler that is getting hotter and hotter and the pressure is rising all the time. It's not clear when something is going to break but it's clear that something will go very wrong at some point.
This is a superb thriller with an excellent plot, some very good twists and written at a perfect pace, fast enough to keep the momentum up but slow enough to ratchet the tension up at the end of each chapter. An easy 5 stars and a new J Morton Potts fan.
Rating: Scenes of sadistic violence and some others of a sexual nature
Phil Leader (619 KP) rated The Kingdom Beyond the Waves in Books
Nov 18, 2019
Professor Amelia Harsh is a discredited academic, shunned by any university she could work for because of her obsession for the lost city of Camlantis which is dismissed by most as a myth. When all her other avenues dry up she grabs a lifeline from a rich industrialist to lead an expedition to find the last evidence of the city.
Meanwhile, why is someone graverobbing obsolete steamman corpses from cemetaries? And why has Furnace-breath Nick - scourge of Quatershift - been asked to break a prisoner free?
For those unfamiliar with Hunt's incredibly imaginative world - revealed in this book to likely be a far future version of our own which somehow mirrors certain aspects such as Victorian England and the French Revolution - would soon be at home in this book, particularly as half of the book involves a trip up a native-infested jungle river worthy of Conrad. Meanwhile the trail is being followed from the other end and the smoggy streets of Middlesteel in the country of Jackals by Furnace-breath Nick's not so mild mannered alter ego, Cornelius Fortune.
The way the story unfolds is very reminiscent of Saturday morning serials that used to be popular when not everyone had a television. There are a series of episodes where our heroes are put into peril and yet somehow (mostly) break free. The difference is in the mostly. Hunt is not afraid of killing off a character and that keeps the reader on the edge of their seat and turning the pages to see if that really was the end or there is a miraculous escape on the cards.
The inventiveness Hunt showed in The Court of the Air is very much still evident with a fiendish plot and fantastic ideas zinging off the page together with very clever dialog. Once again this is a book to read carefully and not to skim, it will be so much more rewarding.
All in all this is a stronger book than the first and the characters in it are terrific, heroes and villains alike. There are still Deus Ex Machina escapes here and there but they are on the whole consistent with the world of Jackals.
I would very much recommend this to anyone who likes their science fiction broad and heading to steam punk rather than space opera (although it's not really steam punk) and their adventure old-school swashbuckling. Terrific work.
Meanwhile, why is someone graverobbing obsolete steamman corpses from cemetaries? And why has Furnace-breath Nick - scourge of Quatershift - been asked to break a prisoner free?
For those unfamiliar with Hunt's incredibly imaginative world - revealed in this book to likely be a far future version of our own which somehow mirrors certain aspects such as Victorian England and the French Revolution - would soon be at home in this book, particularly as half of the book involves a trip up a native-infested jungle river worthy of Conrad. Meanwhile the trail is being followed from the other end and the smoggy streets of Middlesteel in the country of Jackals by Furnace-breath Nick's not so mild mannered alter ego, Cornelius Fortune.
The way the story unfolds is very reminiscent of Saturday morning serials that used to be popular when not everyone had a television. There are a series of episodes where our heroes are put into peril and yet somehow (mostly) break free. The difference is in the mostly. Hunt is not afraid of killing off a character and that keeps the reader on the edge of their seat and turning the pages to see if that really was the end or there is a miraculous escape on the cards.
The inventiveness Hunt showed in The Court of the Air is very much still evident with a fiendish plot and fantastic ideas zinging off the page together with very clever dialog. Once again this is a book to read carefully and not to skim, it will be so much more rewarding.
All in all this is a stronger book than the first and the characters in it are terrific, heroes and villains alike. There are still Deus Ex Machina escapes here and there but they are on the whole consistent with the world of Jackals.
I would very much recommend this to anyone who likes their science fiction broad and heading to steam punk rather than space opera (although it's not really steam punk) and their adventure old-school swashbuckling. Terrific work.
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