I started playing Xiangqi, Chinese chess, recently and i must say that it's quite the entertaining game.
I started playing Xiangqi, Chinese chess, recently and i must say that it's quite the entertaining game.
Well, it's quite different from chess.
Some pieces are similar and the overall goal is the same, to checkmate the king, but lot of mechanics are different. The board even is different. You have a river in the middle, the kind and two other pieces are stuck in a zone call the castle. (or palace)
Here's a little video who covers the very basic of the damn thing :
Link to part 2 cause apparently i can't post two videos in one post : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpDpdTiM0Wk
I would say that maybe Shogi is a bit closer to classic chess than Xiangqi is but then, the capture and promotion mechanics of Shogi (and most of all how you can re-use captured pieces) are really what make Shogi unique.
But yeah, the river thing is quite original. I kinda like how "close" everything is. You don't really have preparation moves, it's an all out war first turn lol.
You play some Shogi?
"Always listen to the crazy scientist with a weird van or armful of blueprints and diagrams." -- Vibranium
Nah, honestly it's pretty easy to learn. Of course from there, you know how it is. Easy to learn, hard to master.
Only thing who maybe can be a bit confusing at first are the pieces themselves. Depending the edition you may have the names on the piece in Chinese, which can take a bit to get used to. (not very long really)
A lot of love here for Betrayal at the House on the Hill.
I played it for the first time last night and didn't like it at all.
I think the biggest issue for me was that I'm not that interested in all of that storybuilding descriptive text. I prefer a game with nice clean mechanisms and a minimal amount of reading - if any at all.
My recent purchases are:
The Mind - I love this one to bits. So tense.
Century: Spice Road and Century: Eastern Wonder - I managed to get these on eBay for £20 each from separate sellers. I haven't had a chance to try them yet, but I really like the look of them. Particularly Spice Road.
We have lot of RPG people up in here, I think that's why.
I understand what you're saying, though. Not everyone wants read a block of flavor text. There's lots of games and I have all sorts of friends and family that now play games because I try to find things they may like.
Boardgaming/tabletop/etc. has never been so inclusive.
I've been wanting to try The Mind. How does it play?
"Always listen to the crazy scientist with a weird van or armful of blueprints and diagrams." -- Vibranium
I played Abyss for the first time last night. Very good. Relatively simple mechanics, but it feels like there's a good amount of depth there.
Been playing a lot of Onirim recently. Simple but pretty well designed solo card game.
"Rise!"
*BeastieRunner casts THREAD NECROMANCY*
Any of you have good recommendations for legacy games?
"Always listen to the crazy scientist with a weird van or armful of blueprints and diagrams." -- Vibranium