As a companion feature to This Week in Coping: What We’re Reading Now, I asked the Entropy community about the computer games, console games, mind games, tabletop games, playground games, browser games, and reindeer games we’re all playing this month.
WHAT THEY ANSWERED NEXT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE
Keith McCleary
I love this question. Currently, my gaming group is involved in a D&D campaign–it’s unique because the DM started all the characters off in different corners of the world, and we only interact occasionally with other players. Many of the sessions are one-on-one, or two-on-DM, with only occasional adventures involving the whole group. We’re also on a long hiatus from a Shadowrun campaign I was running–one I look forward to getting back to if we can manage to simplify the rules quite a bit. That system is joyously bonkers, with an amazing setting that offers the GM a lot of options. But it’s HARD to manage all the number-crunching. Also, I got Merchant of Venus for Xmas, and my girlfriend and I played it to death over winter break. It’s an old Avalon Hill space trading game that got revamped by Fantasy Flight with additional rules for space pirating, space drilling and a lot of space-other-thinging. That game is so awesome it haunts my dreams. I also picked up a bunch of dice for playing X-Men Dice Masters. Mostly I’ve done more dice-ogling than playing, but they’ve been fun to collect.
David Atkinson
Woah Dave, courtesy of Joseph Michael Owens.
Byron Alexander Campbell
Recently, I’ve been trying out two new board games I acquired for Christmas: Legendary Encounters – An Alien Deck-Building Game and Shadows of Malice. Legendary Encounters is an Alien-themed card game inspired by the Marvel Legendary series of products, and it follows the plot of the four Alien movies in a way that’s pretty great. Shadows of Malice is an indie game that focuses on epic questing in a fantasy world, which isn’t a hugely original concept–the big differentiator here is the game’s abstract presentation that really triggers the imagination. In the video game space, I’m setting up my old PS2 to replay Silent Hill: Origins for the next entry in my Silent Hill retrospective. While this is most certainly the steaming turd in the series lineup (spoiler alert), it’s still been very nostalgic playing an old-school survival horror game, considering how much the genre’s been redefined in the previous 1.5 console generations.
Michael J. Seidlinger
Been playing some Alien Isolation and Far Cry 4. Killer Instinct on Xbox One, too; it’s a game I keep going back to.
Sheldon Lee Compton
I’m old school. Been playing Red Dead Revolver. Yeah…I kind of dig it.
Chris Holly
Tabletop –
Eldritch Horror—EH‘s latest expansion, which adds a Mountains of Madness-themed side board, a new (desperately needed) action for investigators to take during their turns, and more cards for everything. I continue to be impressed at how FFG is so far limiting expansion creep with this one and keeping them modularized.
DVG’s Warfighter has gotten so many good reviews from so many people whose opinion I trust that I have to give it a shot, despite not being the slightest bit interested in its real-world modern warfare theme.
Console –
Dragon Age: Inquisition continues to gnaw away at me, and I wish I could figure out if I liked this game or not. The only way to find out. of course, is to just keep playing, so….
Computer –
I’ll probably be finishing up my Shadowrun Returns: Dragonfall Director’s Cut playthrough, which has been nothing but brilliant so far. I’ve also got Legend of Grimrock 2 that needs cracking open, and it’s about that time again to kick off another run-through of Planescape: Torment.
Joseph Michael Owens
I’m still playing Destiny (PS4), as well as Dragon Age: Inquisition (PS4), Bayonetta 2 (Wii U), Mario Kart 8 (Wii U), and Super Smash Bros. (3DS) here and there. I really need to get back to Transistor (PS4) and finish it, too! Eddy Rathke and I also picked up some games on the recent Steam sale, so those are coming up for me too!
Quincy Rhoads
I’ve been playing this great beta version of Cheapass Games’ Stuff and Nonsense. It’s a set-collecting game where you’re trying to fake being a world explorer. It’s a lot of fun, and the flavor text and illustrations keep making me giggle. I’m also playing a lot of King of Tokyo, and I’m currently crafting a print ‘n’ play version of Tiny Epic Galaxies.
Eddy Rathke
Child of Light and The Star Stealing Prince! Also, Firefly board game. It’s amazing! Maybe the best game I’ve played, though it’s a pretty long one.
Berit Ellingsen
Was so sad when I finished Dragon Age: Inquisition after having tried to make it last as long as possible by playing it on Nightmare Mode and doing absolutely everything in it, I started playing Dragon Age 2. I can appreciate the story in Dragon Age 2 more now, since I no longer want it to be like Dragon Age: Origins. It’ll probably be a while till I find RPGs I like as much as the Dragon Age games.
Janice Lee
I’m not playing it, but I’m watching these videos obsessively right now.
Diana Arterion
I recently discovered that archive.org has basically every old video game ever. I located a game I played in elementary school. It is actually pretty hard. It ruined a Saturday for me. The game is called Mixed-Up Mother Goose. Have at it.
Nicholas Grider
Relevant to what Diana posted, 1) I’m tempted to play Oregon Trail again, seriously tempted, and otherwise 2) my niece has I think an XBox, and on Xmas I watched her and my sister play some kind of Skylander game, which I thought was a clever monetizing strategy because you can be different protagonists in the game by switching which relevant action figure is standing on a console-adjacent “portal,” so you need the game *and* the action figures, and there are many.
