What a scrap

Now that I have your full attention with the lurid title, today is about a topic that has been on my mind for a bit longer: bad boardgames.

If you follow the articles on our blog, you'll mostly read only positive reviews and opinions. But that doesn't mean that we like all the games we play. On the contrary, there are a lot of games that didn't work for us in the group, or worked poorly. This has various reasons, which are of course always based on our personal assessments. So we decided to make a list of games here, which didn't work - of course with reasons. We will update this list from time to time.

Attention: Just because the games below didn't work for us in our group doesn't mean that they are bad games. If other players and game groups enjoy them - all the better. Tastes are different and that's a good thing!

7 Souls

H. P. Lovecraft and the Cthulhu mystique are ubiquitous in the world of board games. The mysterious world of cosmic horror is the basis for a multitude of board games in which brave heroes take up the seemingly hopeless fight against the great old ones. 7 Souls, which is distributed in German by Schwerkraft Verlag, takes the opposite approach, as we are the ones who try to take over the world as servants of the Great Old Ones.
The promising role reversal to the otherwise so usual ritual interrupters made me curious. Also the unusual design in the comic style of 7 souls, I find very interesting.

So I tore off the foil, opened the cover and looked at the punched sheets - top as one is used to from Schwerkraft Verlag. But then everything came quite differently. I would never have thought that the world of cosmic horror would catch up with me in reality long before the game. After the first pages of the manual I had a thousand questions, so I read again. But even on the third try, it didn't get any better. It was really frustrating and 7 Souls was the first game I gave away unplayed to the secondary market, which is why there are no photos of the game here. In a later rules video I did have the one or other enlightening moment, but unfortunately that came too late. Too bad about the topic, too bad about the game.

Bad Bones

The illustrators of Bad Bones have done a great job. One look at the cover was enough and the game went into the shopping cart. While the package was on the way, I was able to deal with the theme and the mechanism of the game. Fortunately, there are publishers who provide each manual as a PDF! After reading the instructions, my anticipation increased, because Bad Bones promised a rather rare mechanism (tower defense) with great game material in different difficulty levels.

When the heavy package filled to the brim was finally on the table, the first round could quickly begin. In Bad Bones, players try to defend the tower and buildings of their village against a horde of skeletons that are inexorably pouring out of the surrounding forests. To do this, our hero can set up traps and obstacles with different functions. For example, the catapult can be used to launch a skeleton into the enemy's graveyard. From the respective graveyard, the skeletons then attack the villages in the next round, over and over again .... until all villages are destroyed. Whoever lasts the longest wins. What doesn't sound dramatic at first is the first point I found to be very negative. There is no way to completely defeat the skeletons.

As the games went on, more negative points were added: there is hardly any interaction between the players. It's more like playing side by side than together. In addition, the always same round sequence seems very monotonous, which quickly becomes boring. In the end, unfortunately, even the expansions and the different game modes couldn't improve the gameplay, so Bad Bones didn't get a place on my shelf.

GLOW

Glow is different, Glow is design. Glow carries great colors in the cubes. Glow is ... taken off again after the first rounds.

As abstract as the artwork is, so is the theme: with the help of light shards we try to carry the color back into the world. The basic gameplay is quickly explained. In each round, a new companion (in the form of a card) joins our group from the display - including temporary dice. Then the dice are rolled so that the abilities of our cards can be used. After that, depending on the result of the dice, you can still move forward on the map to get to a clearing.

That all sounds quite nice now, but that's also the reason why the game has moved out again. It's not enough for more than quite nice. The first part of Glow is very luckless. This takes away almost any tactical decision. The second part, i.e. the movement on the game board, seems somehow out of place. The game board has two sides with different areas where points can be picked up on the glades. In all games it was no problem to reach the clearing with the most points. If I had to write a positive and a negative conclusion it would be as follows:

A great illustrated and accessible dice game for families and casual gamers
A great illustrated, luck-heavy game with few challenges and a portion of boredom on the board

God of War

The blog post about God of War was actually already written - that's how much the game excited me in the first rounds. In the implementation of the well-known video game, one to four players try to cooperatively master various challenges and thus prevent Ragnarok. As soon as you open the box you are greeted by a very tidy inlay and graphically great game material. What could go wrong there, right?

After the third or fourth game, the first weaknesses became apparent. The battles feel very mechanical, but even worse, the game is too easy. In many quests, you can hide in a corner, tweak your deck, and then beat the crap out of the rest of the enemies. When Kratos is in the game, he takes all the hits easily while the other players fight back from cover. Thus, the quests with the different locations are played through relatively quickly and the board game ends up as a dust catcher on the shelf much faster than the video game. Unfortunately, the five different bosses don't do much to increase the replay value either. Overall, the game leaves only an average impression. Perhaps suitable for video gamers who also want to dive into the world of board games. The graphic implementation makes this particularly easy, but it is unfortunately only short-lived.

Munchkin Dungeon

I have to say, I like the Munchkin humor. Since I don't know the card game and have ventured with Munchkin Dungeon the first foray into the Munchkin world, I was really positively surprised in this respect. Unfortunately, the game could not convince despite great graphics, funny and high-quality game pieces and the name Eric M. Lang.

As the name suggests, it goes into the depths of a dungeon that wants to be explored. In each round, the players open a new room, fight against monsters and challenge their dice and card luck. This is also where the first problem awaits - passing a test with eight dice, even though only six dice are available? Seriously? How expensive was the game again?

And while we're on the subject of dice or card luck, this factor can become quite frustrating. But the frustration can then be relieved in a game with more than three players during the long waiting period. And if you think you can get out of the game with an early death - you're wrong: Dying does not bring any disadvantages except for another shame marker. All in all, the whole thing doesn't really run smoothly and leaves a rather helpless impression.