This week’s Explorable Favorites (Feb 3)

I think Avalon is a big improvement on the original Resistance. For me, the change in theme is a big bonus, but I think the added game mechanics really help flesh out the game.

Avalon is pretty much Resistance with King Arthur… awesome! Amun Re came out during Knizia’s run of perfection (or close to it). Both are worthy of a few plays to find out if you like them.

Avalon had been on my watch list for a few months but then a friend of mine bought a copy, but I’m really looking forward to play it.

I really like the idea of exploring older classics like Amun Re. It’s a reminder for myself not to forget them as well as a chance for newer players to discover them.

I happen to agree with Account Deletion. I have enjoyed seeing games chosen from user’s favorites shelf. If some of them have floated under the radar and lack reviews, well, that is kind of the point. I doubt many of us here need to explore Dominion to “discover” it. Even if the game does not get enough reviews to score me some points now, I may still find a gem worth getting and playing that I otherwise might have missed.

Keep up the good work!

@Jim –

I don’t think you should change a thing regarding how these are selected. Amun Re looks like a great game, and yet it’s largely ignored by the members of this site. These are exactly the kind of games you want to expose us to through the Explorable Favorites, and it would be a shame if we start getting a stream of over-reviewed games at the expense of games like this.

I think some users may fail to understand why it was selected. @Martin Syvertsen was randomly selected this week to have his favorites shelf explored; he has 7 games on his favorites shelf, and 4 of them are either currently explorable (Pandemic as part of the Cooperative Collection) or were recently explorable (Puerto Rico on 11/4, Mage Knight on 12/16 and Agricola on 1/27). That left Jim with 3 choices, and only Avalon had breathing room regarding explorable content. The choice for 2nd explorable game came down to Amun Re and El Grande, each with only 3 reviews.

I hope we get a 4th review up before the end of the week, but even if we don’t we still got to learn about a game we otherwise would have continued to ignore. The current system does a perfect job of highlighting these hidden gems and boosting their content and visibility. It would be a shame to lose that.

Also, I get really excited every Monday morning to log on and see if this is the week I get selected. It’s just another fun part of our “game” that we should cherish rather than nit-pick.

I always feel a bit uncertain about rating tips for games I don’t know. I can’t usually tell if something is actually useful or completely obvious. How can I tell, for instance, if this tip that draws attention to a rule is just repeating the rulebook or if it is really pointing out something that often gets missed in play and makes a big difference if you pay special attention to it?

We’ll do better next week 🙂 Added the rulebook link to Amun Re. Thanks!

Maybe we should have some explorable favorites be user requests, instead of random picks?

Just updated Avalon so it’s now explorable 🙂

@thegordonshow, I hear what you’re saying about games not possible to complete. Part of the idea of the explorable games is to encourage users who have played the games to add reviews & tips.

Another possible solution may be allowing reading and rating more tips (maybe 2 or 3 instead of just 1) to count towards exploration, though you learn a lot more about a game by reading reviews than you do by reading tips. In the end, the goal is for the experience to be fun and rewarding while you’re discovering new games!

Avalon is not actually explorable. The usual Explore tab at the bottom is not showing up.

(As a side note, can you stop picking games like Amun Re to explore where there are very few reviews? It makes it impossible to complete and this is the third week in a row that this has happened.)