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This Week’s Explorable Games
This round of Explorable Favorites is from BoardGaming.com member Bit and Bot Massacre. The games selected from his Favorites shelf were:
- Cthulhu Dice
Steve Jackson Games | Published: 2010 - Killer Bunnies: Quest – Blue Starter Deck
Playroom Entertainment | Published: 2002
These games will be explorable until next Monday, January 19th.
After you’ve explored these games, let us know what you think about them in the comments below!
Cthulhu Dice look interesting, but I’ll stick with Zombie Dice and Dragon Slayer (a recent favorite).
Killer Bunnies, ah the pain and suffering you have caused my household. I love the premise, the pop culture references, the basic game mechanics, but the end of the journey is a bit disappointing. I understand that this one’s about the journey rather than the destination, but my wife cannot move past that part and so the game gathers dust on the shelf. Even house-ruling cannot sway her to give it another shot. While I enjoy the game, it has not seen play in years due to various factors. I will have to dust it off and give it another shot soon with the current gaming group to see how well-received it is, if for no other reason than to revisit a nostalgic game from the start of my tabletop gaming addition days.
@Andy
Ahh, cows. So slow. So tasty. So… so… Bovine. Without a doubt, one of my favorite ocean dwelling creatures.
A new leaf overturned…
I should get a copy of Martian Dice, rolling for cows instantly bumps a game up a few notches for me.
My favorite random dice chucker is Wurfelwurst, (Sausage Dice) but I have not succeeded in tracking down a copy for myself. It’s amazing how into yelling at dice to come up ‘sausage’ a group can become.
@Granny
I have had my eye on Martian Dice too. One of these days I will have to do something about that.
@Hai Ah, now we know the source of the Great Thumbnail Blackout of ’15. I concur that such powerful magic should not be invoked twice!
@BitBot Thanks for that 🙂 It is always nice to have a live action member share the ‘whys’ and ‘whatfors’ of the Sacred Shelf cut. 🙂
I do agree (did agree) that Killer Bunnies is polarizing, but like you, I never played it or introduced it to anyone who didn’t have fun with it. It is a game about having fun, chuckling over 4 decades of pop culture, and spending two hours doing everything you can to pretty much ‘screw onto others before they screw onto you’ everyone else at the table. It is pretty fitting to end on the ultimate screw over: after all that you might not win. But the whole point is the chuckle and the social and picking Favorite Carrots and doing campy, overwrought end game countdowns became our version of the fun. We even used to place dollar bets on who would be Magic Carrot du jour to recoup snack funds.
And yes Warhammer Quest deserves an entry – just for being a game and an engine. The Boy would buy you a beer over that one. Between Heroquest and Warhammer Quest he is a Quantum Leap Dungeoncrawler forever delving, hoping his next new crawl is the crawl home (and the new millenium version of WQ). I think that’s why he was as excited for Shadows of Brimstone as I was for different reasons. Mine simply being – that’s Awesome! His reasoning as a quest for the new tabletop DC engine. I can see that with the all-in shuffle dungeon rules and loose quest objectives for a game flipping into a more scenario driven Descent/WQ module game hybrid with a simple Darkness Master ruleset kit and scenario books. I see detractor chatter beginning elsewhere about the lack of stories and scenarios and linkage when *taps head* that’s all up here for me and the point at the moment. Gygax shirked at creating ‘adventures’ for OD&D back in the day figuring people just wanted to make up their own and Flying Frog seems to be focusing on the bottom line at the moment which is putting out about 4 years of product in a year and a half. 🙂
@Stratagon I would have but after I did that I noticed review game thumbnails winked out for a few hours on the front page. Like Daffy Duck says – that’s a trick I can only do once.
*smoke bomb* Hai there! Salute to the Tip Ninja! (How’s that?)
@Bit – That’s how it is 🙂
Neither of these games are on my radar. Cthulhu die doesn’t look all that interesting. I played Killer Bunnies and did not enjoy it. Anyway, happy gaming!
Although these are two games that would not be on my short list, they are in my collection.
Cthulhu Dice is very similar to Zombie Dice, but I’d have to say Martian Dice gets more play these days than either of those. The added set collection mechanism really elevates MD from more than just a push-your-luck game. However, something can be said for the simplicity of CD and ZD. I think Cthulhu Dice could really benefit from the same expansion love Zombie Dice received.
Killer Bunnies is a game I don’t play anymore, but it was a guilty pleasure when first getting into board games…along with Munchkin. I’m not a hater, but don’t seek it out either. My boys love it to death…so the joys of this game have their place in the Gamer Lexicon. I liken it to my first car. No, I wouldn’t want that car now, but man did it see a lot of great times…a lot.
Game on!
The bright light of destiny shines on me this week!
@Hai
Cthulhu Dice certainly does not have a lot of depth, but I love that it is portable and that my kids will happily play it pretty much anywhere. Sometimes a simple diversion is all you need, and this game fills that void. If you have to keep the kids occupied for five minutes or half an hour, this will do it. I am sure they will outgrow it, and Love Letter or something else quick will fill that gap, but for now I love that it makes them happy and keeps them occupied rather than having to unleash Netflix on the phone and burn data to keep them from destroying the environs.
Killer Bunnies is pretty polarizing. If you don’t like luck based games, this certainly isn’t for you. There is some strategy involved during gameplay, but the winner is not decided by who played best. When I play Killer Bunnies, I don’t play to win. Rather, I enjoy the social interaction and the laughs that come from playing. Occasionally games drag on a little too long, but I cannot remember playing a game of Killer Bunnies in which the participants didn’t have a good time, which is why it is on my favorites shelf. It is a good thing, though, that there are lots of games out there to choose from, because I know this isn’t for everyone. If you really dislike the random winner element, you could always just house rule that the winner has the most carrots, but that takes some of the fun out of it for me.
While some games are all about winning or losing, gaming itself to me is not. It is about having fun. I don’t care if I am winning or losing with these games and just have fun with them for what they are.
For the record, my two favorite games are actually Necromunda and Warhammer Quest, which are both out of print and both are absent from the site (so far!)
@AD
It isn’t a secret around here that I am a Gulo Gulo fanatic. It gets tons of play with the kids. It is a kids game, so a group of sober adults won’t get much out of it, but it is my kids favorite. It fits the same bill as Candy Land without being Candy Land, awarding them for their skill. It is also easier for a child than an adult, letting them win more often without me throwing the game. However, since you can’t find the bloody thing, leaving it off makes perfect sense.
@X-Hawk
Sorry you don’t like them. Can’t win them all 🙂
Thanks!
@Hai What can I say? I’m a font of useless gaming knowledge.
Actually, I have been wracking my brain all week trying to come up with my next tip. Lucky for me, after I discovered today’s new explorables, one finally popped into my twisted mind.
I’m also fortunate to have familiarity with many recent explorable favorites. There are weeks when I just scratch my head and move on.
(Although, I am a bit disappointed that my post didn’t get ninja’d also.)
@Stratagon Not as scary as your rolodex of instant tips for Explorable Favorites as soon as they hit the deck. Masterful! 🙂
Whoa! Scary…
Uh oh… I’ve been compromised…
Cthulhu Dice seems similar to Zombie Dice (which I already own), and Killer Bunnies sounds similar to Munchkin (which I just received and played for the first time last night). Not planning to add these to my wish list for now, since Zombie Dice and Munchkin are both still really new games for me.
Thanks for the new explorables though- I’d never heard of Killer Bunnies and had only heard the name for Cthulhu Dice.
Hai – if I’m delinquent on payment, are you going to issue a Cease and Desist?
Not if I can just sneak into your cubicle and rifle through your coat pockets for spare change.
However – if I catch wind of t-shirts – there will be words!
—Hai
@BitBot Congrats on massacring your way to a bloody good Sacred Shelf Spotlight! 🙂 (Of course, as a live action BGdotter you must share why these make your fave list ;))
{Edit: And your three year-old must be around five now. 🙂 🙂 How cute!}
Ah – Killer Bunnies is a sweet choice. That takes me back to some misspent youth – well twenty-nothing-dom. (Wow! I didn’t realize the legs it has. Although the big 10th Anniversary Deluxe Gold Box should have reminded me I’m not living on halcyon time anymore. 🙁 It is a grand sight to behold and rub against your cheek though.) This saw a good solid three years of constant play for me and is still a great gateway gamey-game-for-non-gamers. Things got a bit funky with the Zodiacs and Ranks – but any game that is shot full of pop culture up to and including Doctor Who, The Prisoner, and especially Red Dwarf is pages in my book. 😉 Strangely enough, I know it is a bit of a bone of contention for some, but I never played with anyone who quibbled about the fact that no matter how well you played, you might not win. The Carrot Reveal was always a time of good natured shouts and curses as we worked through the deck one by one to find out who was Magic Carrot du jour. Apu, Teal’o, and Remmington – you will always be my lucky carrots!
I play Kinder Bunnies with The Nieces but I should be able to step up their game in a year or two.
@Account Thanks for the weekly wiring – onward to Stones Rosetta. (These quests might need to be expanded out-if they aren’t and I still vote for a special badge reward for being chosen as Sacred Shelf Spotlight.)
Oh and P.S. – you owe me a nickel every time you say Skullkles
@X-Hawk – to each their own!
@Bit – I really wanted to include Gulo Gulo, but with it being out of print, I figured we’d be pretty unlikely to finish the exploration on it by week-end. It’s a shame, too – you might be our only chance to explore it, as you’re the only one with it on your favorites shelf!
Can’t always be interesting games in the week’s explorable. These are two games I’ll never bother to investigate more.
Thanks 🙂