Friday 1 December 2017

Fingers on the Pulsar

Friday, and Andrew braved the freezing temperatures to join me at the house while Sally was out babysitting. With the boys already abed we got straight into the meat of the evening - Pulsar 2849.

can't rotate on blogger

This is a space exploration game that calls for Vangelis on the soundtrack. It uses action selection much like Yspahan - dice are rolled, and the dice you take dictate what actions you can do on a given turn. The actions themselves are relatively simple - you can use dice to move your ship around the board discovering planets or setting up gynodynes (:get points), advance your technologies a la Ascending Empires, or set up transmitters that boost you up the score track or give some other canapé-like-advantage.

double six: expensive

But when you take a die, the die you take affects your position on one of two tracks that affect the rather crucial turn order and income - the higher the die you take, the more likely it is you're falling back on one (or both) of the tracks. Low dice aren't useless, but if your strategy involves moving a lot around the board you don't really want to be picking up ones and twos.

The game comes with individual player boards for the advanced game, and maybe we'll use them next time: the rules explanation and game itself were both over in just over an hour! And that included us eating a lot of crisps, as well. However we were both playing with a freewheeling attitude and noted the potential for AP even without the player boards. Certainly a very accessible game though for when you have that Eclipse yearning but don't have three hours to play it in.

Sam - 100 and something
Andrew 90 something

Next up was another new game to Andrew: Tokyo Highway. I've so far lost to Stanley and Matt and I was determined to win this time, but the tactics still elude me, and Andrew collected a debut win when he got his last car down before me. Such a mad-looking confection though, and the only game I know that comes with tweezers.

tarmac

I thought Andrew might not want to take on any more new rules, but he was mad for it so we busted through Fields of Green, a cross between 7 Wonders and Carcassonne. Designed by someone called Vangelis. Like 7 Wonders you take a card each turn; like Carcassonne you add it to an expanding world (a farm, in this case) in front of you. Water feeds crops, crops feed livestock, livestock make money. It's SO REAL.

Except Buildings score points.

water!

I don't imagine will be bumping 7 Wonders from the pantheon any time, but it's a sweet enough game. Despite Andrew outscoring my previous two games v Stan, I managed to dig for victory:

Sam: 52
Andrew: 46

And with our farms happily established, highways built and epic silver die tumbling across deep space... we were done.

4 comments:

  1. I watched Tom Vasel's review of Pulsar 2849 on YouTube, and I was expecting it to be more brain-burny. With only two dice and eight rounds, it's quicker than I thought. I'm sure with more players that'll ramp up, though. And there are many paths to glory, as long as you remember when things score points.

    Tokyo Highway was a nice mix of strategy and dexterity, and Fields of Green was pleasant but unremarkable.

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  2. Yeah I think TV said it's a two hour game. But with more players the play-tie would def increase. I think Ian and Matt would like Pulsar.

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  3. I was initially interested in this game but when I saw a video of it (Not Vasel - Hate the fedora wearing neckbeard!) was put off by the abstractish look of it and the actually playing seemed a bit dull. I'd still try it though as I'd happy to be proven wrong..

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  4. I don’t always agree with him (he loves Dice Masters for a start which I think is extremely tedious) but I like how the Dice Tower can give an accessible overview of a game.

    Pulsar itself I think has potential to for AP but also potential to play really fast - depends on who’s playing.

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