NG.com board game thread

Lagduf

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8man doesn't have shit on this....

New games, new impressions, and 1 reccomendation, as well as some stuff that's coming out on the Horizon. I apologize for my spelling and grammar as I always seem to be writing these up very late at night.

New Games and My Impressions

  • Arkham Horror: The King in Yellow Expansion
  • Arkham Horror: The Curse of the Dark Pharaoh Expansion

    -The King in Yellow and Curse of the Dark Pharaoh are mini expansions to the Arkham Horror game. They basically just features a bunch of new cards so that you can have more adventures. You can play only with the Dark Pharaoh/King in Yellow Cards (remove most cards from the base set basically) so that you essentialy play a specific scenario relating to the mini expansions, or you can just add them to the base set willy nilly so you can go on a multitude of crazy adventures. I picked these up pretty cheap, but i've yet to bite the bullet and get the first full expansion to AH that features a new map board. These two expansions are worth it if you want to expand the base game.

  • Combat Commander: Battle Pack #1 Paratroopers

    - This is an expansion for Combat Commander: Europe. It features 4 new maps and 11 new scenarios that all deal with Paratroopers (mostly American Paras and German, though one features Russian Paratroops). This is a must have for the Combat Commander: Europe Fan.

  • Commands & Colors: Ancients Expansion Pack #1: Greece and the Eastern Kingdoms
  • Commands & Colors: Ancients Expansion Pack #2: Rome and Barbarians
  • Commands & Colors: Ancients Expansion Pack #3: The Roman Civil Wars

    - I picked up all three expansions to Richard Borg's (not to be confused with Richard Berg) Commands and Colors: Ancients game for Christmas with money I recieved. Good stuff here covering a variety of conflicts from The Persian War, the conquest of Alexander, the Wars between the Successors, the wars of Rome vs Barbarians (Caesar and all that) and the Civil Wars between the various factions in Imperial Rome. Well worth the money and the newer scenarios are more interesting and varied especially with regard to terrain and victory conditions. Expansion 1 and 2 are independent of each other so you can have one without owning the other. Expansion 3 requires expansion 2. Expansion 3 also allows you to fight "epic" battles that are twice the width of a normal mapboard for some truly impressive fights. I highly reccomend Expansion 2 and 3, though expansion 1 is also worth it if you are interested in the topic it explores.

  • Federation Commander: Klingon Border
  • Federation Commander: Romulan Border

    STAR TREK. 'nuff said. Seriously though, this ADB's new (as of 2005) Starship Combat game based on their Starfleet Battles product (SFB). Federation Commander is a more streamlined (less complex, easier to learn/teach, and faster playing) than SFB. This is essentially a traditional hex and counter wargame, but each ship counter has a corresponding card that shows all the ships weapons, shields, appropriate systems, etc. Sounds to complex already? Well it's pretty easy actually. The ship data card is laminated card stock so you can write on it with the included dry erase marker to show where you have taken damage, what weapons have been used, etc. It's all pretty cool stuff. Basically the gist of the game is that you have ships battle it out. Thats all, though there are some scenarios included where victory is determined by things other than combat.

    There are two "base" games. Klingon Border and Romulan Border. Each one has all you need to start playing. Klingon Border features Federation and Klingon Conflicts, while Romulan Border features Federation vs Romulan. Both border sets also feature some other minor races (mostly seen in the Star Trek animated series) such as the Tholians, Lyrans, Hydrans, etc.

    The game is OG Trek, but set in ADB's alternate Star Fleet Universe due to licensing reasons.

    I ordered Klingon Border and was so enamored with the system that I had to get Romulan Border as well. I wanted a Romulan War Eagle damnit.

    The game can be played with miniatures as well, with free form (not grid based movement ala Warhammer/40k) if you are in to that.

  • Rails of Europe

    -This is the first expansion for Railroad Tycoon, called Rails of Europe. It is basically just a new map of Europe, with some new cards. The original RRT map is mostly set in Eastern United States. Due to licensing reasons this game is an official expansion to RRT, but the developers no longer had the rights to use the "Railroad Tycoon" IP. So no where on the product is Railroad Tycoon listed, instead they just state it is an expansion for "Eagle Games Popular Railroad Game." Lolz. I'm not sure why they even used the RRT ip in the first place, since it really has nothing to do with the computer game aside from trains, and RRT is mostly based on an earlier game called Age of Steam.

    Anyway, this was a no brainer purchase for me since RRT is my favorite game and this map supports fewer player, while the original is better with more players.

  • Sleuth

    - You need this game. Do you like the deduction element of Clue? Do you like logic puzzles like Sudoku? Then you will like Sid Sackson's Sleuth. This is a game of pure deduction, where you try to figure out what "Gem" was stolen. It's essentially Clue, except you don't move stupid figures around on a board. Instead each player knows a certain few gems that weren't stolen and through interrogating other players (you can only ask certain questions, based on interrogation cards you hold in your hand) you try to determine which gem is missing.

    This really is an awesome game. It features language independent components, and while the score sheets are in english, the rulebook does come in 7 different languages and has photocopyable score sheets in the other language.

    The price is right too!

    HIGHLY RECCOMENDED.


    Wits and Wagers

    - In my ongoing effort to find more accessible games (games to play with non gamers) I stumbled up on this title. This is basically a trivia game like Trivial Pursuit and it's ilk, except you don't actually need to know the correct answer. The questions are presented such that all the answers will be numerical values. Each team secretly writes down their answer and then all answers are revealed at the same time. Answer are arranged from lowest to highest. Each team then gets to BET on what answer they think is correct, or what answer is closest to the correct answer. You don't have to bet on your own answer either. The different bets have different odds, generally the higher or the lower ones have better payouts.

    Thats about it. Each game features 7 questions, with the final question allowing you to make insane bets ala final jeopardy. Team with the most points at the end wins. I think there is something like 700 questions, plus questions expansions are in the works.

Games I have pre-ordered:

  • Descent: The Road to Legend

    - This is the "Campaign" expansion to the boardgame Descent: Journeys in the Dark, that I wrote about some pages back. Essentially this expansion turns Descent in to a light tabletop RPG (omgz D&D lololololz). There are three campaigns included. You move your party on an overland map, resolve encounters (based on a deck of cards) and go to dungeons, towns, and presumably do other RPG like stuff all with some ultimate goal in mind. Not everything is known about the game yet, as it hasn't arrived yet (it's on the boat from China though...the anticipation is killing me). This expansion will feature a few fixed dungeons, but most of the dungeons you go to are randomly made (again, from a deck of cards). The game also features encounters in outside areas as well. You still play the game as heroes vs the overlord, and your characters can level up and stuff (oh how wonderfully nerdy). Supposedly the game is designed so that you can just play 1 dungeon or two in an afternoon, then put everything up and play again next week (complete with some book keeping so you know where you are at, what items you have, etc....). This is my most anticipated board game of the year, and probably my most anticipated board game ever. My Descent Group is dying to play this. Road to Legend only requires ownership of the base Descent game, you do not need the two expansions, though the inclusion of the stuff they provide will be supported in RtL.

    More info:

    http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/descent_designnotes3.html
    http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/descent_preview1.html
    http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/descent_va41.html


    Feel free to ridicule me over this.
  • Agricola

    -This boardame is as overhyped as FFVII, Fable, and every other overhyped video game you can think of combined in to one. The German edition was originally released at the Essen Fair last year and the English version should be out early this summer.

    This is a boardgame about farming. :kekeke: - Yeah I know, stupid theme...but then again who ever would have thought Harvest Moon would have been fun? This is euro/german/family styled board game where each player is competing to have the best, most balanced farm at the end of the game. It actually is pretty neat because you can do a bunch of different jobs and adopt different strategies, etc.

    Like I said, overhyped, and overpraised, but I liked what I read in all the reviews and I currently don't have any board games like this.

Games to be on the look out for this year

Hasbro, the #1 toy and game maker, has stepped up and finally decided to stop being bitches and release some of the games they hold the rights to but haven't done proper editions of in far to long (seriously, the stuff Hasbro has the rights to is golden...). So this year we are getting new editions of:


I've played Acquire and I really liked it, but the last edition which came out in 1999 routinely sells for over $100 and the only edition prior to that worth owning is from...1976. Acquire is another game from the genius Sid Sackson. It's essentially a game about the stock market, sort of. It's best with more players as each tries to have stock in the largest chain of hotels. It's deceptively simple to learn, but require some good strategy and tactical placement of hotel tiles. The rules for the 3M 1976 edition were printed on the inside of the box lid, so this is hardly a complicated affair. Expect to see this on store shelves (walmart/target) later this year.

Diplomacy is another classic, dating back to 1959. And I think it is a game everyone should know, or at least heard of. The game is for 7 players with each player taking on the role of one of the belligerents in the first world war. Basically the bulk game consists of each of the 7 countries negotiating with each other for a preset amount of time each game turn. At the end of negotiations, each player writes down their moves secretly, then all moves are revealed and are resolved simultaneously. So, who do you want to ally with? Who do you want to stab in the back, etc? It is a game of negotiation, a classic that has withstood the test of time, and well just a badass game that has had many variations over the years. This should be on store shelves later this year as well.
 
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Lagduf

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Kernow will absolutely love this

Fuck, I almost forgot - there is one game i'm giddy about besides Descent: Road to Legend that is currently in the mail:

SILENT WAR

What is this game you ask? Why...none other than a SOLITAIRE (yeah, 1 player sucker) simulation of the American submarine war against Imperial Japan from 1941 to 1945. Compass Games FINALLY reprinted this early this year. I've been dying to get a copy of this for well over a year. I found out about the game in Fall/Winter of '06 when the game was starting to become harder and harder to get. I won it on eBay in Oct of '06, but the seller never shipped and after I resolved that mess the price of the game skyrocketed and all retailers listed the game as Out of Print :crying:

I can't wait to play the full campaign. Thats right, from 1941 to 1945. Each turn in the game represents 1 week of the actual war...so as you're probably guessing the full campaign will take a long, long time to play (over 100 hours). The game is at an abstracted Strategic/operational level.

The game does feature smaller campaigns, and a slew of others shorter scenarios (where you send specific subs on patrol) that can be played in an evening or under two hours. The campaign is not for the feint of heart.

This is actually not to complex either (relatively speaking of course), with only 24 pages of rules - 4 pages of which are just some charts, design notes, and optional rules. The game is pretty well acclaimed, winning a number of prestigous board game awards.

Did I mention their is a counter (playing piece) for every American Submarine that saw service in the Pacific during WW2?

And thus I have entered the ultimate realm of nerdom and boredom.

For more info:

http://www.compassgames.com/silent_war.htm
 

Gameoz

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Great thread, glad to see it updated.

I use to play Acquire all of the time, I had no idea it had been hard to find. I need to pick up a new board game, so I will look into some of your suggestions.

Over the Christmas holiday, we played Risk (six players) and I had forgot what a long game it was. We ended up playing for a 2-3 hours per night, over three nights and still had three people left. I felt sorry for the people that got knocked out on the first night.
 

Lashujin

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That Acquire news has me really pumped, I used to play the 3M bookshelf version all the time and love it! I can't wait.
 

Buro Destruct

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How in the shit do you have time for all these games?
 

Lastblade

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I haven't bought a boardgame in ages, but picked up Arkadia 2 weeks ago from B&N sale. It seems like a good game to play with wife and kid (when she grows up).
 

Lagduf

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Buro Destruct said:
How in the shit do you have time for all these games?

Honestly, I don't.

My boardgames, for better or worse, are just like any other "collection" out there. Most of the games were bought with good intentions to play, but aside from a few titles, most sit and languish.

I could probably cull my collection...but well...you know how that is. Took a few years of debate before I sold off all my video game stuff.

And If i can get in ojne good game a month of a title like Railroad Tycoon, Commands and Colors, Arkham Horror, Sleuth, or Fury of Dracula then i'm satisfied.

And on top of this is the fact that most good boardgames have designs that will stand the test of time. Their is a certain longevity that board games can have that I find a lot of video games, aside from the truly timeless classics, don't have.

I honestly need to join a local gaming group, as nerdy as that sounds.

I've stopped "collecting" video games and I mostly only play next gen stuff these days.

In the summer my group runs a Descent session pretty regularly (weekly) as well.

To each their own, eh?

I can't wait to play the shit out of Silent War though. 1 player ftmfw.
 

Lagduf

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Lashujin said:
Have you played 1960 yet? I've been seriously tempted to pull the trigger on that one.

No, and I still haven't played Twilight Struggle.

I honestly can't bring myself to play a boardgame where I would be Nixon.

I'd rather play as Nazi Germany than Nixon.

:tickled:
 

Buro Destruct

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I recently bought Zombies!!! after randomly walking into the game (board and otherwise) store at the mall.

Like Duf has mentioned in this thread, its definitely not the most in-depth game ever made; its basically a lot of dice rolling and funny little cards. However, its definitely got its "heart in the right" place by being an unabashed homage to all the great zombie (and monster) movies, and from the looks of it, the expansions that are available seem to be enjoyable as separate games, or are able to be worked into the base set. I'm very interested in the blank cards expansion that allows you to make your own cards. Its also got a lot of room for you to make up new rules or new scenarios to play by.

Oh and most importantly, my girlfriend loves it.
:cool:
 

Lagduf

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Bump...from the gwaaave!!

Buro Destruct said:
I recently bought Zombies!!! after randomly walking into the game (board and otherwise) store at the mall.

Like Duf has mentioned in this thread, its definitely not the most in-depth game ever made; its basically a lot of dice rolling and funny little cards. However, its definitely got its "heart in the right" place by being an unabashed homage to all the great zombie (and monster) movies, and from the looks of it, the expansions that are available seem to be enjoyable as separate games, or are able to be worked into the base set. I'm very interested in the blank cards expansion that allows you to make your own cards. Its also got a lot of room for you to make up new rules or new scenarios to play by.

Oh and most importantly, my girlfriend loves it.
:cool:

Hey - grab a beer, play Zombies, let the good times roll.

Elitists decry it because, yeah, from a mechanical standpoint it's broken, with the winner mostly being decided rather arbitrarily.

But who the fuck cares?

You're shooting and juking zombies and creating a fun and exciting narrative. No one is going to remember who won what games, but they'll remember who got the really sweet kills or maneuvered themselves out of those desperate situations. Playing the game is fun and thats what is important.

I haven't got to play any of the expansions, but they look cool. I think there is even a Mall one? And there are some ones that heavily take stuff from Army of Darkness...good stuff there.
 

Lagduf

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Okay kiddies, here is the lowdown.

I've played several games of Federation Commander: Romulan Border and Klingon Border.

This is a very, very, excellent game series - much like what i'd read about and expected from my readthrough of the rules/reading about the game online.

There are scenarios you can play where you get certain ships and need to accomplish certain objectives...but at its heart this is a skirmish type game that is no different from something like Axis and Allies: Miniatures or Warhammer Fantasy/40K. Each ship has a point value, so pick a point total each side agrees on and build you're fleet, then start fighting, last man standing wins.

Because the game models the third dimension really abstractly (almost not at all) the game plays more like a naval game, except you have shields, phasers, photon torpedoes, transporters, tractors beams, suicide shuttles, drones, plasma cannons, cloaking, etc.

In one game I even did an emergency evacuation of my crew to another ship and had the now vacated ship self destruct so my Romulan opponent wouldn't capture it. Now that makes for some damned good narrative.

I also started the full campaign game of Silent War which is estimated at about 120 hours. I played about three months in to the game, but I lost. As the US you have to sink a certain amount of tonnage of ships by a certain date (modeled on historical data). I was 4,000 tons short - but the initial part of the campaign is really tough, then it basically becomes a turkey shoot. A lot of players have "won" the game mid 1944. Really, really excellent game. I've got dedicated table for this...and i have a restarted campaign set up and ready to go...just need to take the plunge...

If you'd like you can read about my first campaign here, as I chronicled it game week to game week:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/297890

And now the reason why I bumped this thread:

Descent: The Road to Legend

Remember that dungeon crawl game, Descent a few pages back? Well they (Fantasy Flight Games) released a true Campaign Expansion for the game. Now the game is more akin to a light or pseudo-rpg.

Now the heroes can increase their stats, increase their attack dice, "train" in what skills they want, get party upgrades, etc.

The Overlord (badguy) also gets some neat stuff too - he gets some new minions and is trying to enact a plot. He gets an avatar, which is like a hero character used in the final battle between the Heros and and Overlord.

At it's core it's still a dungeon crawl, but instead of really large multi-area dungeons you delve into a series of smaller dungeons. The smaller dungeons consists of three levels. You randomly draw the levels from a deck of dungeon levels, so theoretically you should never play the exact same overall dungeon twice, though you'll mostly likely play one of the levels more than once.

There is an overworld map, outdoor encounters, and really just a bunch of other cool stuff in this expansion.

We started a campaign, i'm the overlord and my two friends are the Hero players. I'm really impressed with what FFG did with this expansion, especially since it appears to be extremely balanced.
 
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Lagduf

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Also, the 50th Anniversary Edition of DIPLOMACY is out, but i've yet to see it at uh Wal-Mart. I'm not sure if its at Target (it's not on their website). It has an MSRP of $30 IIRC, but can be had for less at every online game retailer. I'd check local game/comic stores too.

Acquire will be out next, I think in June. I'm really looking forward to that, because Sid Sackson is a genius.

Sorry for the triple posts, but I was trying to eliminate one Merc-sized epic post.
 

Lagduf

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A NEW LOW

1337gamesgu1.gif


Time for bed now.
 

Kiken

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Almost every week, a group of us meet up to play boardgames for an evening. The ones that see regular rotation are:

Puerto Rico
Power Grid
Race for the Galaxy
Ra
Tikal
Blokus
 

Lagduf

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Kiken said:
Almost every week, a group of us meet up to play boardgames for an evening. The ones that see regular rotation are:

Puerto Rico
Power Grid
Race for the Galaxy
Ra
Tikal
Blokus

Sweet.

Haven't played any of those (familiar with them all, however), but I'd like to play Powergrid and Blokus.
 

Gameoz

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Lagduf said:
Sweet.

Haven't played any of those (familiar with them all, however), but I'd like to play Powergrid and Blokus.


I would like to try out Blokus, I have heard good things about it.

Keep the impressions coming, I love reading about the board games you are playing, since I will never have time for any of them.
 

Lagduf

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Gameoz said:
I would like to try out Blokus, I have heard good things about it.

Keep the impressions coming, I love reading about the board games you are playing, since I will never have time for any of them.

You could pick up Travel Blokus, which is a 2 player version of Blokus.
 

Lagduf

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Okay, got some new games, all abstract strategies:
  • Travel Blokus - Picked this up over in STL. Figured it'd be cool to play on the ride back and i'd been wanting to try Blokus for some time. It was cheap, and it's the faster 2 player version of Blokus. Anyway, This game is really fun and cool. It's an abstract strategy game like Chess, Go, Checkers, etc. You have a bunch of awesome neon colored tetris like pieces. So does your opponent. Your goal is to get as many of your pieces on the board as you can. Thats it. There are rules on placing your pieces - you can't have any of your pieces touch another of your pieces except by the corners. The player who has the least number of pieces (actually, who has the least number of individual blocks comprising there pieces) wins the game. Pretty simple. A surprising amount of strategy and placing your pieces can be surprisingly tactical. After a few plays I was able to recognize how some pieces could best be used and how some were better for offense and defense, so to speak.

    My roomate and my friend both enjoyed the game. This is a game you can get other people to play. They are less than enthused about playing any of my more thematic games.

    This travel version is for 2 players and plays very quickly. Less than 20 minutes and once you know what you're doing probably 10-15 minutes unless you are prone to Analysis Paralysis and just stare at the board...

    Anyway, this is highly reccomended.

  • Blokus - Being happy with Travel Blokus I went and bought the full verison since it was available locally. This version supports 2-4 players. I've only played it 3 player, but that was pretty cool since each human player takes turns playing as the 4th color.

    Highly reccomended. The original has won a bunch of awards from educational groups, etc.

  • Othello - Anyone not played this? It's another abstract strategy game. My friend had it in his basement. He said I could have it. I gladly took it. This is a fun, easy easy to teach "life time to master" abstract strategy game.
 
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Lagduf

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Almost forgot:

  • Diplomacy - Well I finally got the new edition of Diplomacy by Avalon Hill/Wizards of the Coast (Hasbro). Fuck the haters people. This edition of the game is nice and the price is right, at $29.99 USD. Anyway this is classic, pretty much bought it for that reason. Haven't got a chance to play yet, but I haven't really gone out of my way to organize a session. I'd love to go at it with a full 7 and I wont accept anything less than 5 players. One day...

  • Warhammer 40,000 - Been fooling around with this for about 2 months now. It just gives me something to do and I find a strange pleasure in building and painting stupid plastic army men. I'm terribly ashamed of the fact i'm in to this, mostly because it's nerdy as fuck and GROSSLY expensive. We currently have a 40K/Tabletop thread going that I/we all bump occasionally. I play Orks and will be most likely starting a Space Marine army once the new Starter Set comes out. I need to get pics of my army up soon. I'm currently looking forward to 40K 5th Edition, due out July 11. I like the rumours I've heard, especially putting an emphasis on TROOPS which should always be the core of an army anyway...

Unfortunately it doesn't seem that Wal-Mart is carrying the Avalon Hill reprint series, which is a shame. Not sure if Target is, but i'd have to drive about 30min to find out...which i'm not about to do just to satisfy a curiousity. It is available online and your local game store(s) should have it.

Games on PRE-ORDER:

  • Acquire - I Pre-ordered this last week, but it's due out tommorrow. I should get it from my FLGS (Favorite/Friendly Local Gaming Store) next week. Acquire is an awesome classic by Sid Sackson, who is an MF'n pimp. Anyway, this is part of the series of the Diplomacy reprint, so the MSRP is again $29.99. This is an all cardboard edition. I wish the board was plastic, or at least had ridges so the hotel tiles wouldn't slide around...but whatever. It's a reprint of ACQUIRE. I'm stoked, especially since the 1999 edition is now a collectors item and the last edition before that were owning was printed far too long ago...
 

lithy

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Has Statego ever been talked about in this thread?

No offense to Risk which is awesome, but for the time investment, Stratego is vastly superior.
 

qube

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Has Statego ever been talked about in this thread?

No offense to Risk which is awesome, but for the time investment, Stratego is vastly superior.

Agreed. I love Risk to no end, but it doesn't have the accessibility of Stratego.

Both exceptional games though.

I'd love to meet up with the 'Duf for some boardgaming. I'm sure he could show me some sweet-ass games I've never heard of :cool:
 
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